Posted on 01/30/2005 1:37:13 PM PST by No phonys allowed
SEATTLE -- Yvonne Roberts used to take comfort in knowing the killer of her 3-year-old son was behind bars. That was before two recent state Supreme Court decisions let him out this month, four decades early.
And that man, David Crane, isn't alone. Noreen Erlandson served 12 years instead of 40 for killing her 2-year-old daughter, and Keith Whitling was supposed to serve another 15 for the death of his 6-week-old girl in 1992. In all, at least two dozen child killers could end up walking after the court found that they were improperly convicted.
"I'll never accept it," said Roberts, as she sobbed in a recent interview. "These justices need to go. They didn't just create a loophole; they opened the cell door to these killers."
The court's rulings concerned the state's law on felony murder, defined as a homicide that occurs -- even by accident -- during or "in furtherance of" another felony, such as robbery. For decades, prosecutors charged defendants with second-degree felony murder if an assault led to someone's death.
In 2003, the court decided that the law didn't allow for felony murder charges in cases of assault. In a 5-4 ruling, the majority reasoned that in such cases, the assault and the homicide are the same act: The homicide does not occur "in furtherance of" assault -- it is the assault.
Last fall, it said it was applying the decision retroactively. The result was to invalidate felony murder convictions based on assaults from 1976 to 2003, when the Legislature changed the law to explicitly allow second-degree murder charges in fatal assault cases.
About 280 prisoners may be entitled to have their convictions vacated, as well as an unknown number of people who already served their time. Prosecutors face the choice of filing new charges of manslaughter, which carries a lesser penalty; finding another felony on which to base a felony murder charge; or trying to prove that the killing was intentional -- a daunting task years after the fact. In cases where children were impulsively shaken or beaten to death, intent is especially difficult to prove.
"When a court overturns 30 years of precedent to set hundreds of murderers free, that's a terrible ruling," said Snohomish County Deputy Prosecutor Seth Fine. "The court doesn't seem to recognize the impact this is having on victims' family members -- how wrenching it is to have these cases reopened years or decades after they were closed."
Crane's murder conviction for killing 3-year-old Steven Collins in 1986 was vacated earlier this month, and prosecutors could only file manslaughter charges. Though Crane has long insisted on his innocence, he pleaded guilty to the lesser charge, was sentenced to 20 years -- not exactly a slap on the wrist, his lawyer noted -- and walked free, with credit for good behavior. Crane declined to be interviewed for this story.
"Sex offenders have to register where they're at," said Roberts, a 45-year-old waitress from Clinton. "David Crane doesn't. How many more children is he going to have access to? It's spitting on the memory of my son."
Defense attorneys argued that in many cases, convicting someone of murder when the intent to kill wasn't proved resulted in unfairly long sentences. Keith Whitling, of Puyallup, was 21 and admittedly unprepared for the stresses of parenthood when he shook his crying baby to death in 1992. Last month his murder conviction was vacated, he pleaded guilty to manslaughter, and he was released 15 years ahead of schedule.
In a phone interview from central California, where he was helping his sister and her husband refurbish their church, Whitling said he doesn't feel worthy of his second chance at life, but is honored to have it.
"For the victims' families having to rehash this, it's awful. I don't have any answers for them. I'm sorry for their loss," Whitling said. "I talked to my own family, and if they wouldn't have been supportive, I don't know if I would have pursued my own release in the manner I did.
"There's not a day I don't wake up feeling that, that I caused the loss of my daughter. I would have a beautiful 13-year-old today, but I don't."
Ninety-nine of the cases -- 10 involving child killers -- are in King County, where the prosecutor's office has set up a team of 10 lawyers to deal with them.
"I think it's crazy and it's very unfortunate," said Senior Deputy Prosecutor Melinda Young, who's heading the team. "I've never heard of creating a unit to deal with a court decision."
The team will retry as many cases as it can, Young said. On Tuesday, her office refiled a murder charge against Jason Twyman, who was supposed to spend 25 years in prison for the beating death of Joey Levick in 1994. The office believes it can prove Twyman and another man intended to kill Levick when they beat him and left him in a ditch.
Some counties are hoping to keep child killers behind bars by refiling second-degree felony murder charges against them. Instead of the charges being based on the felony of assault, they will be based on criminal mistreatment.
Spokane County has already had one defendant go back to prison after pleading guilty to a charge refiled that way, and Clark County has tried the same approach -- which requires prosecutors to show that the defendant withheld the child's necessities of life.
In cases where prosecutors can show a pattern of abuse, they could also seek a conviction of homicide by abuse.
This is an un-fricken-real ping...
What the hell are these judges thinking? Here's another vote for the star chamber to take care of business.
Now that's logic for you. Time to throw the judges out of office.
What the f*** ?? What... what
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