Free Republic

5-year term for investigator in forgery case - "I believe that the death penalty is illegal...It is barbaric and an atrocity...Any acts I committed are out of a firm belief against the state killing these people." Mark Martin, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau Tuesday, May 1, 2007 (05-01) 04:00 PDT Sacramento -- A former criminal defense investigator accused of forging statements from jurors, witnesses and others in death penalty cases pleaded guilty to four charges Monday and accepted a five-year prison sentence. Kathleen Culhane, 40, said outside a Sacramento courtroom that she filed incorrect documents on behalf of five condemned inmates because...

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...

SAN FRANCISCO - An investigator who allegedly fabricated juror statements to win clemency for a death row inmate earlier this year is now suspected of submitting forged documents in at least three other cases involving condemned prisoners, the California Attorney General's Office said Friday. Agents with the state Department of Justice searched Kathleen Culhane's San Francisco apartment on Thursday seeking evidence that could be used to charge her with felony perjury, forgery and submitting false documents, according to court records. An affidavit filed in support of the search warrant said officials doubt the authenticity of at least 23 declarations Culhane...

San Francisco -- Former Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr and a Los Angeles attorney said Monday they would withdraw unreliable affidavits from jurors submitted to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as part of a bid to spare a murderer and rapist from execution. The documents supporting clemency for Michael Morales purportedly made by six trial jurors were denounced by prosecutors Friday as forgeries, but the defense team stood by them until Monday when they said they would withdraw five of the six. In a letter to Attorney General Bill Lockyer, attorney David Senior said he and Starr were "withdrawing any and all...

San Francisco -- Lawyers for a death row inmate, including former Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr, sent fake letters from jurors asking California's governor to spare the man's life, prosecutors said Friday. The jurors denied they thought Michael Morales deserved clemency because some of the testimony at his trial may have been fabricated, said Nathan Barankin, spokesman for Attorney General Bill Lockyer. "We showed each person the declaration on their behalf and they all said they didn't say that," Barankin said. San Joaquin County prosecutor Charles Schultz also said the letters sent to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last week were "untrue"...