Posted on 04/30/2007 9:10:18 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
A private investigator who worked to get condemned inmates off death row pleaded guilty Monday to forging documents to support their appeals.
Kathleen Culhane, 40, admitted that she forged documents to try to stop the executions of four condemned inmates since 2002, including Michael Morales, who was sentenced to death for the 1981 rape and murder of a Central Valley teenager.
The plea agreement by the San Francisco-based investigator was entered in Sacramento County Superior Court and settles a case that the state attorney general called the largest fraud ever against the state's criminal justice system.
"This case is not about the death penalty; it's about playing by the rules," senior assistant attorney general Michael Farrell told reporters after Culhane entered her plea. "She subverted the entire system."
In February, the attorney general's office charged Culhane with 45 felony counts of forgery, filing false documents and perjury. In her plea agreement, she admitted to two counts of forgery and single counts of perjury and filing false documents.
The deal asks Judge Gary Ransom to sentence her to a five-year prison term. She could have faced nearly 19 years in prison if convicted of all 45 counts.
Culhane's attorney, Stuart Hanlon, said the potential sentence was a "very stiff consequence" but said she is likely to serve no more than two years and eight months in prison, in part because she has no previous criminal record.
Culhane, who remains free on $50,000 bail, addressed reporters after the brief court proceeding and spoke calmly but defiantly.
"I believe the death penalty is illegal. It's barbaric and it's an atrocity," she said. "Any acts I committed are done out of a firm belief against the state killing these people."
Hanlon would not allow her to answer questions about the specific charges but said she acted knowingly out of those deep-seated beliefs.
"She's been involved in human rights work since she was 14," he said. "She spent seven years in El Salvador in human rights work, trying to help people. This is a continuation of that work. She got involved in death penalty work because she thinks it's inhuman."
Culhane's actions were discovered last year after Morales petitioned Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for clemency as he was about to be executed.
In that case, Culhane provided signed declarations from jurors that were favorable to Morales. Those statements were turned over to his attorneys and filed with the courts and governor's office.
San Joaquin County prosecutors challenged the documents and produced statements from jurors who swore they had never spoken with Culhane and supported the death sentence for Morales. His execution eventually was stayed over questions related to the state's lethal injection method, an issue that was not related to Culhane.
The ensuing investigation unearthed more forged documents in other death row cases.
The attorney general's office said that between November 2002 and February 2006 Culhane filed at least 23 fraudulent documents designed to aid Morales and three other death row inmates.
She is alleged to have made up statements from real witnesses and jurors and forged their signatures, including six documents related to Morales. In one case, the state alleges she misspelled the first name of a man who sat on Morales' jury as John, rather than Jon.
"She crossed the line from vigorous defense to unethical and illegal conduct, which cannot be tolerated," Attorney General Jerry Brown said in a statement.
Morales, of Stockton, is awaiting execution for the rape and murder of 17-year-old Terri Winchell, whose mother sat in the courtroom Monday as Culhane entered her pleas.
The other three death-row inmates whose cases were affected by Culhane and were part of the plea agreement were: Jose Guerra, who has convicted by a Los Angeles County jury for the 1990 rape and murder of Kathleen Powell; Vicente Figueroa Benavides, convicted by a Kern County jury for the 1991 murder and rape of a 21-month-old child; and Christian Monterroso, convicted by an Orange County jury for the 1991 murders of Tarsem Singh and Ashokkumar Patel and the attempted murder of Allen Canellas.
Each remains on death row with pending appeals.
As part of Monday's plea agreement, prosecutors waived forgery charges related to the case of a fifth death row inmate, Richard Clark. He was convicted of the 1985 murder of Rosie Grover, 15, who was walking home from a bus stop in Ukiah when Clark abducted, raped and stabbed her to death.
Culhane was charged with filing false documents under the names of 11 jurors, two witnesses, two court interpreters and one police officer.
She was working as a staff investigator for the Habeas Corpus Resource Center in San Francisco in the cases of Guerra, Benavides and Monterroso. For the Morales case, she was employed by the inmate's attorneys.
The center has withdrawn all declarations submitted by Culhane, whose sentencing is scheduled for Aug. 16.
Give her two years on Death Row as a concubine for the home boys she so loved.
Well yay her. “The death penalty is inhuman”, but rape and murder are OK according to this dolt.
If you don’t like the death penalty you go through the proper channels to get it changed. If that fails and the state disagrees with you then GTFO.
Twisted sick liberalism rears its perverted head again -—
Liberals lie as a matter of course.
Liberals lie as a matter of course.
:::
Yes, they must. The TRUTH about the liberal agenda would shake even the most intellectually handicapped kool-aid drinker amongst them .. and would put the socialists out of business.
They MUST lie, and they do.
I think rape and murder are inhuman......why doesn’t this idiot stop that...
Tell me something.... If you or I forged 45 documents directly to the court in favor of ... lets say gun rights or pro life, do you think their would be any way in Hell we could cop a plea down to 2 counts of forgery and on of perjury?
Seriously? what are the odds? The left has a different set of rules they are governed by.
I certainly am glad someone falsifying evidence is being prosecuted and convicted... I still await reading about persons on the prosecution side of the house being prosecuted and convicted of the same thing only with a different intent..
I will never forget hearing of a Detectives dying declaration to the effect that the case against two black Americans convicted of killing a police men in LA was a fraud and they had been convicted on falsified evidence. The two had been given the death penalty which was commuted to life. They spent 10 years in prison before being released..
System need to change... a lot...
W
That this two-legged beast still breathes is a crime. Of course he's still a "victim" in the eyes of the Left.
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