Shadow Vigilantes

by Paul H. Robinson

  Cane is released. His killing of Claude Nix goes unpunished.

  Retrial of a Meth Addict Who Murdered a Crying Baby Barred Despite His Subsequent Confession

  In 1991 Michael Lane is dating single mother Jennifer Watts.64 The couple live together in Utah with Watts's two-year-old child, PJ. While watching the baby, Land gets high on meth and kills the child. He places the dead baby back in his crib. When Watts arrives home, she is overcome with grief and immediately calls the police. Lane tells Watts that he has no idea what happened to PJ, and she believes his story. However, the police consider him the primary suspect. Lane is arrested and put on trial for the murder. During the trial, Watts, believing Lane's claims of innocence, supports Lane in court. Lane keeps denying any involvement, and his story is not contradicted by the medical testimony because the doctors disagree about some aspects of the injuries. The jury deliberates for four hours because a lone juror does not believe Lane's story, but eventually she changes her vote. Lane is acquitted of the murder charge and allowed to walk free.

  Nearly fifteen years later, in August 2005, Lane arranges a meeting with his local bishop during which he confesses that he did indeed kill PJ Watts. The bishop urges Lane to turn himself in to the authorities and to face the consequences for his actions. Following the bishop's advice, Lane says good-bye to his friends and family and leaves his central Utah home to turn himself in to authorities. When he arrives at the police station, Lane asks to speak to homicide detectives about PJ's murder and confesses everything.65 The police officers tell him that he cannot plead guilty and be convicted of the murder because of double jeopardy. This comes as a shock to Lane, who is unaware of that legal doctrine. Moreover, since Lane never testified at his trial in 1991, the detectives know that he cannot even be charged with perjury. Lane walks free without even a token punishment.

  Murderer-Rapist Acquitted on Perjured Alibi Cannot Be Prosecuted Despite Subsequent Confession

  In 1987, Irvin Bolden and his girlfriend, Joel Tillis, are both students at Northeast Louisiana University.66 Bolden feels Tillis's friendship with her former roommate Brenda Spicer intrudes on his time with his girlfriend. Bolden and Spicer have argued about the issue. Bolden seethes with resentment. He lures Spicer to an empty storage warehouse, rapes her, and then strangles her to death. Spicer's body is found the next day. Bolden is charged and brought to trial. He testifies that he had nothing to do with Spicer's death. The jury acquits him based on his perjured testimony. Bolden and Tillis move to Memphis, Tennessee, where a year later, Bolden strangles Tillis to death, wraps her body in red sheets, and dumps her along a highway in Arkansas. Investigators find her body in May 1989 but have no evidence to proceed with the case.

  In 1991 Bolden moves from Tennessee to New Jersey and begins a relationship with Jennifer Spurlock. The relationship ends, and Spurlock moves back home with her mother. When she returns to the residence that she and Bolden had recently shared and retrieves some belongings, Bolden files a complaint with New Jersey police, who arrest Spurlock the next day on burglary charges. Bolden is granted a restraining order against Spurlock. Facing burglary charges for her unauthorized entry into Bolden's apartment, Spurlock decides to tell police what Bolden had previously confessed to her: that he had killed Joel Tillis and Brenda Spicer. Bolden is called in to be interviewed by investigators. Believing he is cornered and out of options, he confesses to murdering both women. But while Bolden now admits that he killed Spicer, he cannot be retried for her murder because he was previously acquitted. Double jeopardy precludes bringing new charges, even though Bolden's perjury tainted the original trial.

  CHAPTER 1. FEAR, MEET INDIFFERENCE: BREACHING THE SOCIAL CONTRACT

  1. The facts of the narrative are drawn from the following sources: Rebecca Lopez, “Stalking Victim Heard Issuing Final 911 Plea before Her Death,” WFAA-TV Channel 8, March 6, 2013, http://www.wfaa.com/story/news/crime/2013/03/07/stalking-victim-heard-issuing-final-911-plea-before-her-death/14048898/ (accessed May 24, 2017); Scott Goldstein, “Dallas Woman Found Murdered 2 Days after Calling 911 for Help,” Dallas Morning News, August 20, 2013; Tanya Eiserer and Scott Goldstein, “Woman Murdered While on Phone with Dallas 911 Was Victim of Domestic Violence for Years,” Dallas Morning News—Crime Blog, March 8, 2013, http://crimeblog.dallasnews.com/2013/03/woman-murdered-while-on-phone-with-dallas-911-was-victim-of-domestic-violence-for-years.html (accessed May 24, 2017); Tonyita Hopkins, interview by Brian Williams, Rock Center, NBC, May 17, 2013, http://www.nbcnews.com/video/rock center/51922996 (accessed May 24, 2017); Tanya Eiserer, “911 Tape Reveals Horrific Last Minutes for Murdered Dallas Woman,” Dallas Morning News, March 6, 2013; Victoria Cavalier, “Woman Murdered While on 911 Call Not Found for Two Days,” New York Daily News, August 22, 2012.

  2. Goldstein, “Dallas Woman Found Murdered.”

  3. Lopez, “Stalking Victim.”

  4. Ibid.

  5. Ibid.

  6. Ibid.

  7. Eiserer, “911 Tape.”

  8. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996); John Locke, Second Treatise of Government (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1980); Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Du contrat social (Mineola, NY: Dover, 1967).

  9. Lopez, “Stalking Victim.”

  10. Eiserer, “911 Tape.”

  11. Hopkins, interview by Williams.

  12. Cavalier, “Woman Murdered.”

  13. For an account of subsequent events, see this book's postscript.

  14. The facts of the narrative are drawn from the following sources: J. Harry Jones, “Judge Revisits Day He Overruled Jury Verdict,” San Diego Union Tribune, November 21, 2004; Ernie Grimm, “Bullets for the Bully,” San Diego Reader, May 20, 2004; Fatal Encounters, “Road Kill,” first broadcast May 30, 2013, on Investigation Discovery Channel; Ron Donoho, “Law and Disorder,” San Diego Magazine, March 1997; Carey Goldberg, “Support Builds for Killer Who Broke Cycle of Fear,” New York Times, June 18, 1996.

  15. Donoho, “Law and Disorder.”

  16. Grimm, “Bullets for the Bully.”

  17. Ibid.

  18. Ibid.

  19. Ibid.

  20. Donoho, “Law and Disorder.”

  21. Grimm, “Bullets for the Bully.”

  22. See, for example, American Law Institute, Model Penal Code, §§ 3.06(1)(a) and (3)(d), 3.11(2) (Philadelphia, 1962).

  23. Ibid., § 3.04(2)(b)(ii); authorities collected in Paul H. Robinson, Matthew Kussmaul, Camber Stoddard, Ilya Rudyak, and Andreas Kuersten, “The American Criminal Code: General Defenses,” Journal of Legal Analysis 7, no. 1 (2015): 37–150.

  24. Under the common law formulation, the use of defensive force until the threat is imminent or the use of such force is “immediately necessary,” under the formulation of the Model Penal Code, § 3.40(1). Paul H. Robinson and Michael Cahill, Criminal Law, 2nd ed. (Fredrick, MD: Wolters Kluwer Law and Business, 2012), 306–307.

  25. The growing popularity of the “stand your ground” rule, which creates an exception in some situations to the Model Penal Code rule requiring retreat before use of deadly force, probably reflects such unhappiness. Robinson and Cahill, Criminal Law, pp. 331–32.

  26. Donoho, “Law and Disorder.”

  27. Ibid.

  28. Goldberg, “Support Builds for Killer.”

  29. Scott R. Drury and Dan Polsby, “Joint Stipulation,” Palm v. State.

  30. Ibid.

  31. Grimm, “Bullets for the Bully.” For an account of subsequent events, see this book's postscript.

  CHAPTER 2. THE MORAL VIGILANTE

  1. Clallam County (Washington State) prosecutor Deborah Kelly upon her 2012 prosecution of Patrick Drum for his murder of two previously convicted sex offenders. Lexi Pandell, “The Vigilante of Clallam County,” Atlantic, December 4, 2013, https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/12/the-vigilante-of-clallam-county/281968/ (accessed May 15, 2017); Laura L. Myers, “Patrick Drum Allegedly Killed Gary Blanton and Jerry Ray, Washington Sex Offenders,” Hu
ffington Post, June 5, 2012, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/05/patrick-drum-gary-blanton-jerry-ray-sex-offenders-washington_n_1572196.html (accessed May 15, 2017).

  2. Robert Kennedy, in remarks before the Joint Defense Appeal of the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith (Chicago, IL, June 21, 1961).

  3. The facts of the narrative are drawn from the following sources: Freedom Never Dies: The Legacy of Harry T. Moore, directed by Sandra Dickson and Churchill Roberts (Gainesville, FL: Documentary Institute, 2000), DVD; “Biographical Sketch of Harry Moore,” PBS, 2001, http://www.pbs.org/harrymoore/harry/mbio.html (accessed May 15, 2017); Monica Davey and Gretchen Ruethling, “After 50 Years, Emmett Till's Body Is Exhumed,” New York Times, June 2, 2005, https://nyti.ms/2jKO5Hv (accessed May 15, 2017); Charles M. Payne, I've Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996); “George Lee,” Northeastern University of Law, Civil Rights and Restorative Justice, 2014, http://nuweb9.neu.edu/civilrights/george lee/ (accessed May 15, 2017); Hugh Stephen Whitaker, “A Case Study in Southern Justice: The Emmett Till Case” (unpublished master's thesis, Florida State University, 2004), 7071, http://diginole.lib.fsu.edu/etd/7071 (accessed May 15, 2017); Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, “Lyndon B. Johnson: Televised Remarks Announcing the Arrest of Members of the Ku Klux Klan,” American Presidency Project, March 26, 1965, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=26836 (accessed May 15, 2017); “Emmett Till Biography,” Biography.com, http://www.biography.com/people/emmett-till-507515 (accessed May 15, 2017); “Civil Rights Martyrs,” Southern Poverty Law Center, 2014, https://www.splcenter.org/what-we-do/civil-rights-memorial/civil-rights-martyrs (accessed May 15, 2017).

  4. Freedom Never Dies.

  5. Davey and Ruethling, “After 50 Years.”

  6. “George Lee.”

  7. Ibid.

  8. Davey and Ruethling, “After 50 Years.”

  9. Payne, I've Got the Light of Freedom, p. 39.

  10. “Civil Rights Martyrs.”

  11. Whitaker, “Case Study in Southern Justice,” p. 102.

  12. Ibid., p. 103.

  13. Ibid., p. 102.

  14. “Emmett Till Biography.”

  15. Ibid.

  16. Ibid.

  17. Whitaker, “Case Study in Southern Justice,” p. viii.

  18. Ibid., p. 136.

  19. Ibid., p. 125.

  20. Ibid., p. 154.

  21. Ibid., p. 155.

  22. Ibid.

  23. Peters and Woolley, “Lyndon B. Johnson.”

  24. Ibid.

  25. The facts of the narrative are drawn from the following sources: Lance Hill, The Deacons for Defense: Armed Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004); Mike Marqusee, “By Any Means Necessary,” Nation, July 5, 2004; Douglas Martin, “Robert Hicks, Leader in Armed Rights Group, Dies at 81,” New York Times, April 24, 2010, p. A30; Ben Garett, “Profile: Deacons for Defense and Justice: The Use of Guns in the Civil Rights Movement,” About.com, http://civilliberty.about.com/od/guncontrol/a/Deacons-for-Defense.htm (accessed May 17, 2017); George E. Hardin, “Deacons Largely Uncredited for Defense of Civil Rights,” Tri-State Defender (Memphis, TN), May 20, 2010; Elwood Watson, “Deacons for Defense and Justice,” BlackPast.org, http://www.blackpast.org/?q=aah/deacons-defense-and-justice (accessed May 17, 2017).

  26. Marqusee, “By Any Means Necessary,” p. 1.

  27. Ibid., p. 2.

  28. Hardin, “Deacons Largely Uncredited.”

  29. Ibid.

  30. Ibid.

  31. Hill, Deacons for Defense, p. 162.

  32. Ibid., p. 231.

  33. The facts of the narrative are drawn from the following sources: Bernard DeVoto, The Year of Decision: 1846 (New York: Little, Brown, 1943); Mary Floyd Williams, History of the San Francisco Committee of Vigilance of 1851: A Study of Social Control on the California Frontier in the Days of the Gold Rush (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1921); Howard Shinn, Mining Camps: A Study in American Frontier Government (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1965); James Delavan, Notes on California and the Placers: How to Get There, and What to Do Afterwards; By One Who Has Been There (New York: H. Long & Bros., 1850); Robert M. Senkewicz, Vigilantes and the Gold Rush (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1985).

  34. DeVoto, Year of Decision, pp. 218–24.

  35. Senkewicz, Vigilantes and the Gold Rush, p. 14.

  36. Williams, History of the San Francisco Committee, p. 105.

  37. Ibid., p. 107.

  38. Ibid., p. 119.

  39. Ibid., p. 143.

  40. Ibid., p. 144.

  41. Williams, History of the San Francisco Committee.

  42. Ibid., p. 292.

  43. Ibid., p. 293.

  44. The facts of the narrative are drawn from the following sources: Ivan Sharpe, “Lavender Panthers: Homosexuals Rally in Self-Defense,” Calgary Herald, July 10, 1973, p. 14; “The Sexes: The Lavender Panthers,” Time, October 8, 1973; “Lavender Panthers Essay,” PSA, https://sites.google.com/site/psabrittanybrock/ (accessed May 17, 2017).

  45. Sharpe, “Lavender Panthers.”

  46. Ibid.

  47. Ibid.

  48. “The Sexes.”

  49. The facts of the narrative are drawn from the following sources: Soutik Biswas, “India's ‘Pink’ Vigilante Women,” BBC News, November 26, 2007, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7068875.stm; Amrit Dhillon, “Pretty in Pink, Female Vigilantes Also Handy with an Axe,” Age, December 15, 2007; Amana Fontanella-Khan, “India's Pink Vigilantes,” Daily Beast, February 26, 2011, http://www.thedailybeast.com/galleries/2011/02/25/india-s-pink-vigilantes (accessed May 17, 2017); G. M. B. Akash, “Quest for Justice—Vigilantes in Pink,” GMB Akash: A Photojournalist's Blog, http://gmbakash.wordpress.com/2012/09/22/quest-for-justice-vigilantes-in-pink/ (accessed May 17, 2017); Smriti Gopal, “Women's Gang in ‘Pink Saris,’” Desi Blitz, December 25, 2010, http://www.desiblitz.com/content/womens-gang-in-pink-saris (accessed May 17, 2017); “India's Pink Posse,” Asia Sentinel, January 18, 2008, http://www.asiasentinel.com/society/indias-pink-posse/ (accessed May 17, 2017); Tracy Clark-Flory, “Beware the Pink Posse: Hundreds of Women in Pink Saris Roam the Streets Carrying Sticks and Axes,” Salon, November 27, 2007, http://www.salon.com/2007/11/26/pink_posse/ (accessed May 17, 2017).

  50. Fontanella-Khan, “India's Pink Vigilantes”; Gopal, “Women's Gang in ‘Pink Saris’”; “India's Pink Posse.”

  51. Clark-Flory, “Beware the Pink Posse.”

  52. Dhillon, “Pretty in Pink.”

  53. Biswas, “India's ‘Pink’ Vigilante Women”; Akash, “Quest for Justice.”

  54. Dhillon, “Pretty in Pink.”

  55. Fontanella-Khan, “India's Pink Vigilantes.”

  CHAPTER 3: THE SHADOW VIGILANTES

  1. The facts of this story are derived from the following sources: “New York Crime Rates 1960–2012,” Disaster Center, http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/nycrime.htm (accessed June 7, 2017); George P. Fletcher, A Crime of Self Defense: Bernhard Goetz and the Law on Trial (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988); “65 Cent Fare Considered in Talks on Coping with Subway Crime,” New York Times, September 27, 1980, p. A1; Charles Hanley, “In Subway Crime, N.Y. Still Leads the World,” Los Angeles Times, March 17, 1985, http://articles.latimes.com/1985-03-17/news/mn-35322_1_subway-crime (accessed June 7, 2017); Downtown Safety Security and Economic Development (New York: Citizens Crime Commission of New York City, 1986), p. 148; “The Fear Hits Home: Ravitch Kin Are Not Night Riders,” New York Daily News, January 21, 1982, p. 4; Mark S. Feinman, “The New York Transit Authority in the 1980s,” NYCSubway.org, December 8, 2004, http://www.nycsubway.org/wiki/The_New_York_Transit_Authority_in_the_1980s#Crime_is_Still_High (accessed June 7, 2017); Otto Friedrich, “Not Guilty,” Time, June 29, 1987, p. 10; David E. Pitt, “Goetz Is Cleared in Subway Attack; Gun Count Upheld; Goetz Jurors Found B
oth Sides’ Evidence Difficult to Accept,” New York Times, June 17, 1987, p. A1; Esther B. Fein, “Angry Citizens in Many Cities Supporting Goetz,” New York Times, January 7, 1985, p. B1; Kirk Johnson, “Goetz Is Cleared in Subway Attack; Gun Count Upheld; Acquittal Won in Shooting of 4 Youths but Prison Term Possible on Weapon Charge,” New York Times, June 17, 1987, p. A1; Joseph Berger, “Goetz Case: Commentary on Nature of Urban Life,” New York Times, June 18, 1987, p. B6; Dave Caldwell, “Jury Decides Minot Man's Actions Were Self-Defense,” Minot (ND) Daily News, May 25, 2011; People v. Goetz, 68 N.Y.2d 96, 497 N.E.2d 41, 506 N.Y.S.2d 18 (N.Y. 1986), http://www.casebriefs.com/blog/law/criminal-law/criminal-law-keyed-to-dressler/general-defenses-to-crimes/people-v-goetz/ (accessed June 7, 2017).

  2. “New York Crime Rates 1960–2012.”

  3. Fletcher, Crime of Self Defense.

  4. “65 Cent Fare Considered.”

  5. Hanley, “In Subway Crime.”

  6. “The Fear Hits Home.”

  7. Feinman, “New York Transit Authority.”

  8. Downtown Safety Security, p. 148.

  9. Goetz, 68 N.Y.2d at100–102.

  10. Fletcher, Crime of Self Defense, p. 17.

  11. Ibid.

  12. Goetz, 68 N.Y.2d at 101, 102.

  13. Fein, “Angry Citizens.”

  14. Goetz, 68 N.Y.2d at 96.

  15. Friedrich, “Not Guilty.”

  16. Johnson, “Goetz Is Cleared.”

  17. Berger, “Goetz Case.”

  18. Fletcher, Crime of Self Defense, p. 199.

  19. This narrative was compiled from People v. Bradford, 939 P.2d 259 (S. Ct. Calif. 1997).

  20. Bradford, 939 P.2d, “Cheryl V., Section E.”

  21. Bradford, 939 P.2d, “3. Disappearance of Tracey Campbell.”

  22. Bradford, 939 P.2d, “6. Defendant's Second Arrest.”

  23. Ibid.

  24. Bradford, 939 P.2d, “2. Defense Case.”

  25. For more details, see the postscript.

  CHAPTER 4: SPARKING THE SHADOW VIGILANTE IMPULSE

  1. This narrative is drawn primarily from the following sources: Jennifer Leahy, “Homicide: Roseann Siddell, 34,”Houston Chronicle, October 13, 2007, http://blog.chron.com/homicide/2007/10/roseann-siddell-34/ (accessed June 8, 2017); Christine Dobbyn, “The Case of the 13th Juror,” ABC 13 Eyewitness News (Houston), February 11, 2009, http://abc13.com/archive/6652170/ (accessed June 8, 2017); Brian Rogers, “Houston Murder Trial Tossed Out after Bailiff's Huge Mistake,” Houston Chronicle, February 10, 2009, http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Houston-murder-trial-tossed-out-after-bailiff-s-1744805.php (accessed June 8, 2017).