by Edward Humes
• December 12, 1989: Coble received two years in prison after his arrest for burglary, receiving stolen property and other felonies is reduced to a single count of receiving stolen property through a plea bargain in Kern County Superior Court Case 39768. Coble was paroled September 27, 1990, and was still on parole for this offense at the time of his next arrest.
• March 18, 1987: Sentenced to three years in prison for burglary after six counts are reduced to one through a plea bargain in Kern County Superior Court Case 32800. He was paroled June 20, 1988.
• August 26, 1982: Sentenced to three years for grand theft after nine counts are reduced to one through a plea bargain in Kern County Superior Court Case 24075.
• February 5, 1981: Sentenced to time served for aggravated assault in Marietta, Georgia, where he previously lived.
Additional arrests—in which cases were handled as misdemeanors, citations or were dismissed outright—include multiple drug possession charges, assault, battery, obstructing police, driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, armed robbery, check fraud, theft and petty theft.
Source: Kern County Superior Court records; Kern County Municipal Court records; Kern County Sheriff’s Department reports; testimony of Jerry Coble in People vs. Dunn.
2. Though Kern County has a population one sixth the size of the City of Los Angeles, its sheriff and police departments have in some years been responsible for as many shootings as their counterparts to the south. During one eight-month stretch in 1995, the problem became especially pronounced: There were seventeen shootings by law-enforcement officers in Kern County, a majority of them by the sheriff’s department. Five were fatal and several involved unarmed suspects attempting to flee. The most notorious involved a Los Angeles woman named Suzannah Cody, the distraught twenty-six-year-old wife of a Los Angeles cop, who led police—and a live television audience—on a freeway chase and hour-long standoff on a lonely Kern County road. Surrounded by police but still armed, Cody was killed by a sheriff’s sharpshooter after she made what officials later described as an “ambiguous” move with her pistol. (Video of the incident suggests she may have been scratching her back at the time the fatal shot was fired.) All seventeen of the shootings were eventually deemed justified by Kern County authorities. See “Trigger Happy in Kern County,” California Lawyer, October 1995; Lucille Renwick, “Woman Killed After Chase Is Identified,” Los Angeles Times, July 7, 1995; “Slayings by Kern Deputies Prompt Internal Review,” Associated Press, July 7, 1995.
3. Judge Milton Elconin, presiding judge of the West Kern Municipal Court, based in Bakersfield, was also known for feuding with some of his fellow judges, for treating female attorneys in a fashion designed to make them cry, and for his courtroom attacks on the former police chief of the small Kern County town of Shafter, Gene Kaplan. Kaplan, himself a controversial figure, sued the judge for libel (and later settled for one third of the judge’s estate, about $7,500) after Elconin publicly branded him “a painful abscess in the side of law enforcement throughout the county” and a “posturing, paranoid, pusillanimous pissant” who had earned the “disrespect of all legitimate law enforcement leaders in this county.” Elconin had never met or spoken to Kaplan prior to issuing this denunciation, though he was close to several of Kaplan’s detractors and political opponents. Many who had appeared in Elconin’s courtroom—defendants and lawyers both—felt his diatribe more aptly described Elconin himself than anyone else, though he was recalled in his May 14, 1981, Bakersfield Californian obituary in glowing terms as “one of the last remnants of frontier justice . . . (who) believed people had not only the right to be stupid but also to say what they believed.” It was in retaliation against Kaplan’s allegedly brutal treatment of offenders—allegations never proved—that Elconin dismissed charges against a courtroom filled with fifteen criminal defendants. Prosecutors in Kern County subsequently branded this action illegal. Sources: W. J. McCance, “His comments livened courtroom,” Bakersfield Californian, May 14, 1981; Steve E. Swenson, “Charges further split feuding judges,” Bakersfield Californian, December 18, 1979; Steve E. Swenson, “Late judge’s estate settles libel case,” Bakersfield Californian, February 12, 1982; letter dated March 12, 1980, from Shafter Police Chief Gene Kaplan to West Kern Municipal Court Presiding Judge James G. Bowles; letter dated March 17, 1980, from Judge Milton Elconin to Kaplan; Michael Trihey, “Judge threatens FBI probe,” Bakersfield Californian, March 20, 1980; complaint letter dated April 1, 1980, from the City of Shafter to the California Commission on Judicial Performance; Michael Trihey, “Gripe Against Kaplan Rings False,” Bakersfield Californian, April 24, 1980; and the author’s interviews with attorneys in practice in Kern County during Elconin’s tenure.
4. Kern County Superior Court Judge Gary T. Friedman was reprimanded in 1993 by the state Commission on Judicial Performance for willful misconduct for the 1987 rattlesnake incident. Source: Associated Press, “Judge reprimanded for snake trick,” June 22, 1993.
5. Bakersfield Municipal Court Judge Alan E. Klein, who left office after fifteen years on the bench amid the controversy, was prosecuted and acquitted of soliciting a bribe from stripper Lashay Munoz. The state Commission on Judicial Performance agreed to drop separate civil charges of willful misconduct and lying to investigators in exchange for his resignation. Sources: Tamara Koehler, “State panel admonishes Kern judge,” Bakersfield Californian, January 23, 1997; Editorial, “Public’s trust damaged,” Bakersfield Californian, January 19, 1996; Tamara Koehler, “Judge Klein resigns Municipal Court post,” Bakersfield Californian, March 12, 1996; and the author’s interview with attorney Stan Simrin, who represented Klein.
6. This account is based on transcripts, reports and testimony in Kern County Superior Court Case HC-5092, “In re Scott and Brenda Kniffen, on Habeas Corpus.” The record in the case is undisputed in showing that the alleged child-victims were repeatedly interrogated and asked leading and suggestive questions throughout the case. Kern County authorities maintain that they acted with the best of intentions and solely with the welfare of the children in mind, and they dispute to this day the contention that their techniques led to false accusations and charges. Attorneys representing the defendants and others, including independent grand jurors who examined the investigation and a variety of judges who have reviewed the case and listened to the taped interrogation of Brandon and Brian Kniffen, have asserted otherwise, questioning both the results and the motives of Kern County social workers, prosecutors and investigators.
7. The evolution of the boy’s story about money and other key aspects of his alleged molestation was documented in police reports and trial transcripts in the case and lay buried in the public record for years. It remained unknown to the general public until it was graphically illustrated in a groundbreaking series of stories entitled “Stolen Innocence: A Case in Review,” published April 13-15, 1986, by Michael Trihey, then a Bakersfield Californian reporter. Trihey’s lengthy inquiry into the Kniffen-McCuan case raised grave questions about a whole series of similar molestation-ring investigations in Bakersfield that had led to dozens of prosecutions and convictions. Trihey’s reporting left him an unpopular figure with Kern County law enforcement (the then-sheriff of Kern County vowed never to speak to him again), as his stories reversed what had been to that point the newspaper’s unquestioning acceptance of official representations in the case.
8. Michelle Smith and Lawrence Pazder, Michelle Remembers (New York: Congdon and Lattes, 1980). An examination of the book’s factual problems was undertaken by Denna Allen and Janet Midwinter in “The Debunking of a Myth: Why the original ‘ritual abuse’ victim may have suffered only from her childhood fantasies,” London (England) Sunday Mail, September 30, 1990. Furthermore, a Vatican-sponsored investigation concluded that the events in the book never occurred, and Pazder himself has since suggested that the book may not be historically accurate, admitting that he knew only that Michelle believed her memories of ritual abuse, though he could not s
ay for certain they had occurred.
9. The author has employed pseudonyms for the first names of the Nokes children.
10. Jay Smith, Susan Penninger and Stan Simrin, interviews with the author.
11. Unlike the federal government and most states, which rely on secret grand juries dominated by prosecutors to make charging and probable-cause determinations, California grants every criminal defendant the right to a preliminary hearing, in which a judge reviews the state’s case to determine whether there is probable cause to proceed to trial.
12. The description of events leading up to and following the preliminary hearing in People vs. Dunn is based on investigative notes and reports filed by Detective John Soliz on his contacts with Mike Dunn and Rex Martin in Kern County Sheriff’s Case KC92-14851; and the author’s interviews with Deputy DA John Somers, Stan Simrin, Gary Pohlson, Jennifer Dunn and Pat Dunn. Mike Dunn did not respond to requests for interviews with the author.
13. The account of Laura Lawhon’s interview with Marie Gates is based upon the investigation report by Lawhon detailing her February 5, 1993, interview with Gates and Lillian Dunn; the transcripts of tape-recorded interviews of Gates by Lawhon on February 18, 1993, and April 20, 1993; and the author’s interviews with Lawhon and Gates.
14. Marie Gates’ tips were recorded in “Secret Witness” reports filed at the Kern County Sheriff’s Department on July 26, 1992, and August 13, 1992, under the code name “Taylor 1,” and in an August 20, 1992, report by Detective Kline detailing his first interview with Marie Gates, filed under Kern County Sheriff’s Department Case MO92-00633.
15. Gates, interview with Kline, August 20, 1992, Kern County Sheriff’s Department Case MO92-00633; and the author’s interviews with Gates and Kline.
16. The evolution in Marie Gates’ story is documented in Kern County Sheriff’s reports on the Dunn case dated August 20, 1992, September 21, 1992, and October 15, 1992; Gates’ statements to Laura Lawhon recorded in written reports and tape transcriptions; Gates’ testimony in People vs. Dunn; and several interviews with the author in which Gates’ account continued to shift.
17. Rosenlieb first mentioned the cut shin in her July 4 interview with Detective Kline. Rosenlieb did not question Sandy about the cut, and so couldn’t say whether Sandy meant Pat had caused the cut by accident or on purpose. The incident occurred about four months before Sandy died. Pat Dunn recalls Sandy tripping and cutting herself on the edge of a metal sliding door leading to their patio around that time.
18. Marie Gates, interviews with Laura Lawhon.
19. The author’s interviews with Marie Gates and Laura Lawhon.
20. The author’s interview with Detective John Soliz.
21. There are numerous examples of this phenomenon, and they all involve instances in which the authorities targeted a suspect, then sought evidence to support their theories: Gary Nelson was sentenced to death in Chatham County, Georgia, for the 1978 rape and murder of a six-year-old. He remained on death row until 1991, when it was shown that Nelson, who had always asserted his innocence, had been prosecuted even though the police had a credible confession from another man, which they had kept secret during Nelson’s trial. Perjured testimony by the police, the hiding of potential alibi witnesses and false forensic evidence all contributed to Nelson’s conviction—a body of evidence created and manipulated to fit the initial theory in the case, that Nelson was the culprit. He was finally freed by the Georgia Supreme Court (which overruled a lower court’s finding that this gross misconduct was “harmless error”) after eleven years on death row.
In another case, four young men from Tucson were subjected to marathon interrogations over three days, after which they confessed to nine vicious murders at a Buddhist temple in Phoenix—a sensational, headline-grabbing case. After the “Tucson Four” were charged with the murders, two teenagers who had nothing to do with the four suspects were found in possession of the murder weapons. These two soon confessed to the temple murders, in doing so providing key details that only the killers could know and swearing that the other four had nothing to do with the crime. Despite this, and the fact that the information contained in the Tucson Four’s confessions did not match any of the crime-scene evidence, the authorities in Phoenix still sought to prosecute them. The county prosecutor refused, however. The men who made the false confessions later explained that they would have done or said anything to put a halt to the nonstop interrogations.
In a notorious Chicago case, Rolando Cruz was convicted and sentenced to death for murdering eight-year-old Jeanine Nicarico in 1985. However, it was eventually proved that authorities had manufactured evidence against Cruz and ignored a confession from a convicted sex offender who had already pleaded guilty to two rapes and murders (and whose DNA was linked to Nicarico’s body). Cruz was exonerated and released in 1995 and a codefendant was released from an eighty-year prison sentence. Meanwhile, three prosecutors and four law-enforcement officers have since been indicted for obstruction of justice in the case.
The outcome is seldom so favorable for defendants, however. In the spring of 1993, for example, as Pat Dunn awaited his trial, evidence was presented in Texas that Leonel Herrera, convicted and sentenced to death for killing a police officer, was actually innocent. The new evidence included an eyewitness to the crime who exonerated Herrera, as well a former Texas state judge who implicated someone else—a man who had, in fact, confessed to the crime. Herrera also passed a polygraph test. None of this evidence was available during Herrera’s trial. But the U.S. Supreme Court, in a strictly procedural ruling that did not consider this new evidence, found that Herrera was not entitled to a federal hearing on the question of his innocence because the State of Texas had imposed strict time limits on the presentation of new evidence. The high court recommended that he seek a highly unlikely commutation from the governor of Texas, who declined to intervene. Herrera was executed in May 1993, without further hearing on his new evidence. Since the Herrera ruling, at least two other men have been executed after being denied hearings on new evidence of innocence. Sources: Laura Frank, “Convicted on False Evidence? False science often sways juries,” USA Today, July 19, 1994; Russ Kimball and Laura Greenberg, “False Confessions,” Phoenix magazine, November 1993; Ken Armstrong, “Indictments Tear at Prosecutorial Teflon; Misconduct Allegations Almost Unprecedented,” Chicago Tribune, December 13, 1996; Jeffrey Bills, and Maurice Possley, “Judge Rules Cruz Innocent,” Chicago Tribune, November 4, 1995; Janan Hanna, and Stacey Singer, “Cruz Judge Lambastes State Case,” Chicago Tribune, November 4, 1995; Maurice Possley, “The Nicarico Nightmare: Admitted Lie Sinks Cruz Case,” Chicago Tribune, November 5, 1995; Michael Kroll, “Killing Justice: Government Misconduct and the Death Penalty,” March 1992, Death Penalty Information Center (Washington, D.C.); “Innocence and the Death Penalty: Assessing the Danger of Mistaken Executions,” Staff Report by the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights, Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. House of Representatives, October 21, 1993; “Innocence and the Death Penalty: The Increasing Danger of Executing the Innocent,” Death Penalty Information Center, July 1997; and Herrera vs. Collins, 113 S.Ct. 853 (1993).
22. The evolution in official perceptions of Ann Kidder’s contribution to People vs. Patrick Dunn—and the timing of that evolution—can be charted in reports of the Kern County Sheriff’s Department in KC92-14851, dated July 7 and July 27, 1992 (before Jerry Lee Coble’s involvement in the case, when Kidder was considered an invaluable prosecution witness and a major reason for suspecting Pat Dunn of foul play), and October 14, 1992 (after Coble’s appearance in the casee, when Kidder became a liability to the prosecution case). By the time he made closing arguments in People vs. Dunn, Deputy Districy Attorney John Somers had settled on a description of Kidder as essentially honest, but mistaken and confused about the telephone call from Sandy. Kidder herself describes this same evolution in her February 23, 1993, interview with private investigator David Sandberg, reported in an undated mem
orandum to Gary Pohlson.
23. The conviction was reversed by a 4-2 vote of the California Supreme Court in People vs. Carl David Hogan, 31Cal.3d 815, decided July 1, 1982, in an opinion authored by Chief Justice Rose Bird, whom Kern County DA Ed Jagels campaigned to oust several years later. In analyzing the interrogation of Hogan by Kern County Sheriff’s investigators, Bird concluded that interrogators had taken a sobbing, wailing, vomiting shell of a man who insisted he was innocent and convinced him that he did not remember killing anyone because he was insane, that there were witnesses and physical evidence that absolutely proved he was guilty, and that if he would only admit the crime, they could get him treatment for his mental illness. The police also enlisted Hogan’s wife to help them, after convincing her that they had conclusive evidence of Hogan’s guilt—though there was no such evidence. In her opinion, Bird wrote for the majority:
While no physical abuse of appellant [Hogan] occurred, coercion also includes the brainwashing that comes from repeated suggestion and prolonged interrogation. . . . It is a truism of the modern world that when sufficient pressures are applied most persons will confess. . . . It was repeatedly suggested to appellant that he was unquestionably guilty and that he suffered from mental illness. The certainty of his guilt was suggested by deceptive references to nonexistent eyewitnesses and proof of rape. These came not only from the interrogating officers, but also from appellant’s wife. . . . The statements were involuntary due to implied promises of leniency [and] . . . there is evidence of other forms of psychological coercion that raises a strong doubt as to whether appellant’s statements were truly volitional.
In a concurring opinion, one justice pointed out that Hogan’s confession was clearly unreliable because it did not match the facts of the crime, and because the interrogators, not Hogan, suggested key elements for Hogan to confess to, such as an alleged motive for the crime—the theft of forty dollars. “The record clearly shows that during these sessions the police firmly planted in his mind the suspicion that he was ‘crazy.’ . . . This confession . . . is more like a series of emotional outbursts than a coherent description,” Bird’s colleague wrote.