John Davis was found guilty nearly 22 years after Barbara Ellis Martz was raped and stabbed to death in her Potrero Hill home.
Posted on 08/28/2007 7:42:29 AM PDT by SmithL
Nearly 22 years after a woman was raped and stabbed to death in her Potrero Hill home, a San Francisco man who lived near the victim was convicted Monday of first-degree murder.
The only evidence against John Davis was the DNA left behind during the rape of Barbara Martz, 28. But that was enough for the jury of seven women and five men to convict Davis, 40, of murder in the commission of rape and burglary in connection with the slaying Dec. 4, 1985, in Martz's home on 25th Street. The panel deliberated more than four days before coming back with its verdict.
Because the jury found Davis guilty of the special circumstance of rape during commission of a murder, he will be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty, because of District Attorney Kamala Harris' opposition to capital punishment.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
John Davis was found guilty nearly 22 years after Barbara Ellis Martz was raped and stabbed to death in her Potrero Hill home.
So, a district attorney’s PERSONAL views regarding the death penalty can prevent the death penalty, when the death penalty is not forbidden by law?
Another San Francisco value.
Yes, it’s called “prosecutorial discretion.”
The check on this is that the DA is (generally) an elected official, and if the local people don’t like his or her stance, they elect a different one.
Yes because the DA is an elected local official and supposedly reflects the values of the local voters - which may or may not coincide with the values of the state as a whole. Just because state law allows the death penalty doesn't mean prosecutors have to seek it. That is a decision left entirely to them & they can use whatever reasoning they like to make the decision. They have to answer for it at election time.
This man is now forty and committed this crime when he was ... eighteen? And he’s been clean since? Hard to believe.
Davis was already doing time for a string of crimes, including a 1993 robbery in San Francisco, when his DNA turned up in 2002 in a "cold hit" for the killing of Martz.
Luckily she didn’t have a gun, someone could have been hurt.
Damn straight.
And in SF, any DA who asks for the death penalty won't even make it to the next election.
terrible crime, but i will grant you this...that is an excellent, spot on comment....
Liberals do such a wonderful job protecting society.
Corrrect, and the nature of federalist democracy.
The way one part of the country dispenses justice is that part of the country’s business.
Now if we can only get SF from butting into the REST of the country’s business. . . . .
And the rest of the world's business. Like Berkeley, Ann Arbor, Boulder, Austin and similar places, SF considers itself an autonomous entity, not subject to state and federal law, illegally performing homosexual "marriages," illegally shielding alien nationals, illegally continuing racially based hiring practices and so on. Their city councils also pass a ponderous number of foreign policy "resolutions," as though they were nations in their own right.
and another wrongly convicted and picked upon young black male...
I am sure he has a whole bunch of attacks on his “resume”
The only ones the libs are interested in protecting are unionists, collectivists, felons, miscreants, liars and practitioners of all sorts of perverse behavior.
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