Post by CCADP on Aug 16, 2005 6:45:57 GMT -5
From NC Times
San Diego murder conviction, death sentence upheld
By: SCOTT MARSHALL - Staff Writer
NORTH COUNTY ---- The state Supreme Court on Monday upheld the convictions and death sentences of a man convicted of murdering four women ---- including a Carlsbad couple's daughter ---- in a statewide crime spree in the spring of 1984.
A pair of decisions Monday from the state's highest court ---- involving separate appeals of convictions from San Diego and Los Angeles ----- came 15 years after Dean Phillip Carter was sent to death row and resolved the first, automatic appeals in his case.
George Cullins, 82, of Carlsbad, whose daughter, Janette Anne Cullins, was one of Carter's victims, said Monday that he and his wife must now wait for appeals through the federal courts, which he said could take another 12 years based on other capital cases.
"I just won't believe this is going to happen until he's actually executed," Cullins said.
Carter's appellate attorney, Phillip H. Cherney, could not be reached Monday for comment.
In one of the columns he has written from death row since 1995 that have been posted on the Internet, Carter wrote that he "vehemently" denies committing the crimes for which he was sentenced to death.
Carter was convicted and sentenced to death in 1991 for the April 1984 murder of Janette Cullins, 24, who was strangled and stuffed into a closet at her Pacific Beach apartment. A year earlier, he had been sentenced to death in Los Angeles Superior Court for the murders of three women in Los Angeles just days before Cullins was killed.
Prosecutors in Alameda County initially charged Carter with an April 1984 Oakland murder as well, but dismissed that case after he was sentenced to death for the others, documents filed with the Supreme Court stated.
Carter also was convicted of raping a woman in San Diego 18 days before Janette Cullins was strangled, and raping another woman at knifepoint in Ventura County on March 27, 1984, one of the Supreme Court opinions stated.
Police found items belonging to each of the murder victims in the car that Carter was driving when he was arrested in Arizona on April 17, 1984, and a bank surveillance video showed him withdrawing money from Janette Cullins' bank account the day her body was found, according to court documents.
George Cullins has been an outspoken advocate of the death penalty and efforts to expedite the appeals process for years since his daughter's murder. Monday's Supreme Court action will not lessen his work to change the legal system, he said.
"I can't look at my daughter's picture on the wall without doing something," Cullins said. "I can't insult her by sitting on I disagree and doing nothing.
"You could execute Carter 15 times and it still wouldn't bring Janette back, so I work on the thought process that if I keep poking holes, maybe we'll reach a point where the murder rate declines again."
Cullins contends that the judicial system and state lawmakers generally are opposed to the death penalty, and that murder rates in California have been at their lowest when executions occurred more quickly.
Death Penalty Focus of California, a nonprofit group that seeks to abolish the capital punishment, contends on its Web site that studies have shown that the death penalty does not deter crime.
Today, the appeals process for California's death row inmates takes years. The last three inmates executed in California spent more than 20 years each on death row. Of the 12 death row inmates executed since the death penalty was reinstated in the state in 1978, 11 spent more than 13 years on death row.
About 100 of the 645 inmates on California's death row have been there 20 years or more, according to the California Department of Corrections list of condemned inmates.
As George Cullins and other death penalty supporters urge shortening the appeals process to execute death row inmates sooner after their convictions, two state lawmakers have introduced legislation that would impose a moratorium on executions in California until 2009. That bill is pending in the state Assembly's public safety committee.
Contact staff writer Scott Marshall at (760) 631-6623 or smarshall@nctimes.com.
San Diego murder conviction, death sentence upheld
By: SCOTT MARSHALL - Staff Writer
NORTH COUNTY ---- The state Supreme Court on Monday upheld the convictions and death sentences of a man convicted of murdering four women ---- including a Carlsbad couple's daughter ---- in a statewide crime spree in the spring of 1984.
A pair of decisions Monday from the state's highest court ---- involving separate appeals of convictions from San Diego and Los Angeles ----- came 15 years after Dean Phillip Carter was sent to death row and resolved the first, automatic appeals in his case.
George Cullins, 82, of Carlsbad, whose daughter, Janette Anne Cullins, was one of Carter's victims, said Monday that he and his wife must now wait for appeals through the federal courts, which he said could take another 12 years based on other capital cases.
"I just won't believe this is going to happen until he's actually executed," Cullins said.
Carter's appellate attorney, Phillip H. Cherney, could not be reached Monday for comment.
In one of the columns he has written from death row since 1995 that have been posted on the Internet, Carter wrote that he "vehemently" denies committing the crimes for which he was sentenced to death.
Carter was convicted and sentenced to death in 1991 for the April 1984 murder of Janette Cullins, 24, who was strangled and stuffed into a closet at her Pacific Beach apartment. A year earlier, he had been sentenced to death in Los Angeles Superior Court for the murders of three women in Los Angeles just days before Cullins was killed.
Prosecutors in Alameda County initially charged Carter with an April 1984 Oakland murder as well, but dismissed that case after he was sentenced to death for the others, documents filed with the Supreme Court stated.
Carter also was convicted of raping a woman in San Diego 18 days before Janette Cullins was strangled, and raping another woman at knifepoint in Ventura County on March 27, 1984, one of the Supreme Court opinions stated.
Police found items belonging to each of the murder victims in the car that Carter was driving when he was arrested in Arizona on April 17, 1984, and a bank surveillance video showed him withdrawing money from Janette Cullins' bank account the day her body was found, according to court documents.
George Cullins has been an outspoken advocate of the death penalty and efforts to expedite the appeals process for years since his daughter's murder. Monday's Supreme Court action will not lessen his work to change the legal system, he said.
"I can't look at my daughter's picture on the wall without doing something," Cullins said. "I can't insult her by sitting on I disagree and doing nothing.
"You could execute Carter 15 times and it still wouldn't bring Janette back, so I work on the thought process that if I keep poking holes, maybe we'll reach a point where the murder rate declines again."
Cullins contends that the judicial system and state lawmakers generally are opposed to the death penalty, and that murder rates in California have been at their lowest when executions occurred more quickly.
Death Penalty Focus of California, a nonprofit group that seeks to abolish the capital punishment, contends on its Web site that studies have shown that the death penalty does not deter crime.
Today, the appeals process for California's death row inmates takes years. The last three inmates executed in California spent more than 20 years each on death row. Of the 12 death row inmates executed since the death penalty was reinstated in the state in 1978, 11 spent more than 13 years on death row.
About 100 of the 645 inmates on California's death row have been there 20 years or more, according to the California Department of Corrections list of condemned inmates.
As George Cullins and other death penalty supporters urge shortening the appeals process to execute death row inmates sooner after their convictions, two state lawmakers have introduced legislation that would impose a moratorium on executions in California until 2009. That bill is pending in the state Assembly's public safety committee.
Contact staff writer Scott Marshall at (760) 631-6623 or smarshall@nctimes.com.