Death Row Artist James P. Anderson

A Case Of Reasonable Doubt.

By STEVE ARGUE

Artist James P. Anderson has sat in prison, mostly on death row, for the past 22 years. From the prison cells where men are warehoused to die at San Quentin State Prison, his paintings are a reaffirmation of beauty and humanity. James P. Anderson's painting "Desire" seems to me to show a pathway to his desire to live, dream, and create under a system that simply wants him to die.

Anderson was convicted of the murder of two women in 1979, but maintains he is innocent.

If James Anderson is innocent hes in good company. 100 death row inmates in the United States have had their convictions overturned as a result of new DNA evidence being brought to light. Still prosecutors have fought against the use of DNA evidence to overturn old convictions, even when the lives of innocent people are on the line.

James P. Anderson has not had the benefit of new DNA evidence coming to light, especially with the crime scene never having been secured, but a number of major questions do cast doubts on the prosecutions version of events
.
James P. Anderson is a black man. He was convicted by an all white jury in Riverside County, California. All white juries do not understand issues that Blacks face in America like police, prosecutorial, and judicial racism. In addition death penalty juries are always more likely to convict because all who oppose the death penalty are excluded from these juries, making them juries that are more biased towards supporting the prosecution. An all white death penalty jury is in fact one that is likely to contain
a number of people who think that all Black people are criminals, making these jurors incapable of weighing the evidence even if it is presented fairly. For a Black man in racist America, an all white death penalty jury is not a jury of his peers, and is a
violation of his constitutional rights.

The wealthy have the benefit of being defended by the best legal representation money can buy. James P. Anderson was defended by a public defender, Keith Long, who was suspended from the bar while working on his case. He was suspended after not showing up in court for clients that had paid him to defend them. A couple reasons he gave for not showing up were that he was an alcoholic and that he often considered committing suicide. Incompetent attorneys are very common in death penalty cases, but it is almost impossible to get a new trial based on ineffective assistance. The systems message is clear, the lives of the poor and working class are cheep in America, justice is only for those who can afford it.

Anderson maintains that he was framed-up by the actual killer who he says is Fred Anders. Anderson says Fred Anders, a white man, was angered by the interracial relationship between Anders's sister, Sheila Lynn Anders and James P. Anderson. In addition Anderson states that Fred Anders had the additional motive to frame him because Anderson had just found out about Fred Anders sexual assault of a 9-year old girl.

The prosecution called only one eyewitness to the murders to testify, Fred Anders. A crucial piece of police evidence does back up Anderson's claim that it was Fred Anders who committed the crime, a piece of the murder weapon was found in Fred Anders jacket pocket. That section of the murder weapon was a 3 to 4-foot piece of rope that forensically attached to the
rope used to hang Louise Flanagan. Also found in Fred Anders pocket was a knife. The prosecution never answered what this was doing in Fred Anders pocket.

The District Attorney on the case, Thomas Douglas, told the hanging jury that Fred Anders had passed a polygraph test with flying colors. Later, under questioning, that same DA admitted he had lied, stating that no polygraph was given, even though his
statement during the trial is part of the court record. This lie no doubt played a role in the conviction of James P. Anderson and shows the prosecutors dirty attitude towards the case and James P. Anderson
.
Fred Anders was the brother of Anderson's girlfriend, Sheila Lynn Anders. All three had been traveling together although Anderson didn't really know Fred Anders. James Anderson informed this reporter that it was while the three were driving that
he found out the extreme prejudice of Fred Anders. Detective B. Byers wrote in his police report that Sheila Lynn Anders had stated that her blood brother, Fred Anders, and not James P. Anderson, had committed the murders. She later changed her story after the prosecution, in violation of federal law, allowed Fred Anders to visit her in jail. Suddenly she changed her
story and backed up her brother, but she wasn't called as a witness by the prosecution. Obviously her testimony would have been useless to the prosecution with her earlier statements of James P. Anderson's innocence being on record, but she was now useless to the defense as an eyewitness.

Particularly damaging to the defense of James P. Anderson was the testimony of Deborah Baros claiming that she was an eyewitness to another murder committed by James P. Anderson in 1978. This was a murder of a gas station attendant named Jack Mackey. Yet while the prosecution claims that her statements were consistent with evidence, the fact of the matter
is that she gave 2 different versions as to what happened in taped interviews. In addition Deborah Baros claims that James P. Anderson communicates with her telepathically, she states that she remembers many things through dreams, and claims that her imaginary son Anthony was riding with them in the car when they committed the murders. The prosecution admits that Deborah's son Anthony was imaginary based on various evidence, but considered her a good witness even with her unable to state one version of what took place. Obviously Deborah Baros could not differentiate between reality and her own dreams and hallucinations, and her testimony should not have been allowed.

Deborah Baros is under the powerful medications premarin, Tylenol with codeine, fioricet, xanax, darvocet, amitriptyline, mellaril, mebaral, and prophenol. She is taking these medications as a result of "mental anguish" caused by a New Hampshire
court taking her real children away in 1987 for her alleged sexual abuse of them.

It is very damaging to have someone come forward and claim to be a witness to the defendant carrying out a similar crime to the one they are being accused. This is true even when the witness is not very credible and other evidence in the crime are purely
circumstantial. The accusations of similar crimes weigh heavy in the minds of the jurors, making them less apt to rule in favor of any reasonable doubts they may have.

For police and DA's motivated by racism, other political motivations, corruption, or just a desire to close a case the manipulation of mentally vulnerable people for false testimony has occurred in other cases. In the case of Leonard Peltier the FBI coerced a mentally ill South Dakota woman named Myrtle Poor Bear to testify against him in order to gain Leonard
Peltier's extradition from Canada. Myrtle Poor Bear says that the FBI threatened to take her children away. She says the FBI also showed her pictures of Anna Mae with her hands cut off. Anna Mae was an Indian activist who is widely believed to have been murdered by the FBI. Myrtle Poor Bear says that after the FBI showed her the gruesome pictures of Anna Mae the FBI told her that she would look even worse when they were done with her, that they would put her through a meat grinder and no one would even be able to recognize her.

Under this kind of intimidation Myrtle Poor Bear testified that she was the girlfriend of Leonard Peltier, even though they had never met, and that she was a witness to Peltier's involvement in killing two FBI agents, even though she was not. Myrtle Poor Bear later recanted this testimony.

There is no evidence of such manipulation in the particular case of the testimony of Deborah Baros, but we should understand that someone like Deborah Baros would be susceptible to manipulation. The fact that the prosecution lied about a polygraph test that was not given to Fred Anders shows that prosecution was capable of anything.

The use of only two eyewitnesses: one who does not even know the difference between reality and dreams, and another who potentially carried out the two other murders and who was carrying a piece of the murder weapon in his pocket raises serious questions in this case. The fact that the prosecution did not call a third eyewitness, Sheila Lynn Anders, because she
originally had said that James P. Anderson was innocent, is also telling of the weak case against James P. Anderson.

The standard for guilt is supposed to be guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, yet an all white pro-death penalty jury raised on the prejudices of the mainstream media does not usually have a proper grip of reality to understand what a reasonable doubt is
and why it is important. The fact that juries are selected in death penalty cases, eliminating all who have the sense to oppose the death penalty, is one more reason why the death penalty should be abolished. The flimsy evidence used to convict James P. Anderson and how unreliable convictions really are should make everyone question the death penalty. Death is permanent.

When I spoke to James P. Anderson on the phone from San Quinton he told me that before all this happened he had no idea how corrupt the system really is. Really the death penalty is a weapon of terror held by a racist system, and nobody is safe. Adding to the inhumane treatment of being on death row, James P. Anderson has not been able to get proper medical
attention for a condition that has impaired his sight and gives him constant headaches.

While the abolition of the death penalty will not assure justice, there will be no justice as long as there is a death penalty. The death penalty must be abolished! Death penalty juries must be abolished! Proper medical attention for James P. Anderson!

Free James P. Anderson!

James Phillip Anderson

Site Map