Update: One Year Later
A year after San Joaquin County prosecutors accused the investigator in the Morales case of falsifying 6 declarations, she's been charged with that and a whole lot more.
(For background, see my blog, Who Is Responsible for the Forged Morales Declarations?, of 2/17/06)
Fraud in death row cases is alleged
Los Angeles Times
February 22, 2007
State prosecutors on Wednesday charged a San Joaquin, Calif., private investigator with forging and falsifying documents to help four death row inmates in what authorities called one of the largest frauds on the justice system in California history.
The 17-page criminal complaint filed against Kathleen Culhane in Sacramento County Superior Court capped a one-year investigation triggered by suspicious declarations submitted by Culhane in the clemency bid of death row inmate Michael Morales.
In all, Culhane allegedly filed questionable declarations on behalf of 11 jurors, two witnesses, two court interpreters and one police officer while working as a private investigator for the state-funded Habeas Corpus Resource Center in San Francisco and in private practice between November 2002 and February 2006, Senior Assistant Atty. Gen. Mike Farrell said.
The documents were filed in the cases of death row inmates Morales; Vicente Figueroa Benavides, convicted by a Kern County jury of the 1991 murder, rape and sodomy of a 21-month-old; Christian Monterroso, convicted by an Orange County jury of the 1991 murders of Tarsem Singh and Ashokkumar Patel; and Jose Guerra, convicted by a Los Angeles County jury of the 1990 rape and murder of Kathleen Powell.
The case against Culhane began when San Joaquin prosecutors, in arguments submitted to Schwarzenegger, named her as the Morales investigator who "supposedly interviewed five of the six jurors" and discovered they had a change of heart.
(For background, see my blog, Who Is Responsible for the Forged Morales Declarations?, of 2/17/06)
Fraud in death row cases is alleged
Los Angeles Times
February 22, 2007
State prosecutors on Wednesday charged a San Joaquin, Calif., private investigator with forging and falsifying documents to help four death row inmates in what authorities called one of the largest frauds on the justice system in California history.
The 17-page criminal complaint filed against Kathleen Culhane in Sacramento County Superior Court capped a one-year investigation triggered by suspicious declarations submitted by Culhane in the clemency bid of death row inmate Michael Morales.
In all, Culhane allegedly filed questionable declarations on behalf of 11 jurors, two witnesses, two court interpreters and one police officer while working as a private investigator for the state-funded Habeas Corpus Resource Center in San Francisco and in private practice between November 2002 and February 2006, Senior Assistant Atty. Gen. Mike Farrell said.
The documents were filed in the cases of death row inmates Morales; Vicente Figueroa Benavides, convicted by a Kern County jury of the 1991 murder, rape and sodomy of a 21-month-old; Christian Monterroso, convicted by an Orange County jury of the 1991 murders of Tarsem Singh and Ashokkumar Patel; and Jose Guerra, convicted by a Los Angeles County jury of the 1990 rape and murder of Kathleen Powell.
The case against Culhane began when San Joaquin prosecutors, in arguments submitted to Schwarzenegger, named her as the Morales investigator who "supposedly interviewed five of the six jurors" and discovered they had a change of heart.
posted by Consigliere at 9:44 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home