Court Opinion

ID: 9488269
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:40:57.831389+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:48.062067
License: Public Domain

KOZINSKI, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
The facts of this case shock even those of us inured to shocking facts by years of capital cases. Most distressing, however, is that these tragedies could have been averted: Bonin gave us more than fair warning of his proclivities before he embarked on his killing spree. The sordid tale begins at least as early as Bonin’s service in Vietnam, when “he began to engage in violent nonconsensual homosexual activity.” People v. Bonin, 46 Cal.3d 659, 671, 250 Cal.Rptr. 687, 758 P.2d 1217 (1988). Upon returning to civilian life, Bonin was twice convicted of kidnapping and sexually molesting a total of five boys between the ages of twelve and eighteen. The first conviction, in 1969, brought him all of three years behind bars; the second, in 1975, only three more. People v. Bonin, 47 Cal.3d 808, 824, 254 Cal.Rptr. 298, 765 P.2d 460 (1989). In 1978, Bonin was let loose on an unsuspecting population, condemning at least fourteen (and perhaps as many as twenty-one) more boys to sexual abuse, followed by slow, painful deaths. One knows not whether to pity more the victims of this ordeal or their parents, who must live with the dreadful knowledge of how their children perished.
Scott Geddes also gave us early warning. Geddes started at age sixteen and, prior to his last offense, had already been convicted on felony charges four different times — three for brutal sexual assaults against women. Geraldine Baum, Crime & Punishment, L.A Times, Apr. 12, 1995, at El & E4. He received sentences ranging from two to five years for his first four convictions. Id. After each release, he usually committed another crime within the month. Id. Despite the obvious hazard presented by someone with Geddes’s record, the state of New York released him again in 1993. Id. at E4. Less than three weeks later, Geddes assaulted his fourth rape victim, stabbed her repeatedly and forced her to walk from her blood-soaked car to a creek. Id. There, he finished her off and left her body floating face down in the water. Id.
Walter McFadden was convicted of a double rape for which he spent less than five years behind bars. Deroy Murdock, Lifer Law for Repeat Felons?, Wash. Times, Apr. 17, 1993, at Cl. Released on parole, he hastened to rape again. Id. McFadden’s second prison stay also lasted less than five years, after which he was again placed on parole. Id. Within a year, he murdered two teenagers, and raped and then murdered an eighteen-year old girl. Id.
Kenneth McDuff was convicted in 1966 of brutally murdering two teenage boys, see Green v. Estelle, 601 F.2d 877 (5th Cir.1979), and raping a teenage girl and snapping her neck with a broomstick. Stephanie Mencimer, Righting Sentences, Wash. Monthly, Apr. 1993, at 26. Although McDuff was to receive the death penalty, his sentence was commuted to life in prison and he was paroled in 1989. Id. Over the course of the next year, he became a suspect in nine brutal rape-homicides, id., and was eventually convicted of murdering two women, one of them pregnant. Kathy Walt, Former Parole Chief Sentenced in Perjury, Houston Chron., Aug. 11, 1994, at 25A, 32A (recounting trial of parole official instrumental in McDuffs release).
Then there is the notorious case of Westley Allan Dodd. Starting in high school, Dodd was arrested numerous times for sexual offenses involving children, including the molestation of his two young cousins and a kidnapping attempt where he admitted he had intended to rape and murder the seven-year-old victim. Timothy Egan, Death Row, Vancouver Sun, Jan. 2, 1993, at A1, available in WESTLAW, VNCVRSUN database, available in LEXIS, News Library, Allnws file. Even as an adult, Dodd received only brief jail stays, the longest amounting to four months. Id. Two years after his last re*851lease, Dodd tortured, raped and murdered a four-year-old boy and two brothers, aged ten and eleven. State v. Dodd, 120 Wash.2d 1, 838 P.2d 86, 87-89 (1992). Arrested for trying to kidnap a six-year-old boy, Dodd explained that, given the leniency he had been shown thus far, he figured he could keep getting away with his crimes. Egan, Vancouver Sun, Jan. 2,1993, at Al. In all, Dodd molested over thirty children. Peter J. Ferrara et al., The Candidate’s Briefing Book 139 (1994).1
There is a pattern here. Of the 2,716 death row inmates in 1993, almost two-thirds had prior felony convictions. Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Bulletin No. NCJ-150042, Capital Punishment 1993 at 10 (1994). Twenty-eight percent of all death row inmates were on probation, parole or pre-trial release at the time of their capital offense. Id. It should come as no surprise, then, that repeat offenders — though only 6% of criminals — commit 70% of all serious crimes. Gwenn Ifill, Crime Proposal’s Effect on Gun Use Is Questioned, N.Y. Times, May 24, 1991, at A14.
Our society surely has its priorities misplaced when someone with Bonin’s record of contempt for the personal integrity of others is released in the blink of an eye, while dealers of controlled substances — even in relatively small quantities — are given ten-year, twenty-year and life terms.2 Many others have called attention to this disparity. In United States v. Staufer, 38 F.3d 1103 (9th Cir.1994), for example, the defendant was convicted on a one-count indictment for selling half a gram of LSD — his first conviction. Id. at 1105. The district judge noted with exasperation that he was compelled “ ‘to give Mr. Staufer for the transaction more time in prison than [he was] authorized to give a man who murdered his wife on their honeymoon.’ ” Id. Were we as committed to punishing and preventing physical violence as we are to waging the war on drugs, Bonin’s victims, and those of many other brutal killers, might still be among us.

. There is a long, dreary list of similar cases. See, e.g., Oliver Starr, Jr., The Case of Richard Davis, Nat'l Rev., May 30, 1994, at 34 (describing Richard Allen Davis, who was arrested well over a dozen times before being charged with kidnapping and murdering Polly Klaas); People v. Viale, 121 A.D.2d 486, 503 N.Y.S.2d 583, 584 (1986), Charles V. Zehren, NY Debates Locking Up Repeat Felons for Life, Newsday, Jan. 16, 1994, at 19 (describing Michael Viale, who had three pri- or violent felony convictions, including one for murder, before being charged with stabbing a housewife to death); People v. Gallego, 52 Cal.3d 115, 276 Cal.Rptr. 679, 708, 802 P.2d 169, 175-76 (1990), Gallego v. State, 101 Nev. 782, 711 P.2d 856, 858 (1985), Patricia Holt, Lurid New Account of'Sex Slave’ Killer, S.F. Chron., July 17, 1990, at E5 (describing Gerald Gallego, who was charged twenty-seven times and convicted seven times on felony counts before kidnapping, torturing and killing ten young women in his search for the perfect sex slave); McKenzie v. Osborne, 195 Mont. 26, 640 P.2d 368, 381 (1981), State v. McKenzie, 171 Mont. 278, 557 P.2d 1023, 1033 (1976) (describing Duncan McKenzie, who had been convicted of brutally raping a woman, been paroled, gotten thrown back into prison for numerous parole violations and then been paroled again before brutally raping and killing another woman); State v. Fischer, 38 N.J. 40, 183 A.2d 11, 12 (1962), Reuters, July 31, 1979, available in LEXIS, News Library, Allnws file (describing Joseph Fischer, who had been convicted of murder, was released and then killed twenty more people).

. There is a long and not particularly inspiring list for this category as well. See, e.g., United States v. Van Winrow, 951 F.2d 1069, 1072 (9th Cir.1991) (affirming life sentence without possibility of parole for twenty-two-year-old because he had previously been convicted of cocaine possession); United States v. Hoyt, 879 F.2d 505, 512-14 (9th Cir.1989) (holding that ten-year sentence for first-time offender under cocaine possession statute is constitutional); United States v. Hanlin, 48 F.3d 121 (3rd Cir.1995) (affirming ten-year sentence for possession of 167 milligrams of LSD carried on 24.3 grams of paper); Cracking Down on the Right Targets, L.A. Times, Sept. 28, 1994, at B6 (percentage of federal prisoners who are drug offenders has quadrupled from 16% to 62% since 1970).