Monthly Archive: April 2023

This article was published in the  April 11, issue of the California Globe.

The California Senate Public Safety Committee will hear a legislative proposal Thursday which would give the state’s worst murderers, who have been sentenced to death or life without the possibility of parole (LWOP), the opportunity to have their sentences invalidated and make them eligible for parole.  SB94, introduced by Senator Dave Cortese (D-Santa Clara), specifies that criminals  convicted of murder with special circumstances before June 5, 1990 and sentenced to death or LWOP would be provided with a public defender to petition for recall and resentencing.  The bill would authorize the court to modify the petitioner’s sentence to impose a lesser sentence and apply any changes in law that reduce sentences or provide for judicial discretion, or to vacate the petitioner’s conviction and impose judgment on a lesser included offense.  Among the murderers who could apply for a sentence reduction and possible release is Tequon Cox, who in 1984, went to the wrong address for a gang-revenge killing and murdered a mother, her daughter and two of her grandchildren.  Cox was sentenced to death for these crimes.  In 2004, while on death row, Cox stabbed another condemned murderer and, along with three other murderers, cut a hole in the San Quentin fence and nearly  escaped.   UPDATE:  SB94 passed out of the committee by a vote of 4-1.  It now goes to the Appropriations Committee.

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Barring a last-minute stay, Florida will execute Louis Gaskin, dubbed the “Ninja Killer” for the murders and burglary of a Palm Coast couple.  Naomi Feinstein of the Miami New Times reports that Gaskin’s execution will be carried out on April 12.  Another Florida murderer, Darryl Barwick, is scheduled to be executed on May 4.  A unanimous Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals decision upholding Gaskin’s conviction and death sentence describes the random killings five days before Christmas in 1989.  That evening Gaskin drove through a of Palm Coast neighborhood and spotted a house with a light on.  He parked and walked around the house several times.  Looking in the windows he saw Robert and Georgette Strumfels sitting in their den.   He shot Robert twice through the window.  When Georgette attempted to leave the room, he shot her, then shot her again as she crawled down a hall.  Gaskin then climbed through a window and executed both victims with shots to the head.  He left after stealing several items from the home.  UPDATE:  Gaskin was pronounced dead at 6:15 pm, Wednesday.

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A proposal by Los Angeles Supervisors Lindsey Horvath and Hilda Solis to release thousands of convicted criminals from county jails has been tabled after pushback from the public and law enforcement according to reporter Bradford Betz of Fox News.  The board had scheduled a hearing on the proposal for Tuesday, but that hearing was cancelled.  The proposal would have required the Sheriff to release all inmates with bail amounts of $50,000 or less, and re-establish the zero bail policy implemented during the Covid-19 pandemic.  Progressive activists have been pressuring the board to close the county’s central jail for years, citing “horrid and inhumane” conditions.  This comes as police report that a drug dealer has been arrested for gunning down four people in a Trader Joe’s parking lot last Saturday afternoon, leaving one dead.  Did the shooter get released without bail after his last arrest?   This is a good bet under District Attorney George Gascon’s criminal-coddling policies.