San Bernardino County Juries ‘Death Prone’? Fight Rages

SAN BERNARDINO —  Can a defendant in a capital case get a fair trial in San Bernardino County?

Deputy Public Defender Alan E. Spears, 37, doesn’t think so, and he has filed an unusual and highly controversial motion challenging allegedly “death-prone” juries here.

In the process, he has managed to stir up a hornet’s nest by suggesting a “cow town” mentality was at work or at least partly responsible.

Spears, whose reputation for novel legal strategies sticks to him like the tattoo of Merlin the Magician on his chest, filed the motion on behalf of Danny Floyd Williamson, 37, an ex-convict accused of murdering a man at a Big Bear Lake delicatessen on July 26, 1985.

‘Dubious Distinction’

The motion asks that Williamson’s coming trial be halted for a statewide study to determine why “San Bernardino has the dubious distinction of having the highest percentage of death verdicts of any county in California.”

Spears based his contention on state Department of Corrections statistics showing that of the 39 murder cases filed in the county between August 11, 1977, and December, 1984, 14--or 36%--have resulted in death verdicts. That is the highest percentage in all of California’s 58 counties.

“This whopping 36% stands in stark contrast to the percentages of the densely populated counties of Orange and Los Angeles,” according to the motion, “where the percentages are approximately 12.8% and 5.4% respectively.”

With legal experts to supply “statistical, psychological and sociological evidence,” Spears will argue the issue in San Bernardino Superior Court today, despite Judge Donald Turner’s expressed reluctance to allow such testimony, Spears said.

One expert lined up for the hearing is Edward Bronson, a professor at California State University, Chico, and a specialist in “death-qualified” juries.

“If you are facing a situation where a defendant in one county is more likely to get a death penalty than anywhere else in the state, then there is an obligation to find out what’s going on,” Bronson said in an interview.

Linda Meza, a jury consultant hired by Spears to accumulate statistical evidence in the Williamson case, points out that there may be a variety of factors that need to be explained.

For instance, she notes that the county registered the largest percentage of votes in favor of the death penalty in 1977. It also had the highest percentage of death verdicts rendered in cases reaching the penalty phase of trial between 1977 and 1983, with 78%. In contrast, Los Angeles County had 45% during the same period.

“Given the overwhelming voter support that this county has for the death penalty and its demonstrated greater frequency of imposing it,” Meza said, the court should “scrutinize why these facts exist.”

County prosecutors defend Spears’ right to raise the issue in court. On the other hand, they say he is grasping at straws to protect his client.

Raymond Haight, prosecutor in the Williamson case, attributed the high rate of death convictions to “careful filing practices.” He also cited the county’s dubious distinction of being a dumping ground for victims of murders committed elsewhere, which increases San Bernardino’s case load.

“That’s the kind of county it is,” Haight said. Then he repeated an often-heard fear here: “Our worst nightmare is that all the dead bodies in the desert will stand up and say, ‘Investigate me.’ ”

Meanwhile, Spears angered many residents when he told reporters that the county had “a small, cow town atmosphere.”

“I didn’t mean jurors were stupid,” he recalled, “just death-prone.

Residents, who would like to shake an image of rural rubes, don’t like it either way--particularly from Spears, who was born and raised in San Bernardino.

When the comment surfaced in a January issue of the Daily Journal, a publication geared toward the legal community, it unleashed a flood of angry letters and a scathing editorial in the county’s largest newspaper, the San Bernardino Sun. One of the letters suggested that “I crawl back under a rock,” Spears said.

The Feb. 4 editorial was more pointed.

“If Spears decides he’d like to be a judge or even a member of the Community College Board of Directors (he ran in 1977),” the editorial said, “he may find some cow town types with rube mentalities also have good memories.”

Spears keeps right on talking.

He contends, for instance, that capital cases here are affected adversely by the controversy surrounding the move to oust Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird, which he believes “could have a profound impact on juror attitudes.” Critics have attacked Bird for never imposing the death penalty in cases that have come before her.

While he doesn’t buy Spears’ argument, Haight tipped his hat to the public defender. “To Alan’s credit, he is very creative,” Haight said, “and extremely committed and sincere.”

But Haight’s boss, Dist. Atty. Dennis Kottmeier disagrees and chastises Spears for his “back-handed slap at the citizens of this county.”

“The motion is factually wrong and a statistical misinterpretation,” argued Kottmeier, who nevertheless conceded he has no statistical evidence of his own to support that assertion.

Spears, Kottmeier said, “likes to listen to himself talk” and “exaggerates to the point that even the grain of salt of truth he started with is lost in the magnitude of his exaggeration.”

Even his close friends call Spears “a free spirit who functions in the system.”

Spears is known for dramatic jury trial tactics such as propping up blowups of the Ten Commandments or ripping pages out of the penal code book and throwing them on the floor in disgust.

Apologizes for Remark

In the Williamson case, however, his creative approach to the law combined with his critical jabs at jury panelists has for the first time sent a sticky legal argument out of the courtroom and into the streets.

“I’m sorry to see a legal issue enmeshed in a social and emotional parley between parties,” said Linda Meza, the jury consultant.

Meanwhile, Spears has apologized for the “cow town” remark, which he said was “a stupid, callous and unprofessional thing to say--in public.”

But he is still angry over what he called a “cheap shot” and “personal attack” in the Sun editorial.

“The attitude here is, ‘You do what we say or we will destroy you,’ ” Spears said. “They can put you out of business or render you ineffective.”

Wayne C. Sargent, editor of the Sun, sees it another way.

“The editorial was meant to be critical of his statements, which I felt were demeaning of potential jurors in the county and the county itself,” Sargent said.

Sargent added that “I am sure he is fighting a good fight for his client, which he should do.”

Said Spears, “I’m not trying to make gold out of lead. . . I have a job to represent these guys and I can’t do it if the deck is stacked against me.”

TRIALS RESULTING IN DEATH SENTENCE

Disposition of capital trials selected in counties between 1977 and 1984. Counties are listed in order of population.

Cases in Which Cases in which Special Circumstances death sentence County Were Charged was obtained Percent Los Angeles 907 60 6.6% Orange 81 14 17.2% San Diego 22 4 18.1% Alameda 88 7 7.9% San Bernardino 36 14 38.8% Riverside 35 8 22.8% San Francisco 18 5 27.7% Ventura 23 3 13.0% Fresno 39 7 17.9% Kern 44 8 18.1% Santa Barbara 17 2 11.7% Imperial 18 0 0.0%

Source: State Public