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Death Row Artist James
P. Anderson,
A Case Of Reasonable
Doubt.
By STEVE ARGUE
Artist James P. Anderson has
sat in prison, mostly
on death row, for the past 22 years.
From the prison
cells where men are warehoused to die
at San Quentin
State Prison, his paintings are a reaffirmation
of
beauty and humanity. James P.
Anderson's painting
"Desire" seems to me to show a pathway
to his desire
to live, dream, and create under a
system that simply
wants him to die.
Anderson was convicted
of the murder of two women
in 1979, but maintains he is innocent.
If James Anderson is innocent
he's in good company.
In the year 2000 alone 58 death
row inmates had their
convictions overturned largely as a
result of new DNA
evidence being brought to light.
Still prosecutors
have fought against the use of DNA
evidence to
overturn old convictions, even when
the lives of
innocent people are on the line.
James P. Anderson has not
had the benefit of new
DNA evidence coming to light, especially
with the
crime scene never having been secured,
but a number of
major questions do cast doubts on the
prosecutions
version of events.
James P. Anderson is a
black man. He was convicted
by an all white jury in Riverside County,
California.
All white juries do not understand
issues that Blacks
face in America like police, prosecutorial,
and
judicial racism. In addition
death penalty juries are
always more likely to convict because
all who oppose
the death penalty are excluded from
these juries,
making them juries that are more biased
towards
supporting the prosecution. An
all white death
penalty jury is in fact one that is
likely to contain
a number of people who think that all
Black people are
criminals, making these jurors incapable
of weighing
the evidence even if it is presented
fairly. For a
Black man in racist America, an all
white death
penalty jury is not a jury of his peers,
and is a
violation of his constitutional rights.
The wealthy have the benefit
of being defended by
the best legal representation money
can buy. James P.
Anderson was defended by a public defender,
Keith
Long, who was suspended from the bar
while working on
his case. He was suspended after
not showing up in
court for clients that had payed him
to defend them.
A couple reasons he gave for not showing
up were that
he was an alcoholic and that he often
considered
committing suicide. Incompetent
attorneys are very
common in death penalty cases, but
it is almost
impossible to get a new trial based
on ineffective
assistance. The systems message
is clear, the lives
of the poor and working class are cheep
in America,
justice in only for those who can afford
it.
Anderson maintains that
he was framed-up by the
actual killer who he says is Fred Anders.
Anderson
says Fred Anders, a white man, was
angered by the
interracial relationship between his
sister, Sheila
Lynn Anders and James Anderson.
In addition Anderson
states that Fred Anders had the additional
motive to
frame him because Anderson had just
found out about
Fred Anders sexual assault of a 9-year
old girl.
The prosecution called
only one eyewitness to the
murders to testify, Fred Anders.
A crucial piece of
police evidence does back up Anderson's
claim that it
was Fred Anders who committed the crime,
a piece of
the murder weapon was found in Fred
Anders jacket
pocket. That section of the murder
weapon was a 3 to
4-foot piece of rope that forensically
attached to the
rope used to hang Louise Flanagan.
Also found in Fred
Anders pocket was a knife.
The District Attorney on
the case, Thomas Douglas,
told the jury that Fred Anders had
passed a polygraph
test with flying colors. Later,
under questioning,
that same DA admitted he had lied,
stating that no
polygraph was given, even though his
statement during
the trial is part of the court record.
Fred Anders was the brother
of Anderson's
girlfriend, Sheila Lynn Anders.
All three had been
traveling together although Anderson
didn't really
know Fred Anders. James Anderson
informed this
reporter that it was while the three
were driving that
he found out the extreme prejudice
of Fred Anders.
Detective B. Byers wrote in his police
report that
Sheila Lynn Anders had stated that
her blood brother,
Fred Anders, and not James P. Anderson,
had committed
the murders. She later changed
her story after the
prosecution, in violation of federal
law, allowed Fred
Anders to visit her in jail.
Suddenly she changed her
story and backed up her brother, but
she wasn't called
as a witness by the prosecution.
Obviously her
testimony would have been useless to
the prosecution
with her earlier statements to Detective
Byers being
on record, but she was now useless
to the defense as
an eyewitness.
Particularly damaging to
the defense of James P.
Anderson was the testimony of Deborah
Baros claiming
that she was an eyewitness to another
murder committed
by James P. Anderson in 1978.
This was a murder of a
gas station attendant named Jack Mackey.
Yet while
the prosecution claims that her statements
are consistent with evidence, the fact
of the matter
is that she gave 2 different versions
as to what
happened in taped interviews.
In addition Deborah
Baros claims that James P. Anderson
communicates with
her telepathically, she states that
she remembers many
things through dreams, and claims that
her imaginary
son Anthony was riding with them in
the car when they
committed the murders. The prosecution
admits that
Deborah's son Anthony was imaginary
based on various
evidence, but considered her a good
witness even with
her unable to state one version of
what took place.
Obviously Deborah Baros could not differentiate
between reality and her own dreams
and hallucinations,
and the prosecutions use of her in
a trial to put a
man on death row was criminal activity
on their part.
Deborah Baros is under
the powerful medications
premarin, Tylenol with codeine, fioricet,
xanax,
darvocet, amitriptyline, mellaril,
mebaral, and
prophenol. She is taking these
medications as a
result of "mental anguish" caused by
a New Hampshire
court taking her real children away
in 1987 for her
alleged sexual abuse of them.
It is very damaging
to have someone come forward
and claim to be a witness to the defendant
carrying
out a similar crime to the one they
are being accused.
This is true even when the witness
is not very
credible and other evidence in the
crime are purely
circumstantial. The accusations
of similar crimes
weigh heavy in the minds of the jurors,
making them
less apt to rule in favor of any reasonable
doubts
they may have.
For police motivated by
racism, other political
motivations, corruption, or just a
desire to close a
case the manipulation of mentally vulnerable
people
for false testimony has occurred in
other cases. In
the case of Leonard Peltier the FBI
coerced a mentally
ill South Dakota woman named Myrtle
Poor Bear to
testify against him in order to gain
Leonard Peltier's
extradition from Canada. Myrtle
Poor Bear says that
the FBI threatened to take her children
away. She
says the FBI also showed her pictures
of Anna Mae with
her hands cut off. Anna Mae was
an Indian activist
who is widely believed to have been
murdered by the
FBI. Myrtle Poor Bear says that
after the FBI showed
her the gruesome pictures of Anna Mae
the FBI told her
that she would look even worse when
they were done
with her, that they would put her through
a meat
grinder and no one would even be able
to recognize
her.
Under this kind of intimidation
Myrtle Poor Bear
testified that she was the girlfriend
of Leonard
Peltier, even though they had never
met, and that she
was a witness to Peltier's involvement
in killing two
FBI agents, even though she was not.
Myrtle Poor Bear
later recanted this testimony.
There is no evidence of
such manipulation in the
particular case of the testimony of
Deborah Baros, but
we should understand that someone like
Deborah Baros
would be susceptible to manipulation.
The use of only two eyewitnesses:
one who does not
even know the difference between reality
and dreams,
and another who potentially carried
out the two other
murders and who was carrying a piece
of the murder
weapon in his pocket raises serious
questions in this
case. The fact that the prosecution
did not call a
third eyewitness, Sheila Lynn Anders,
because she
originally had said that James P. Anderson
was
innocent, is also telling of the weak
case against
James P. Anderson.
The standard for guilt
is supposed to be guilty
beyond a reasonable doubt, yet an all
white pro-death
penalty jury raised on the prejudices
of the
mainstream media does not usually have
a proper grip
of reality to understand what a reasonable
doubt is
and why it is important. The
fact that juries are
selected in death penalty cases, eliminating
all who
have the sense to oppose the death
penalty, is one
more reason why the death penalty should
be abolished.
The flimsy evidence used to convict
James P. Anderson
and how unreliable convictions really
are should make
everyone question the death penalty.
Death is
permanent. Besides the fact that
the prosecution
never proved a reasonable case against
James P.
Anderson, the contribution he is making
to the world
through his art is another reason James
P. Anderson
must live.
When I spoke to James P.
Anderson on the phone from
San Quinton he told me that before
all this happened
he had no idea how corrupt the system
really is.
Really the death penalty is a weapon
of terror held by
a racist system, and nobody is safe.
Adding to the
inhumane treatment of being on death
row, James P.
Anderson has not been able to get proper
medical
attention for a condition that has
impaired his sight
and gives him constant headaches.
While the abolition of
the death penalty will not
assure justice, there will be no justice
as long as
there is a death penalty.
The racist death penalty must be abolished!
Death penalty juries must be abolished!
We demand proper medical attention
for James P.
Anderson!
Free James P. Anderson!
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