Recent Articles About Death Row's Donald Beardslee

SAN MATEO COUNTY
Murderer scheduled to die Jan. 19
Federal appeals court grants one last hearing

Jaxon Van Derbeken, Chronicle Staff Writer

Friday, December 17, 2004

A San Mateo County judge who found on Thursday morning that a condemned killer had exhausted all of his appeals scheduled the man to die by lethal injection next month. By afternoon, however, the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco intervened and granted the inmate a new appeal.

Donald Beardslee, 61, remains scheduled to die Jan. 19. He has been on California's Death Row for 20 years, after his conviction for murdering two young women in 1981 in San Mateo County in what prosecutors said was a drug- related murder.

On Thursday morning, a San Mateo County judge set the Jan. 19 execution, saying his appeal rights appeared to have been exhausted.

"Mr. Beardslee's crimes were vicious, heinous and callous," Judge Mark Forcum said. "I think the victim's families deserve closure after 23 years."

But in the afternoon, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco granted Beardslee's lawyers one last time to challenge his death sentence, and set a hearing date for later this month.

The court did not issue a stay of execution, however, saying it wanted legal arguments completed by Dec. 22.

At the time of the killings of Patty Geddling, 23, and Stacie Benjamin, 19, Beardslee was on parole for a murder in Missouri.

Beardslee's lawyers expressed relief at the federal court's action, while San Mateo County prosecutors were disheartened.

"It's a victory, because it preserved an appeal," said Michael Laurence, the executive director of the Habeas Corpus Resource Center who was appointed in October to represent Beardslee in court cases and clemency issues.

"It undermines the state's claim that they are entitled to execute Mr. Beardslee."

Assistant District Attorney Martin Murray said the appeals should be over by now.

"It just is not fair to the families to allow them to believe there is going to be closure and for this stuff to happen," Murray said. "The court needs to know the need for finality of their decisions."

Beardslee's legal battles have lasted two decades, and he had lost all his state appeals and appeared to have lost all his federal appeals when the Ninth Circuit issued its ruling late Thursday.

At issue now is whether Beardslee should be able to challenge the death penalty based on earlier court determinations that invalidated three out of the four special circumstances alleged against him. Special circumstances are the qualifying facts that could merit the death penalty.

The special circumstances that had been tossed out include one count of multiple murder -- as the same allegation was found to be redundant for having been filed twice, once for each victim, and two counts of murdering a witness.

The courts have since found that witness murders have to involve victims slated to appear in court to testify, and the facts in the Beardslee case did not meet the courts' definition.

The defense argues that the jury may have been swayed by the sheer volume of special circumstances -- most now invalidated -- in coming to a punishment of death.

The state court rejected the multiple-charge argument as a harmless error. At one point, the Ninth Circuit had refused to hear that issue. Then, in July, the Ninth Circuit allowed a defendant facing death a new trial on the death sentence based on identical circumstances. The Ninth Circuit now must decide whether Beardslee should be able to appeal in light of the July ruling.

Besides the favorable court ruling, the defense has cited circumstances they say make the death penalty in this case unjust.

Beardslee suffered a blow on his head when a tree fell on him while he was in the Air Force. The defense said the near-fatal blow caused brain damage, as did a car accident when he was 16.

Laurence said that in the double murder, Beardslee was urged to kill the victims by two co-defendants, who were not sentenced to death.

The death penalty was reinstated in California in 1978, but no executions were carried out until 1992. Since then, 10 inmates have been executed in the state, with the last in January 2002.

This is the third time an execution date has been set for Beardslee.

Murray wondered why it took so long for the courts to consider all the issues.

"I understand the need to thoroughly litigate these cases," he said. "But we can build rocket ships and send a man to the moon in less than 22 years. I don't think it takes that long to read a transcript."

Murray said that on Thursday he met Geddling's daughter, who was 4 years old when her mother was slain, and she gave him a letter to send to the governor, who will consider clemency.

"She thinks it's time for closure."

E-mail Jaxon Van Derbeken at jvanderbeken [at] sfchronicle.com.

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