Race, murder roil Chico

SF Gate ^ | Updated 4:34 pm, Sunday, November 3, 2013 | Melody Gutierrez

[Impala64ssa]

For nearly 25 years, Steven Crittenden has been condemned to Death Row at San Quentin State Prison for the gruesome 1987 murder of a prominent Chico couple in their home. Since the day of his arrest, Crittenden has looked for a way to escape, first briefly breaking out of the Butte County Jail prior to his trial, and through endless appeals since he was sent to prison.

Crittenden, 45, is now closer to freedom than ever. And it has nothing to do with whether he killed the affable town doctor and his wife.

A federal judge in Sacramento recently overturned his 1989 conviction based on a technicality in a trial that at the time sparked racial tensions in the overwhelmingly white town some 90 miles north of Sacramento.

The lawyers for Crittenden, a black man from Fairfield, successfully argued that a prosecutor showed racial bias when he dismissed the only black prospective juror.

Prosecutors said they dismissed the prospective juror because it was a death-penalty case and she did not believe in the death penalty.

But San Francisco attorney Mark Goldrosen called the dismissal of the lone black prospective juror in a primarily white town "outrageous," particularly when the woman did not express more reservations about the death penalty than white jurors who were selected.

Crittenden was ordered to be released or retried.

The Butte County District Attorney's Office calls the bias claim "insane."

It was the case of a black man accused of murdering a well-to-do white couple, but in Chico, the dynamics were much more than that.

Idyllic small town

Chico is an idyllic small town, with tree-lined streets, quaint shops and a picturesque university in the middle of it all.

[Impala64ssa]

This case is working it's way up to the ninth jerket whores of schlemiels. The only good that come out of that is it's keep the SOB in prison that much longer, and if this court upholds the overturned conviction the SCOTUS may overrule them. With a little luck Crittendom may suffer an "untimely demise" in the meantime.

[The KG9 Kid]

"ninth jerket whores of schlemiels"

LOL. Okay, I'm stealing that.

[nickcarraway]

Is there a chance he could go free completely? Maybe they should make a deal that he gets life, if appeals are dropped. There is a minimal chance he will ever be executed anyway.

[Impala64ssa]

Please, by all means, actually I stole it from Michael Savage :)

[Sans-Culotte]

And yet the thrust of the article is how racist the whites in Chico are.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

When a conservative is the chairman of the house and senate judiciary committees, they can eliminate a lot of this nonsense by federal judges.

1) Declare states to be “competent authorities” to carry out executions as they see fit, without arguments that such means are cruel and unusual, or that the states are not doing them right. Thus the traditional means of execution are no longer for judicial review: hanging, gas chamber, firing squad, electrocution, and lethal injection are all declared acceptable means of execution, not open for judicial review.

2) Consolidate and move all death penalty appeals to the head of the federal docket, with hearing delays limited to one month each for the defense, the prosecutor, and at the discretion of the judge. The only exception being emergency appeals with evidence that exonerates the condemned, or shows criminal misconduct on the part of the trial judge, prosecutor or defense counsel.

3) If a federal judge determines that significant errors were made by the trial court, in almost all circumstances that finding should be returned to the trial court for reconsideration, not result in overturning the sentence or conviction as such by the federal judge.

[SoldierDad]

Chico is an idyllic small town, with tree-lined streets, quaint shops and a picturesque university in the middle of it all.

My family moved to Chico in 1964, and I currently live there with my family. Chico is NOT an idyllic small town. This year, thus far, there have been well over 60 stabbing incidents in Chico. many involving armed robbery. There has been at least one officer involved shooting, that killed a young woman. We've had a number of drive-by-shootings in town, several involving gang activity. There have been rapes and attempted rapes around CSU, Chico. If memory serves, there have been approximately three alcohol overdose deaths. Chico is NOT the town it was when we first moved there.