After More Than Three Decades, Two Death-Row Prisoners Freed in California

Two for­mer California death-row pris­on­ers who had spent a com­bined 70 years in prison are now free men, after fed­er­al courts over­turned their con­vic­tions and local pros­e­cu­tors agreed to plea deals on non-cap­i­tal charges. James Hardy (pic­tured, left) was freed on February 14, 2019 after plead­ing guilty to two counts of first-degree mur­der in exchange for a sus­pend­ed sen­tence and release on pro­ba­tion. Freddie Lee Taylor (pic­tured, right) was released on February 20 after plead­ing guilty to manslaugh­ter and a sen­tence of time served. Both men have claims of inno­cence, but their plea deals make them inel­i­gi­ble for DPIC’s Innocence List. Each spent more than 30 years on death row.

James Hardy was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in Los Angeles in 1984 for the mur­der of Nancy Morgan and her son, Mitchell Morgan. Hardy was tried along with two co-defen­dants, Mark Reilly and Clifford Morgan, the hus­band and father of the vic­tims. Clifford was con­vict­ed of hir­ing Reilly and Hardy to kill his fam­i­ly so he could col­lect insur­ance mon­ey. Prosecutors argued that Hardy was the actu­al killer and Reilly the mid­dle­man in the con­spir­a­cy. On appeal, Hardy argued that his tri­al attor­ney had been inef­fec­tive because he had failed to inves­ti­gate or present evi­dence that the prosecution’s key wit­ness was actu­al­ly the killer. The California Supreme Court over­turned Hardy’s death sen­tence, and a three-judge pan­el of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit lat­er over­turned his con­vic­tion, writ­ing, ​“Hardy’s attor­ney failed him, and the State of California failed Hardy by putting a man on the stand that it should have known com­mit­ted the crime.” The court said, ​“there is a sub­stan­tial like­li­hood that the jury would not have con­vict­ed Hardy had [his tri­al lawyer] per­formed effec­tive­ly.” Rather than retry Hardy, the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office agreed to a plea deal.

Freddie Lee Taylor was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in Contra Costa County in 1986. Taylor had expe­ri­enced severe trau­ma and abuse as a child, start­ed using drugs by the age of 10, and was housed from age 13 to 17 in a juve­nile deten­tion cen­ter that was described in court records as a ​“grue­some, dehu­man­iz­ing and fright­en­ing world where rape, beat­ings and fear were con­stant.” He was arrest­ed in 1984 dur­ing a ​“fam­i­ly dis­pute” and was sent to a men­tal insti­tu­tion, where he attempt­ed sui­cide. Despite doc­tors’ rec­om­men­da­tions that he be placed in a men­tal hos­pi­tal because he was a dan­ger to him­self or oth­ers, he was released by hos­pi­tal staff. He bur­glar­ized the home of 84-year-old Carmen Vasquez, leav­ing fin­ger­prints in her home. When she was mur­dered days lat­er, he was iden­ti­fied as a sus­pect because his fin­ger­prints were at the crime scene. Taylor’s long his­to­ry of men­tal ill­ness was ignored at his tri­al, where his lawyer nev­er request­ed and the court did not inde­pen­dent­ly order a com­pe­ten­cy eval­u­a­tion. His appeal lawyers argued that his con­vic­tion was invalid because he was not com­pe­tent to stand tri­al. A fed­er­al judge reversed Taylor’s con­vic­tion in 2016 and the Ninth Circuit upheld that deci­sion in 2018, say­ing there was insuf­fi­cient evi­dence to accu­rate­ly assess Taylor’s men­tal health at the time of the crime and his tri­al. The fed­er­al court gave Contra Costa County pros­e­cu­tors 60 days to decide whether to retry him, but they instead agreed to the plea deal. ​“Had he not had the ben­e­fit of zeal­ous appel­late lawyers ded­i­cat­ed to his cause, Freddie Lee Taylor may well have been exe­cut­ed,” Chief Public Defender Robin Lipetzky said. ​“His is but one case. Others like him who have mer­i­to­ri­ous claims may not be so for­tu­nate. There are over 700 more peo­ple on death row — many wait­ing for an attor­ney to be appoint­ed to their case and oth­ers still wait­ing for their cas­es to be final­ly resolved by the courts.”

(Nate Gartrell, East Bay man freed from Death Row near­ly 33 years after con­vic­tion, The Mercury News, February 22, 2019.) Read the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit deci­sion in Hardy v. Chappell. See Innocence, Representation, and Mental Illness.