Marin County Superior Court in San Rafael. (Robert Tong/Marin Independent Journal)
As Marin prosecutors struggle with a substantial backlog of criminal cases, they are dealing not only with the usual influx of fresh crimes, but relitigating many past convictions because of a new state law.
Senate Bill 1437, which took effect in 2019, changed the circumstances under which people can be convicted of murder in California. The law also mandates that certain defendants who have been convicted under these circumstances may petition judges to vacate their murder convictions and impose new sentences.
The Marin County District Attorney’s Office has had to respond to at least eight such petitions, and more are expected.
“These cases have taken hundreds of hours of experienced attorney and investigator time and more will be required,” District Attorney Lori Frugoli wrote in an email.
A Marin County Civil Grand Jury report in May faulted the District Attorney’s Office for the backlog of criminal cases, saying the organization is “in crisis” because of internal turmoil, employee lawsuits staff defections and vacancies.
However, the report also said: “A further complicating factor is the increase in the number of murder cases that have been filed in recent years, many resulting from gang activity. These cases require experienced attorneys to manage, and they are time consuming.”
Before SB 1437, defendants could be convicted of first-degree murder if they were an accomplice to certain serious felonies, even if they did not personally commit the homicide or even intend to kill the person.
Under the new law, accomplices can only be convicted of murder if they are the actual killers; shared the intent to kill with the actual killer; were a major participant in the felony and acted with reckless indifference to human life; or the murder victim was a police officer.
The Marin petitions filed so far include a carjacking during which a 4-year-old boy was killed; the fatal stabbing of a prison guard at San Quentin; a murder committed during a drug-related burglary; the opportunistic killing of two people by three young drifters; and the 1992 murder of pastor Dan Elledge at the Lord’s Church in Novato during a burglary.
The Marin County Public Defender’s Office initially represented most of the inmates who have filed SB 1437 petitions in Marin. However, the office has had to refer all but two of the petitioners to private attorneys because of conflicts of interest with other current or former defendants.
Matthew Siroka, a San Francisco-based lawyer, has been appointed to handle five of the cases.
“These people were convicted under a variety of legal theories, which made them responsible for the actions of others,” Siroka wrote in an email, “regardless of whether they knew those actions would occur or wanted them to occur.”
“Many people caught in the web of imputed malice theories were youth and a disproportionate percentage were people of color,” Siroka said.
Michael Coffino, an attorney based in Sausalito, is representing two inmates who have filed petitions in Marin.
“We’re bringing events from the past into the present era,” Coffino said. “Societal norms have changed radically in favor of leniency in the decades since some of these people were convicted of their crimes.”
One of Marin’s first SB 1437 petitions came from Andrew Clayton, who was convicted in the 2000 slaying of Christopher Deming. Clayton and Richard Ross Calkins went to a Novato residence where Deming happened to be a guest to steal methamphetamine, and Deming was shot and killed. Calkins accepted a plea deal for a manslaughter conviction and named Clayton as the shooter.
Marin prosecutor Dori Ahana initially argued that SB 1437 was unconstitutional and conflicted with other state laws, and Marin County Superior Judge Paul Haakenson ruled in the prosecution’s favor. The 1st District Court of Appeal in San Francisco overturned Haakenson’s decision.
When inmates file SB 1437 petitions, judges first rule on whether their cases qualify for review under the law; if they do, an evidentiary hearing follows to determine whether the conviction should be overturned. Clayton’s case will now advance to an evidentiary hearing.
David Deming of Sonoma, the father of the murder victim, said he attended Clayton’s trial and has no doubt Clayton fired the gun that killed his son.
“I’d take Andy Clayton down the hallway in San Quentin and put the needle in his arm myself,” Deming said. “I’m an eye for eye kind of guy.”
Deming is frustrated by SB 1437.
“It’s something we should have voted on,” he said. “These politicians are drunk with power and do what they want to do. They’re not honoring the jurors who took time off of work and gave Andy Clayton the 35 years to life.”
Two other Marin petitions were filed by Lawrence Woodard and Andre Johnson — codefendants in the fatal stabbing of San Quentin State Prison Sgt. Dean Burchfield. Woodard, Johnson and Jarvis Masters, all members of the Black Guerilla Family, a San Quentin organization created by George Jackson, were convicted of conspiring to commit the murder.
Woodard, who was convicted of ordering the killing, has already been deemed ineligible for relief under SB 1437. Andre Johnson’s petition is still pending.
Prosecutors have argued that Johnson is also ineligible for SB 1437 because a jury found that he personally used a dangerous and deadly weapon in the commission of the crime, suggesting that he was the person who stabbed Burchfield. Coffino, who is representing Johnson, disagrees.
Rhonda McClinton, Johnson’s older sister, said he was “always a good person.”
“Circumstances caused him to do the things he did,” she said.
McClinton said their alcoholic father treated her brother like a punching bag. She said her brother got involved with a prison gang at San Quentin soon after being sent there to serve a two-year sentence for robbery.
Larenda Taylor, a longtime friend of Johnson’s, said, “Everybody makes mistakes. Everybody is entitled to a second chance. No one on this earth is perfect.”
Ahana wrote in an email that the impact the SB 1437 cases is having on the District Attorney’s Office is “enormous and ongoing — taking away time from the essential other business of the office.”
“Each of these cases,” Ahana wrote, “requires hundreds of hours of clerical, investigative, and attorney time to review, evaluate and prepare, re-investigate, locate and contact witnesses, and brief/rebrief legal issues — because the law changes from week to week.”
Marin County Public Defender David Sutton said, “These are old homicides where largely the discovery and old court records are not electronic. They’re in bankers boxes and transcripts and in some cases on microfiche.”
Siroka said, “They often require re-investigating the case, expert testimony and reviewing thousands of pages of trial testimony.”
Frugoli said SB 1437 is just one of a number of new laws and court rulings that have recently added to the workload at her office. For example, Proposition 47, passed by California voters in 2014, allows people convicted of some non-violent property crimes, including grand theft, to have their convictions reduced to misdemeanors.
Originally published at Richard Halstead