[ql06] CRIMINAL: Green River "deal" -- largest serial murder in US history
- From: "Ken Campbell" <2kc16@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <ql06@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 16:30:59 -0500
The Green River murders (NW USA) have been talked about for decades --
who the hell was killing all these women? They appear to be finally
solved -- though now there are the legal problems in bringing the case
forward.
Two articles herein:
1. Details of Green River murders
2. Question on plea bargaining and 1st degree murder
Of interest to our studies to date is the "plea bargaining" part of
this. Pleas are necessary to help with lower offences, to keep the
courts spluttering along.
But pleas in murder cases are a different matter. We touched on the
discretion of courts in dealing with crimes:
Interpretation Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. I-21, s. 12:
Every enactment shall be deemed remedial, and shall
be given such fair, large and liberal construction
and interpreation as best ensures the attainment of
its objects.
That is, once upon a time all penal statutes were to be construed
strictly and remedial statutes were to be construed liberally.
By making this statute provision above, the very clear meaning is: The
court system has a lot of leeway in ALL matters. Including penal
matters.
But what are the consequences of that? Confusion of overall effect?
Disproportionate penalties?
Remember all that?
The second article, below, asks the question:
If Ridgway is given a direct deal, what about others who are also on
death row but for far lesser volume of murder?
It is a grisly math, but would not giving Ridgway a deal mean that,
objectively, if you are going to commit murder, at least make it
continuous, outrageous serial murder so you can avoid the death penalty?
Ken.
--
Science without religion is lame.
Religion without science is blind.
-- Albert Einstein
--- cut here ---
Ridgway reportedly admits killing as recently as 1998
By Steve Miletich
Seattle Times staff reporter
October 31 2003
In a deal that would spare his life, Gary L. Ridgway plans to plead
guilty next week to more than 40 murders in the Green River
serial-killings case, including two slayings that occurred in 1990 and
1998 and had not been attributed to the Green River serial killer,
according to a source close to the investigation.
The additional killings represent a stunning development in a case that
had been officially limited to a series of 49 deaths between July 1982
and February 1984.
One of the new victims is a woman whose death was previously deemed
accidental.
Ridgway, 54, a truck painter from Auburn, was arrested in November 2001
based on DNA evidence. He has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder
in seven of the Green River slayings. He faced the death penalty if
convicted in those cases.
But under the plea deal, he would admit to more than 40 killings and be
sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of release, the
source said.
Tony Savage, one of Ridgway's defense attorneys, said yesterday he
cannot talk about a plea deal.
He said he expects Ridgway to appear in court at a regularly scheduled
status conference on Wednesday.
As part of the negotiations, Ridgway has told investigators that some of
the 49 deaths attributed to the Green River killer were not committed by
him, the source said, without providing a specific number.
But Ridgway provided details on the deaths of two women who weren't on
the official list of Green River victims, the source said, identifying
them as Patricia Ann Yellow Robe, 38, of Seattle, who was found dead on
Aug. 6, 1998, and Marta Reeves, 36, who was killed in 1990.
Yellow Robe's death was listed as an accidental poisoning by drugs on
her state death certificate. Her occupation was listed as nursing aide.
Reeves disappeared in spring 1990. Her body was found Sept. 20, 1990,
eight miles east of Enumclaw off Highway 410. She was believed to have
disappeared from Seattle, where she had been arrested twice for
prostitution.
Many Green River victims were prostitutes who worked along Pacific
Highway South in South King County. Others were runaways.
Although she was not on the official list, Reeves was listed on a
database compiled by The Seattle Times as a possible Green River victim
in light of the circumstances of her death.
Reeves' skeletal remains were found in a marshy area near where remains
of three other Green River victims were found in 1983. Reeves was
separated from her husband and four daughters and was working the
streets when she disappeared.
At the time, police said the Reeves case was similar to those of Green
River victims, but her death fell outside the window of time the killer
was most active. Reeves' daughters believed then that window should have
been expanded.
After Ridgway's arrest in 2001, one of Reeves' daughters, Nicole Reeves,
called the Green River Task Force. At the time, Nicole Reeves said she
was 75 percent sure the Green River killer killed her mother, but she
didn't discount the possibility that copycats were responsible for some
of the unsolved deaths.
Investigators notified relatives of Yellow Robe and Reeves in the past
few days of Ridgway's admissions, the source said.
Yellow Robe's body was found in the parking lot of a Boulevard Park
wrecking yard, at South 96th Street and Des Moines Memorial Drive South.
Her last known address was Box Elder, Mont.
There were no obvious injuries to her fully-dressed body, and
investigators with the King County Medical Examiner's Office yesterday
said records show she died of a drug-and-alcohol overdose. They called
Yellow Robe's death an accident.
James Apa, spokesman for Public Health-Seattle & King County, would not
comment on Yellow Robe's case but said, "If new significant evidence
were to come to light for any case, we would review it and re-evaluate
the cause and manner of death."
Since summer, Green River Task Force members and volunteers have
meticulously searched about two dozen locations and uncovered four sets
of bones.
Three sets have been identified as women on the original list of 49
Green River slaying victims: Pammy Avent, April Dawn Buttram and Marie
Molina Malvar. The other set has not been identified.
Ridgway began cooperating with investigators several months ago,
providing them with details on the Green River killings and helping to
locate bodies of women, sources said.
Although King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng had said he would not
plea-bargain in Ridgway's case given the severity of the charges, he
altered his view when presented the chance to close some of the Green
River killings and to provide answers to families of victims, the source
said.
Maleng's decision was not based on the multimillion dollar cost
associated with the prosecution or problems with evidence, the source
said.
The cost of prosecuting and defending Ridgway has reached millions of
dollars and promised to go higher as both sides pored over hundreds of
thousands of documents gathered during the 20 years of investigating by
police.
Closing Ridgway's case would avoid a lengthy trial and years of appeals
that could leave many questions about the Green River case unanswered,
the source said.
A plea deal would have to be approved by King County Superior Court
Judge Richard Jones, who is overseeing the case.
Seattle Times reporters Michael Ko, Rachel Tuinstra and Duff Wilson
contributed to this report.
Steve Miletich: 206-464-3302 or smiletich@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
--- cut here ---
Ridgway deal could change criteria for death penalty
By Ian Ith
Seattle Times staff reporter
October 31 2003
It's a fundamental issue of fairness, say attorneys for two men accused
of killing a young Marysville woman in Snohomish County last year:
How could prosecutors in Snohomish County justify seeking the death
penalty against the men, accused in one slaying, if prosecutors in King
County end up sparing the life of Gary L. Ridgway, accused of seven of
the Green River killings and possibly owning up to many more?
In Everett, attorneys for defendants John Anderson, 20, and John
Whitaker, 22, succeeded in delaying a decision by prosecutors on whether
to seek the death penalty in the September 2002 slaying of 18-year-old
Rachel Burkheimer. They want to wait to see whether Ridgway is given a
plea deal.
"If they don't seek the death penalty in Ridgway's case, how can a
prosecutor morally seek the death penalty against someone who's not a
killer?" said Whitaker's attorney, John Muenster of Seattle.
By making the argument in a courtroom in Everett on Wednesday, the
defense lawyers had the distinction of being the first in the area to
specifically use Ridgway's case to fight a death penalty.
But they're first in what experts say could be a very long line.
Lawyers and legal observers agree that if King County Prosecutor Norm
Maleng, who has said he would seek the death penalty against Ridgway,
agrees instead to spare his life in exchange for cooperation in solving
more Green River slayings, all death-penalty defendants likely will be
lining up to argue that their sentences also are unfair.
Death-penalty opponents say that if Ridgway is spared, it could
effectively help spell the end of executions in Washington.
Prosecutors and death-penalty supporters agree it would be extremely
difficult then, bordering on impossible, to actually see a death penalty
through the appeals courts to the execution chamber.
"It's going to be very difficult for prosecutors and the Supreme Court
to say that other cases that are less egregious deserve the death
penalty," said Mark Larranaga, a Seattle defense attorney who heads the
Death Penalty Assistance Center, an advocacy group for defendants in
capital cases.
"I don't know how you could come to any other educated conclusion."
At the core of the Ridgway issue is the legal concept of
"proportionality."
The law says that to execute people in Washington, their crimes should
be comparable to other crimes that resulted in execution — and worse
than crimes that did not.
Ridgway, 54, is charged with aggravated murder in seven of the Green
River slayings. Sources have said he is dealing with prosecutors and may
be directing them to find remains of missing Green River victims.
Sources familiar with the case said yesterday the unveiling of the plea
deal is expected next month.
The State Supreme Court reviews every case in which the death penalty is
given, in part to see whether the proportionality standard is met.
Death-penalty opponents criticize the court, though, because it has
never overturned a death sentence on the basis of proportionality, but
has ruled generally that death-penalty decisions should rest largely
with elected county prosecutors and citizen juries.
If Maleng spares Ridgway, the Supreme Court may have to start paying
attention, opponents hope.
"The proportionality problem has really been growing and growing for
years now," said Tim Ford, a Seattle defense attorney and longtime
death-penalty opponent. "I've been making this argument for 30 years,
but this will be a very visible and a very dramatic example of a
phenomenon that's happening all the time. So you've got to be wondering
what Norm Maleng is going to do then."
Ford and other death-penalty opponents say no other death-row inmate
would benefit from a Ridgway plea more than Robert Lee Yates, the
convicted Spokane serial killer whose case is most similar to Ridgway's.
Yates accepted a plea bargain with Spokane prosecutors to spare him the
death penalty in exchange for admitting to other slayings. But when
Pierce County prosecutors charged him with murders near Tacoma, they
didn't honor the bargain. Yates is now on death row.
At the time, Maleng was an outspoken critic of Spokane County Prosecutor
Steven Tucker for plea-bargaining away the death penalty.
Sources say Ridgway likely wouldn't face the same problem as Yates
because prosecutors and Ridgway's lawyers would ensure no other
prosecutors would go after him if he signs a deal.
Defense attorneys say if Ridgway is spared, Yates could argue that it
would be disproportional to put him to death for his serial killings,
which were very similar to the Green River killings — prostitutes killed
and their bodies left in remote areas.
Pierce County Prosecutor Gerald Horne said a Ridgway deal wouldn't take
away a prosecutor's right to seek the death penalty. He said even more
egregious cases could come along — someone who tortures and kills
children, for example.
"There is still a (death-penalty) law on the books that everyone should
have the resolve to uphold," he said. "There's still a law, and each
case has to be evaluated on its own merits."
But Horne, who said he pressed for the death penalty against Yates
because he refused to "make a deal with the devil himself," said he
lately has become disillusioned with the death-penalty process in
Washington, and has recently decided not to seek it at all, except in
"the very worst of the very worst" cases.
The appeals courts, he contends, have made it virtually impossible to
execute anyone but those who volunteer to be executed by waiving their
appeals.
Adding Ridgway to the proportionality standard will only make execution
more rare, he predicts.
"No county has put more people on death row than Pierce County, but no
one (convicted there) has ever died," Horne said. "If there is, in fact,
no death penalty, then why are we expending the resources on it? It
misleads the community as a whole."
Seattle Times reporter Jennifer Sullivan contributed to this report. Ian
Ith: 206-464-2109 or iith@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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