Perhaps the best image of Louis Taylor isn’t the one from the newspapers of his youth, or even the more recent ones of him surrounded by his attorneys in court wearing prison orange or dressed in Friday business casual at an April 3, 2013 press conference the day after his release from prison after spending more than 42 years locked up for a crime it took science to explain away.
No, I am certain that if Taylor’s mother and twin sister were still alive to see him free, they would find joy in watching him ride his bike in the parking lot of the Country Club Road condominium complex where he now lives. A smile spreads wide across his face as he speeds across the asphalt.
At the April press conference, Taylor smiled many times, but often hid his grin behind his hand because of the missing front teeth he said he couldn’t wait to get fixed. In a way, it was an awkward home reunion where Taylor made it clear he wasn’t exactly happy to be back in the city where he was convicted of setting the Pioneer Hotel ablaze in 1970 when he was only 16 years old and convicted by a jury of 28 counts of murder.
All along, from the police interrogations when he was just 16 to the entire time he was in prison, Taylor always, always declared his innocence.
“I said ‘I’m not going nowhere. I’m an innocent man,'” Taylor said at the press conference, describing how he always turned down invites from other prisoners to join in on escapes. “Only the guilty run away. I held on and look, I’m free now.”
For more than 10 years, a team of volunteer attorneys and law school students from the Arizona Justice Project took on Taylor’s case—combing through old files and doing interviews that eventually led to enough new evidence to enable his attorneys to request a new hearing. Attorneys told reporters that much of the evidence had to do with science. If the Pioneer Hotel fire happened today, experts would have determined it was not arson.
There was also clear evidence that prosecutorial misconduct had taken place, such as the suppression of evidence that supported Taylor’s innocence. Which only made it more difficult when Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall fought and maneuvered to prevent Taylor’s case from going back to court, finally offering a plea agreement that didn’t exonerate him from the crime but allowed him to go free based on time served.
“I don’t know what I’m doing yet. I just have to take each day as it comes,” he told reporters back then.
Taylor recently told the Tucson Weekly he still has to take each day as it comes—that hasn’t changed, but his teeth are fixed now so he never has to hide his smile ever again.
At his condo complex off Country Club Road, Taylor is dressed in a short sleeved T-shirt, wearing shorts and sunglasses, and talking into a cell phone—new technology he’d never seen until the day after his release. He looks like a college student or really any Tucsonan ready to take on the warmer days.
Inside his condo, he recalls the press conference and the emotions expressed from pure jubilation to tears of anger and sadness.
“The thing is, ma’am, you have to tell it the way it is. You can’t undercut it. You have to put a human picture on it,” Taylor said.
Right now, Taylor said he’s staying put in Tucson, not because he wants to be here but because he wants to do right by his boss Peggy Johnson, executive director of the Loft Cinema, where Taylor now works.
“I want to at least give it more than a month or so. Peggy’s an amazing lady and the Loft is a good organization. I’m really grateful, but still,” he said, “I don’t like being here in Tucson and I think I have good reasons. Sometimes you have to bury the hatchet, but it doesn’t mean the wounds will heal.”
When asked if he still thinks about LaWall and her insistence that Taylor agree to a plea agreement rather than allow him a new trial or exonerate him based on new evidence, he said: “She’s got to deal with her demons later … I don’t want to even discuss her. She’s not anywhere in the equation of what I am trying to do right now.”
But he does talk about his legal team with the Arizona Justice Project and friendships he has with Justice Project founder and Phoenix attorney Larry Hammond and retired UA College of Law professor Andy Silverman, who leads the Tucson component of the Justice Project with other volunteer attorneys and UA law school students.
At Taylor’s April press conference, Silverman sat at the end talking about those first groups of law school students he took to the County Attorney’s office to look through the case files more than 10 years ago.
“I think they did an amazing job.” Taylor said about the Justice Project. “Look, I have no ill feelings against Barbara LaWall. I’m just going day to day and going forward. You know, that’s all I can do. I’ve got an amazing bright future ahead of me and I have to stay focused.”
Sitting with Andy Silverman in his office at the UA College of Law it becomes obvious that the people he’s helped through his work at the Justice Project aren’t forgotten. He mentions driving Taylor up to Phoenix when he had his appointment to get his teeth fixed, or calling in to check on how he’s doing.
“When you work on these cases as long as we do, it isn’t unusual that these people become more than clients. They become friends. I care about them,” he said.
Betty Smithey is one such friend. Silverman began working on her case almost 40 years ago. After two governor clemency and court rejections to overturn her sentence, you’d think he would have eventually given up, shrugged his shoulders and forgotten about the almost 70-year-old woman in prison serving a life-sentence for killing a baby she was caring for in 1963.
But no, Smithey’s case is another example of the cases the Arizona Justice Project takes on, often wrongful convictions or old-code lifers, whose life sentences usually came with an expectation of parole that was taken away as the Legislature got tougher on life sentences. The cases require a tenacious streak when you’re poking a stick at injustice and the Arizona legal system.
More than 40 years ago, Silverman thought Smithey was wrongly put on trial and convicted despite her lack of mental competency at the time. Smithey, who grew up in orphanages and foster homes, faced years of sexual, physical and emotional abuse. She was first sent to prison at the age of 16 for kidnapping a toddler who she voluntarily returned. She spent four years in prison, never received help. She killed the infant she was babysitting and was convicted at the age of 20. At the time of her release last year, Smithey had the record for being the longest-incarcerated female in the country.
“The first thing that we did on her case was dealing with an issue of her competency to stand trial. There was a real valid question from the beginning and it wasn’t fully pursued,” Silverman says.
When Silverman first started working on Smithey’s case, it was as a volunteer attorney freshly out of law school during the early years of a special legal clinic started at the UA by a former professor of his. He continued to work on her case when he began volunteering with the Justice Project, a Phoenix-based organization started in 1998 by the Criminal Defense Association in Arizona, an effort led by Phoenix attorney Larry Hammond.
The first efforts of Silverman’s—a post-conviction challenge brought before the courts—failed several times. Years had passed when he got a letter from Smithey asking how he was doing. He paid her a visit at the women’s prison up in Florence, and decided it was time to look at her case again.
When the courts refused Silverman’s attempts to reverse Smithey’s conviction, he turned to the Arizona state Board of Executive Clemency, asking that she be made eligible for parole. The first time was when Fife Symington was governor. The board recommended parole, but Symington sat on Smithey’s case for a year before finally issuing a denial.
Then Janet Napolitano became governor. Once again the clemency board made a recommendation that Smithey be eligible for parole. A Napolitano staffer, who happened to be a former student of Silverman’s, heard him out. This plus a sitting Democratic governor provided some hope.
Napolitano denied Smithey’s request.
When Napolitano left to become Secretary of Homeland Security for the Obama administration and Jan Brewer was appointed governor, he considered it another opportunity to go before the clemency board.
Typically past clemency boards sent a basic one-page letter with their recommendation. This time the clemency board sent a six-page impassioned letter to Brewer. To Silverman’s surprise, it took a conservative, right-wing governor to make it happen. Brewer commuted Smithey’s sentence from life to 48 years to life. The clemency board later voted 4-1 for an absolute discharge.
“We weren’t real positive that even if we got to Brewer that she would accept; in some ways no governor had been granting clemencies. It didn’t make a difference between Republicans and Democrats,” Silverman said.
Silverman says Smithey is living up in Flagstaff now and had recently talked to her over the phone. He’s trying to find a senior living facility for her so she can stay connected and keep busy.
“I’d like to see her in a better position,” he said.
The Arizona Justice Project has a small staff in an office on the ASU campus, but most of the workers are volunteer attorneys and volunteer law students. Molly Kincaid, a recent UA law school graduate, was one of several students who worked with Silverman on the Smithey case, putting together the clemency packet, interviewing and contacting people who knew Smithey in and out of prison and even presenting the case before the board.
“I am really happy I was involved,” Kincaid said. “Betty’s case was an experience. I still can’t believe she was the longest-held female inmate. The amazing thing about her is her personality. I don’t think she had a lot of hope that her sentence was going to get commuted, yet she is a happy high-spirited person. I think that that is so amazing and says a lot of about human capacity.”
Kincaid remembers Smithey saying “‘I’m so lucky,” several times while they worked with her on her case.
“Who says that after being incarcerated for 49 years and all those hard knocks in her life—it’s kind of amazing,” Kincaid said.
Equally amazing to the young lawyer is her former teacher Silverman.
“I have been his student for three years. He does so much, and he is completely humble about it. His heart is in the right place. He really cares about other people and does not like injustice,” Kincaid said.
At the end of every immigration class she took with the retired professor, she said Silverman raised his fist in the air and told his students “Power to you all.”
“It’s really inspiring to hear a law professor say that,” she said. “This legal system is really hard. Sometimes it’s hard to have hope and believe in justice, but he really does and he’s really trying hard to pass that along to his students.”
Besides law school students, private criminal defense attorneys volunteer to work on Justice Project cases. Adam Bleier, of Sherick and Bleier, has worked on a few cases, one that is still pending that he’s not yet able to discuss.
Bleier said he started law school at the UA just as the Justice Project began. He volunteered as a student, and knew that when he graduated he wanted to be able to volunteer as an attorney as soon as he was able.
“Now I volunteer because I love working with the students,” he said.
It was Silverman, however, who reached out to him first, asking him to take a specific case and then another.
“We’re all out there trying to make a dollar, but often, from a professional perspective, these cases are far more interesting and challenging than what you’re working on normally,” Bleier said.
“But I also like the idea that we have a Justice Project in Arizona that is dedicated to overturning wrongful convictions and cases of manifest injustice. I can’t do too many things and work at the same time, so this is where I choose to focus my volunteer work.”
Bleier worked on the Donna Bennett case in which the court overturned her murder conviction. Typically these cases are overturned because of DNA or other evidence that shows the person didn’t commit murder, but in this case it was the application of the felony murder rule, he said.
Bennett was not home when her child was injured by her boyfriend in the 1990s. The injuries led to the child’s death. The court sentenced her based on the fact that when she came home she failed to seek immediate medical attention for her child.
Bennett still serves time for a child abuse conviction, but because she didn’t cause the death of her child and her attorney at the time never appealed “we felt this was a real claim,” he said.
Although the state Supreme Court remanded the case back to trial, the Pima County Attorney’s office dropped the sentence.
“She’s been in prison 17 years and she’ll be out in September,” he said.
Bennett’s was first tried in the mid-1990s and the Justice Project had the case four years before Bleier became involved.
“The process is painfully slow. There are long periods you’re waiting or in preparation … sometimes you’re waiting for the court to decide.”
When Louis Taylor sits down to talk about his release from prison that took place almost two months ago, he takes a stack of photos out of an envelope—many are of different Justice Project volunteers and staff he’s gotten to know over the years.
But there’s one person he points out time and time again and that’s Phoenix attorney Larry Hammond, the Justice Project’s founder and current board chair.
Hammond recalled that in those early years the project was run out of his office because the project had no money set aside for staff.
“There were nationally four other projects that were already in existence, including the Innocence Project,” Hammond said.
“It’s amazing to think of where we’ve been. Now we have excellent relationships with all three of the law schools, we have a permanent staff. We are always in need of money and we’ve never really gotten very good at fundraising, but we’ve had grants and we’ve been able to do a lot of good. I never really knew where the project was going to go or how it was going to develop, but I was involved in every step. It’s been my personal passion.”
Hammond, who has worked as a private criminal defense attorney since 1980, said the project works because they have a model in place in which all cases are screened. Usually inmates or family members contact the Justice Project directly. The screening process can be lengthy but is necessary before an attorney and students agree to take on the case.
“I know how hard this work is. The concept of finality is so deeply rooted in the criminal law system. Once someone has gone to trial or pled guilty getting a conviction set aside is always difficult and the process is slow and the odds are against success. Some people would say that’s the way it should be,” he said.
Look at the Taylor case, which the Justice Project started working on in 1999. Hammond said there is a change happening—an encouraging shift in public opinion.
“People don’t really say that the justice system does not make mistakes because now we know that’s not true,” he said. “Now when we go into court if someone has been wrongfully convicted, because of the success of our project people have to say, ‘I know it could happen.'”
The Taylor case to him speaks volumes about the work the Justice Project does and the people involved. The day Taylor was released from prison, Hammond said he was sitting behind him during the hearing and took a moment to survey the filled-to-capacity court room.
“It was completely jammed with people. I could see students who had worked on Louis’ case from at least four different periods and early faculty even before Andy (Silverman) took over. Other lawyers who worked on the case. And I thought, ‘My goodness, think about all the people whose lives have been affected by being a part of just this one case.’ So many of them over the years dug through files, interviewed witnesses, talked to experts and filed petitions—for many of them I hope it was a good experience even though it took a long time. Not only has Louis’ liberty been secured, but the efforts of so many people had been ratified. That makes it to me all worth the hard work.”
Katie Puzauskas, who directs the project from the ASU campus, is a Howard Law School graduate who returned to Arizona specifically to work for the Justice Project.
“I was inspired by the work of the Innocence Project and when I found out there was a similar project in my home state, I knew I had to get involved,” she said.
Since the Justice Project started, 15 people have been released, some based on innocence “and others dealt with what we believed to be a fundamental miscarriage of justice. Donna Bennett will be released this September. Donna will be the 10th person released in the past three years,” Puzauskas said.
Puzauskas said the number doesn’t include people whose sentences were commuted as a result of a case called McDonald v. Thomas handled by ASU professor Bob Bartels with the Justice Project.
Also one client represented by Bartels passed away months before his release on parole.
Since 1998, the Justice Project has received more than 4,200 requests for assistance and has represented 45 people.
“For the past four years, we have received approximately 300 requests for help per year. Generally, the Project has approximately 50 active cases at any given time—either being investigated, in court proceedings, or before the clemency board,” she said.
“It is challenging work, but I don’t know any other group of attorneys who will do it.”
Perhaps it’s Taylor who sums it up best about his attorneys.
“I had the best,” he said. “It was simple. There was a miscarriage of justice. I paid the price, but then someone cared enough to think it was worth fighting. That’s the Arizona Justice Project.”
This article appears in May 30 – Jun 5, 2013.
Ok, first of all the Justice Project does good work. It’s a passion to volunteer your time for such a cause for folks that most people don’t think or care about. Larry Hammond is a very smart and wonderful lawyer and a gentleman who is simply first class. But, did you do any research for this article at all? Taylor had the “best” lawyers but somehow LaWall “fought and maneuvered to prevent ” the case from going back to court? Really? Does that even make sense to you? The prosecution was always ready to proceed to a court hearing for the legal issues to be decided by a judge. Unlike your statement in the story, today’s science could not say the fire was not arson, but that, after 42 years, the new opinion would be the cause was undetermined. Not surprising given the passage of time. So the decision Mr. Taylor had to make was whether to enter a plea or go to court. He chose the plea. No one forced it on him and he had the benefit of 15 experienced lawyers advising him on what to do. It was his decision, acting on the advice of those lawyers, whether to plead or go to court. No one in the prosecution “maneuvered” anything. While a story stating an innocent man was incarcerated for most of his life is compelling, the real world issues were much different. Mr. Taylor was convicted by a jury who heard 6 weeks of compelling testimony. For you to allege the prosecution had some ill motive is simply lame. A little research would have shown you there were two sides to the argument.
Rick, the prosecution didn’t have to “maneuver anything.” It was 1970 in Tucson, the defendant is black. That was the “real world issue.”
Barbara LaWall was mentioned in this article with no real consideration to the fraud she, Dupnik, Carmona, and the justice system have perpetrated upon this whole county. AS an example of a high profile case involving officials and Pima County SWAT, one Jose Guerenia was let to bleed to death under former Surgeon General, Dr. Richard Carmona’s (a man serving two masters) Swat protocols under the 20 month investigation led by Clarence Dupnik that ended in five times the violent emptying of clips on an innocent man compared to Loughner’s single clip.
A wife and child were in the home. How could that have been overlooked? Once the 71st round had been discharged, Vanessa Guerena plead with SWAT to save her husband who was still breathing, but had only been predetermined guilty by Dupnik’s circles and allowed to perish under the internationally known surgeon, Dr Richard Carmona. Carmona trains paramilitary tactics under a protocol to let non federal officials die when they can be medically saved. If a SWAT member was gunned down, you better bet the EMT would be allowed to save that life on spot. Don’t think otherwise.. it is you and I that Barbara LaWall is against and she made that evident by siding with the official “fox guarding the hen house” official report that concluded the SWAT team was justified in their actions.
Like Charlie Manson, Hippocratically sworn medical practitioner, Dr. Richard Carmona who is supposed to save lives not yet proven guilty is just as guilty as Charlie Manson for involvement regarding the training of the slaughter house goons and stipulating the insurance of death to former gulf vet Jose Guerena. Justice served is not adjudicated by a county attorney (LaWall) nor anyone other than a jury who votes for the guilt or innocence of those on trial and a verdict rendered by a judge in a court of law.. only then is justice served. JUSTICE IS SERVED ONLY IN COURT especially when a human life is taken. It is not dolled out by a criminal like LaWall. In this case, it might as well have been the Candy Man exonerating those mercenaries from culpability.
Therefore, Louie Taylor is innocently giving our elected filth the benefit of the doubt and any group of savior legal wannabes, the Arizona Justice Project, are simply running us all around in circles on non critical false imprisonment issues when the real culprits are allowed to operate. Mayor Jonathan Rothschild continues his stealth reign of terror never to be written about or journaled in the Arizona Daily Star, this Tucson Weekly or anything here in Tucson. I recommend Taylor sue until he gets retribution.. or, help Vanessa get those morons indicted for murder. Incidentally, the same are responsible for Isabella Mercedez Celis’ abduction and possible slaying as they were with the Giffords shooting and the assassination of 9th circuit Federal Judge JM Roll over a media blacked out case with a potential class action suit worth approximately 150 billion dollars. Betcha didn’t know that. The case was a federal case held on the fourth floor of the state courthouse so that the public wouldn’t get a dime for toxic waste dumping. Roll was eliminated in a large part for that reason.
The Arizona Justice Project should go after the villains and seek justice for the wife of Jose Guerena and the child who saw his father dead while a robot slowly poked it’s electronic nose searching for nothing at all. My challenge to them is to knock on her door and have Carmona arrested for killing Guerena under Dupnik who should also be indicted.. Or, they’ll simply demonstrate the false illusion this group is special.
Lee Bracker
realnuz – DISMANTLE THE BEAM PROJECT
http://www.fourthdimensionalrecovery.wordpress.co…
Louis Taylor was given the same opportunity that I was given in 1987, by then court appointed lawyer, Suzzane Laursen. Sign the “plea”, or you could face “more” time in prison, regarding a disparate sentence issue!
Notwithstanding the fact, that Kenneth J. Peasley was DISBARRED” in 2004, for the intentional introduction of false, and mis-leading testimony, and other unethical behavior by a homocide detecticve! One would wonder if the Gregory A. Bottoni case has merit? Has Peasley recieved his “Just Desserts”, YET!
This county attorney LaWall, insists, through her cadre of corrupt cronies over there at that PCAO, to include one Ken Janes, on maintaining this LIE that Peasley manufactured! These Liars, and Cheaters, on March 03, 1980, set out to stage a crime scene. Peasley, Janes, Steve Bunting(TPD) and others, were bent on railroading innocent person’s. AGAIN………
ALAN LEE GLUTH did NOT shoot , and kill the victim, Bill Teller! John I SINGER
Louis Tayor’s case is not considered a “Garden Variety” murder case, such as, has my case been described as! Hmmmm…. Garden Variety? And that is why I am not entitled to a fair hearing! Right the Wrong, LaWall!!
signed:
Gregory A. Bottoni
It’s no wonder that “Rick” defends LaWall. Because “Rick” is Rick Unklesbay.
There’s another “real world” issue… the fact that prison conditions are so bad, that waiting for a new trial to be conducted could have meant death or serious injury for Taylor. How is that a choice?
In prison, there is NO choice, but, to survive! None of you have witnessed the horror of a killing by prison gangs! None of you!! Then sent back to “free” society, and cast to the curb, and told, there is no room at the inn for you! And the Liars and the cheaters………..
Rick Unklsebay is a LIAR, and aCheater of the first kind! He will call me “guilty as sin” in public, but, will not debate the merits of a case that was wrongfully prosecuted by Kenneth J. Peasley. WHY??? Because Peasley, and Unklsebay, LaWall, and the rest of them, are forever linked to this debacle they created! And they insist that the jury spoke! Peasley intentionally mislead the jury, and that jury did not have the facts, the true facts, to make a good decision. Blame that on Peasley! Exonerate Bottoni, and Gluth Ms. county attorney, and Rick! John I SINGER shot and killed the victim, and Peasley let him walk. You can’t handle the truth!
Umm, right AJ, that’s why I signed the post Rick instead of say Bob or something. Must be the investigative journalist coming out in you. elbeso, I understand the point you want to make but is there evidence the jury was biased simply because it was 1970 and the defendant’s race? By the way, the trial was in Phoenix.
Unklsebay continues this, ” the jury spoke “, thing!
When there are LIES, and CHEATING, by the State, the jury does not get all of the truth! IE., Kenneth J. Peasley’s LIES to the jury 1980, and retrial 1981, (St. v ALAN LEE GLUTH and GREGORY A. BOTTONI), speaks loudly to how a jury cannot make the “right” decision, because of these corrupt attorneys LIES, and CHEATING! Then, to allow a “shooter-Murderer, to walk free, right out of that TPD, on March 10, 1980, under the color of 13-304, speaks largely to the character, and, or, lack of character, by these clowns over there at that PCAO!
Yes, they are LIARS, and CHEATERS, the Peasley’s, and the LaWall’s, and Unklsebay’s of the world. Then, they make the victim of their LIES, look like they are mentally ill, or “sick”, as the county attorney’s office has shouted at me personally! “Guilty as sin”??? Unklsebay??? The Arizona Supreme Court, in 2004, made it PERFECTLY clear, who the “sick” one was! Kenneth Jack PEASLEY, Disbarred, Dishonored, and Disgraced before his peer group! And in mitigation, before the disciplinary committee, Unklsebay testify’s to his friend’s(Peasley) good character, and worth as an attorney! Guess what??? Every word that Unklsebay spewed out of his pie-hole, in favor of his friend Peasley, was pushed back on every point, and Peasley was DISBARRED for unethical behavior! Now, that begs the question? What does that say about Unksebay’s character? Testify for a pathological LIAR, and CHEATER, then come back here and try to convince us that PEASLEY never LIED in any proceedings! Bwaahaaahaaa! Unkslebay! You are a LIAR, a CHEATER, and every other kind of vermin that exisits.
UNCONDITIONAL EXONERATION for GLUTH, and BOTTONI, NOW!
Then, and, only then, may I have some respect for that office, the TPD, and that one known as Ken JANES, another LIAR, and CHEATER employed there! Signed: Justice Betrayed, Gregory A. BOTTONI P.S. And Unksebay, i will always use my name, because you do not scare me, with your cell phone calls to the TPD! Every time I see you downtown, I will remind you, that you, and the rest of that vermin in there, are LIARS, and CHEATERS!! I beg you to have a sit down discussion with me! You will LOSE< like most LOSERS(Peasley) I beat him at trial! I WON, not you Unksebay, not you!
Wow. It’s so refreshing that a forum exists for calm, rational, intelligent discussion in Tucson.
Rick begs for civility! “Refreshing”, he states! I would like nothing more, Rick Unklsebay, if that is trully you, of the Pima County Attorney’s office, to have that, whatever you called it, discussion about why you, and LaWall, refuse to charge John I SINGER, dob, 05-01-1957, with the shooting, and Murder, of the victim, Bill Teller, on March 03, 1980, at 719. S. 4th Ave.
Peasley tried to answer at trial, why a Paraphigm test is not reliable for determining if a person fired a gun within 24 hours of the test. One would think that an “honest” attorney, and investigator, would want that very answer, before charging someone, wrongfully, with Felony-Murder! Never mind the eye-witness’s, Enrico Laos, and, Michelle Kimble, who picked SINGER out of a police line-up, as the person who was at the door, with myself, and Gluth! Then Enrico Laos tells the TPD, at 4th and Broadway, that night, ” “No, neither of those person’s(Bottoni or Gluth) was the person I(Laos) saw run by me with a gun”…, just mere seconds after the fatal shot was fired by SINGER!
Now, again, for the record Unklsebay, Peasley is a LIAR, and CHEATER……….. and he, Janes, Bunting, and more likely than not, you, and Barbara, are complicit in this unbelievable cover-up!
34 YEARS, and counting, that my Constitutional right to a fair hearing, has been denied to me! And you, and you alone Unklsebay, and, LaWall, are responsible for the on-going PTSD, and associated nightmares, and social outcast that I, Gregory A> Bottoni, have become. UNCONDITIONAL EXONERATION that goes all the way back to the LIE that started the descent of this case for PEASLEY. Then you LaWall, charge the right person(SINGER) with murder of Bill Teller! In LAW, they call that K.I.S
Gregory A. BOTTONI
Rick,
The responses from others and your response show the disparity between what the PCAO thinks of itself and what many in the public does, not to mention your choice to sign off as “Rick” and not “Rick Unklesbay” and not mention at all, much less in passing, that you might be connected to the PCAO and, thus, have some bias.
It’s understandable that you might be defensive. After all, you can’t control the news about the PCAO as you used to. There is no biased, unethical morning daily reporter to spoon-feed events that are pro-LaWall and who would never even pose any tough questions of such an institution because of her personal history and there is no afternoon daily whose top editors are your drinking buddies who would gladly stop any tough questions from being asked or answered.
You, as a prosecutor, know that you have a higher standard. You have had a person’s liberty and, literally, life in your hands. No matter what your experiences have been with reporters and editors biased in your favor, journalists are part of what’s called the Fourth Estate, established to question the government, which holds all the power, to make sure things are done correctly, including that pesky institution called Justice.
(How’s that investigation of David White coming, by the way? Have you even started? Oh, wait, you found no other instances of exculpatory evidence being withheld, that’s right. But you won’t show what you did to show that to someone who asked. We’re just supposed to take your word. Why not blame Louis Taylor’s case on David White and be done with it?)
If a reporter says, “Your office has been proven by the courts to have abused its power (Peasley and White), so how can we be sure that you’re not abusing it now?” The response of a government agency that is NOT abusing power would be to answer the question in a way that assures the agency is not abusing the power. And, possibly, show a bit of evidence.
The actions of an agency that is hiding something would be to go running to your drinking buddies to stop the question from being answered and to accuse the questioner of being “unfair”. Every attorney worth her or his salt knows if you can’t attack the evidence, you attack the person.
And, Mark Kimble and Jennifer Boice, if you’re reading this, if a drinking buddy (whose friendship seeks to influence the news … Gannett has something in its ethical rules to say about such friendships, doesn’t it?) comes to you saying a reporter under your supervision has asked a question that makes him and his agency sweat … the answer from an innocent person to “How often are you beating the wife?” is not to stop the question from being answered, but to see what the answer is. Because, if someone is not beating their wife, the answer would be, “I never have beaten my wife and there is not any evidence that I ever have.” It’s not the act itself, but the cover-up …
This Pima County Attorney’s office, Through its agents, Kenneth J. PEASLEY, and, along with other co-conspirators from the investagatory arm of the PCAO, the TPD(Pat KELLY), sought to intentionally violate the Constitutional Rights of Alan Lee GLUTH, and Gregory A. BOTTONI.
That violation continues today, as of this writing. Kenneth J. PEASLEY, Stven BUNTING, and Steve BOGARD, sought BOTTONI out in August of 1980 at the Pima County Jail, shortly before trial, and presented a “plea bargain”, that would have BOTTONI falsely testify to the jury, that GLUTH did the shooting on March 03, 1980, that GLUTH had a “white towel” wrapped around his hand, and fired the fatal shot, that killed the victim in this case, Bill TELLER of Texas. Simply would NOT happen!! I would not agree to falsely testify to a jury, and PEASLEY made the rude comment that, he(PEASLEY) “would take me down at trial, for 25 years to LIFE”! My response was, ” bring it on”!
That begs the question? Why would PEASLEY seek Bottoni out to wrongfully testify to the jury??? The answer rests in the Arizona Supreme Court’s opinion of 2004, concerning PEASLEY’S disbarrment! The ” DISHONEST MOTIVE ” of PEASLEY’S, wasto have BOTTONI, who was a NON-FELON at that time of trial, falsely testify, and have credibility with jury, thus insuring a wrongful conviction, and possible death sentence for GLUTH!
NOW, since PEASLEY’S disbarrment, Rick UNKLSEBAY was assigned the case CR-00002883. BOTTONI redily admits that he has been requesting UNCONDITIONAL EXONERATION since BOTTONI’S release from prison in 1989.
There is no other way out of this Farce and Mockery of Justice, that PEASLEY, and his boss, NEELY, and others manufactured! UNCONDITIONAL EXONERATION FOR GREGORY A. BOTTONI, AND ALAN LERE GLUTH.
Barbara LAWALL, then you bring SINGER dob 05-01-1957, and rightfully charge SINGER with murder of Bill TELLER on March 03, 1980. K.I.S.S.
Signed: Gregory A. BOTTONI
Great expose’ in the Arizona Republic this past Sunday-Wednesday about prosecutorial mis-conduct in this State! To see words printed again concerning Ken Peasley’s disbarment in 2004, has again, had an impact on my level of anger, and bitterness.
How can these reporters continue to call Peasley a LIAR, and CHEATER, and the case that Peasley maliciously, and wrongfully prosecuted from March 03, 1980, still fester like an open wound. What do I have to do to convince this County Attorney LaWall, that Peasley allowed a farce and mockery of justice to happen? That Peasley staged the “crime scene”, with his co-worker’s Ken Janes, and Steven Bunting(TPD), and then tried to “buy” Gregory A. Bottoni’s false testimony, so that Peasley could get a wrongful death sentence against an innocent man! When one starts the lie, there is no way out except to continue the lie! And that is exactly what Peasley has done in this case. Once he set the theory that Gluth pulled the trigger, there was no turning back for Peasley, and that is why Peasley LOST the case at two trials! I WON! Not the LIAR Peasley!
Peasley lives, because he is a LIAR. LaWall, and her chief criminal prosecutor, Unklsebay, absoloutely adore Peasley. Why? He was caught lying, and cheating! Why do they defend the loser? The scrub Peasley! Sure, sure he’s dead now, and Bottoni should not be so angry anymore! Yeah Right!
LaWall… EXONERATE Bottoni, and GLUTH for the murder that John I Singer committed!