A judge who sentenced a California man to death more than two decades ago for murder has asked Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to grant the inmate clemency just weeks before his scheduled execution.
In a letter to the governor, Ventura County Superior Court Judge Charles McGrath said Michael Morales should be spared the death penalty because testimony by a jailhouse informant used to determine his death sentence was now under question.
Morales, 46, is scheduled to die Feb. 21 at San Quentin State Prison for the 1981 killing of Terri Winchell of Lodi, California.
McGrath’s letter supports Morales’ clemency petition filed Friday by attorneys David Senior and Kenneth Starr. Starr, former independent council in President Bill Clinton’s impeachment, declined to comment about the Morales case Saturday.
The attorneys say jailhouse informant Bruce Samuelson lied when he testified that Morales told him about the murder in detail and how he planned the killing. This testimony provided evidence that Morales was “lying in wait” to kill Winchell -- the special circumstances needed for McGrath to hand down a death sentence.
Years later at another court hearing, Samuelson told state attorneys he and Morales spoke in Spanish to avoid being overheard by other inmates. According to Morales’ attorneys, their client does not speak Spanish.
“Thus, it was factually impossible for Mr. Morales to have made any of the statements attributed to him by Samuelson,” the petition said.
Court documents show Morales was recruited by his cousin Rick Ortega to kill Winchell when Ortega discovered she was seeing his male lover. Witnesses at the trial said she was found half naked, and bludgeoned and stabbed numerous times.
Morales was convicted of the murder. It was unclear how much time he would serve in prison if he receives clemency.
If executed, Morales would be the third in California in as many months.
