Juan Corona, convicted of killing 25 migrant workers in California some four decades ago, was again denied parole Monday.
The California Board of Parole Hearings turned down the seventh parole request of Corona, now 77 and diagnosed with dementia. He is not eligible for another parole hearing for five years, authorities said.
Corona is serving 25 concurrent terms of 25 years to life in Corcoran State Prison. First convicted in 1973, he won a new trial in 1978 and was re-convicted on all charges in 1982.
What at the time was the nation's worst serial murder case had its roots in the early 1950s, authorities said, when Corona moved to Yuba City, in Sutter County, where he worked as a migrant farmer. He soon established himself as a labor contractor.
In 1971, a farmer who had hired Corona to line up workers found what appeared to be a grave-shaped hole between two trees in an orchard. The next day, the farmer returned to the spot and found that the hole had been been filled. He called police, who discovered the body of the first victim, whose throat and head had been hacked and upper body repeatedly stabbed.
Further searching in peach orchards along the Feather River near Marysville, north of Sacramento, soon turned up more bodies. All the victims were migrant farmworkers or transients with some connection to Corona.
The Associated Press reported that Corona told the parole board Monday he had murdered and mutilated the victims because they were trespassing in the orchards.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~From Google News
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Escaped Inmate Hunting for Two People in Maine, Police Say
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
State court tosses gang leader's death sentence
by Paul Elias
SAN FRANCISCO—The California Supreme Court on Monday took the rare step of tossing out the murder convictions and death sentences of a Los Angeles gang leader who authorities believe was the "shot caller" responsible for dozens of murders.
The ruling was the court's first reversal of a direct death penalty appeal this year. The court affirmed the first 24 death penalty appeals it received in 2011, according to court spokeswoman Lynn Holton.
Cleamon "Big Evil" Johnson led the 89 Family Bloods during the 1980s and early 1990s. Authorities allege the 80 members of Johnson's gang were responsible for more than 60 slayings on their turf, which stretched for a quarter of a square mile in the heart of South-Central Los Angeles.
Johnson was convicted in 1997, along with Michael "Fat Rat" Allen, of murdering two rival gang members six years earlier. Prosecutors allege that Johnson ordered Allen to kill the rivals with an Uzi.
The rivals were killed at a car wash before dozens of witnesses, but no one would admit to witnessing the shooting. A local task force with the help of federal officials finally got witnesses to come forward and put Johnson behind bars.
During deliberations, two jurors told the judge they were concerned a third juror had made up his mind before all testimony was heard. After the judge interviewed the entire jury, the juror was removed from the trial for prejudging the case and relying on evidence not presented during the trial.
That juror was replaced with an alternate juror. The new jury found Johnson and Allen guilty of first-degree murder and recommended the death penalty for both. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Charles Horan adopted the jury's recommendation in December 1997.
The replaced juror had reportedly told his colleagues that he didn't believe one of the witnesses who testified that he wasn't at work at the time of the killing because a Hispanic co-worker had punched his time card for him.
"That's a lie. I know Hispanics, they never cheat on timecards, so this witness was at work, end of discussion," the replaced juror was quoted as saying.
A unanimous Supreme Court found that comment didn't amount to relying on outside evidence.
"His positive opinion about the reliability of Hispanics in the workplace did not involve specialized information from an outside source," Justice Carol Corrigan wrote for the court. "It was an application of his life experience."
Corrigan also said the juror appeared to participate in deliberations with an open mind and noted he denied having prejudged that case. The court concluded that the judge presiding over the 1997 murder trial erred in removing the juror.
Allen's conviction and death sentence also were overturned.
Santa Clara University law school professor Gerald Uelmen said the justices had little choice but to reverse once they concluded that the judge improperly removed the juror.
He said the California Supreme Court upholds 92 percent of all the death sentences, usually ruling that any legal mistakes made during the trial were "harmless" errors that didn't affect the outcome.
Uelmen also said that most reversals only overturn the death penalty while keeping the conviction in place. He said it's incredibly rare for the court to overturn the death penalty and underlying conviction.
But Uelmen said that an improper dismissal of a juror is "structural error" that requires automatic reversal.
"While the Court frequently finds errors in capital cases, it usually concludes the errors were harmless, but couldn't go there in this case," Uelmen said.
Every death sentence is automatically appealed to the state's high court. There are 720 inmates on California Death Row.
Los Angeles prosecutors will have to seek a new trial if they want to reinstate those convictions and death penalties. The office said it was reviewing the ruling.
Supervising State Deputy Public Defender Andrew Love, who represented Johnson, told the Los Angeles Times he was thrilled by the ruling but also upset that it took so many years for the state high court to decide the case.
"This case involved truly outrageous conduct by the trial judge, who kicked a juror off the case in the middle of deliberations because it was reported by another juror that he was not persuaded by the prosecution's case," Love told the Times. "Reversal was a foregone conclusion."
Love said Johnson was on death row for five years before getting a lawyer to handle his appeal, and the California Supreme Court waited many more years to decide the case after it had been fully briefed.
"One of the primary reasons these cases take so long is the shortage of competent lawyers willing to handle capital appeals in the California Supreme Court -- and a key reason why is the perception that the court does not undertake a careful, meaningful review of these cases," Love told The Times.
Lynda Gledhill, a spokeswoman for Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris, told the Times her office is considering a possible appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. "We're disappointed but reviewing our options," Gledhill said.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nebraska
Police say Immigration Program Hampers Community PolicingA legislative panel heard from Nebraska law enforcers today on how they're dealing with a controversial federal initiative in which they're roped into helping crack down on illegal immigrants.
The Judiciary Committee held the hearing to see how law enforcement has been impacted by aDepartment of Homeland Security program called Secure Communities, which focuses on deporting dangerous criminals by checking the fingerprints of people arrested to determine their immigration status.
Nationally, more than 1,700 jurisdictions participate in the program, including 12 in Nebraska, according to State Patrol Superintendent David Sankey. Of 28,500 arrestees whose prints were submitted to the FBI, 196 have been deported, Sankey said.
Omaha Deputy Police Chief Todd Schmaderer said Omaha police don't check people's immigration status “except in rare circumstances” because it hampers their ability to work with residents through community policing. Others agreed, saying people become fearful of interacting with police, even if they are a victim of a crime.
“OPD really has no role,” he said, since enforcement of illegal immigration is a federal responsibility.
Occasionally, Omaha police will get involved, such as in the case five years ago of a big drug and gun case that involved seven undocumented people, Schmaderer said.
Kathleen Grant of Together One Community in Omaha said many immigrants live in fear of police and many Latinos reported an officer targeting Latinos on Interstate 80 between Lincoln and Omaha, where he would stop them for “following too closely.” Her own 16-year-old son was stopped and asked “why he was in an upscale neighborhood,” she said. She advised lawmakers to put pressure on Congress to adopt humane immigration reform.
Lincoln Public Safety Director Tom Casady said long before the Secure Communities program began, Lincoln authorities were submitting fingerprint records of people who reported being foreign-born. Casady said of 260 fingerprint submissions to the feds, 13 resulted in deportations.
He said Lincoln police very rarely get involved in illegal immigration – but occasionally will to try to get chronic criminals deported.
Neal Jose Wilkinson, an associate pastor in Omaha, said a 23-year-old illegal immigrant who had never been in trouble with the law was deported after police came to his house to ask about an illegally parked car. He was jailed while his wife gave birth to a son who later died. “Jose” found a coyote and returned to the U.S., where he is now “living in the shadows,” Wilkinson said.
“This is why we don't want law enforcement involved with immigration,” he said.
But Dimitri Krynsky said people who are breaking the law should distrust law enforcement – he said it's a bad situation if they are “comfortable and fear nothing.”
Omaid Zabih, an attorney with Nebraska Appleseed, said one study showed the Secure Communities program has led to the mass deportation of people who violate traffic laws and harms the relationship between police and immigrants.
Carolina Quezada of the Latino Center of the Midlands said she's currently helping a Latino couple who was jailed for 30 days after a domestic dispute. During their incarceration, they were told they would be allowed to speak to lawyers, who turned out to be immigration officials.
The Rev. Chuck Bentjen of Interchurch Ministries of Nebraska said the 90 percent of Nebraskans who claim to be people of faith, mostly Christian, should remember the Christian ideal of loving your neighbors. He said people spend a lot of time talking about how to keep people out of the U.S., rather than how to help people legally immigrate, which he said is nearly impossible for people from south of the border.
The Rev. Howard Dotson of Equality Nebraska said the mere holding of the Judiciary Committee hearing would harm community policing efforts, as “people that live in the shadows” retreat farther.
Illegal immigration is unlikely to be a big issue in the upcoming legislative session, as FremontSen. Charlie Janssen has backed off on a bill he introduced last session that is patterned after a controversial Arizona law. Sen. Brad Ashford, chairman of the committee, said despite all the talk about getting tough on illegal immigration, the only people who can really do anything about it (Congress) never do so. There's really not much the state can do, other than “dance around it,” he said.
But people still run – and win – on a platform of reform, he noted.
“They wouldn't have a wedge issue to get elected on,” without the issue, said Shirley Mora James, president of the Nebraska Hispanic Bar Association.
