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Thread: Robert Wesley Cowan - California Death Row

  1. #1
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    Robert Wesley Cowan - California Death Row




    Summary of Offense:

    Clifford Merck, 75, and Alma Merck, 81, liked to putter around the house, took occasional fishing trips and looked forward to visits from their children. On September 4, 1984, they were killed by Robert Wesley Cowan in their southeast Bakersfield home. Alma had four children by her first husband. Clifford had no children. They were married in the 1960s.

    Cowan was sentenced to death in Kern County on May 8, 1996.

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    August 8, 2010

    High Court Upholds Mid-Trial Replacement of Judge in Capital Case

    The replacement of one Kern Superior Court judge by another after the first judge discovered on the second day of trial that a couple he knew was going to testify for the prosecution did not deprive the defendant of a fair trial, the state Supreme Court ruled yesterday.

    The justices unanimously affirmed the death sentence imposed by Judge Lee Felice on Robert Wesley Cowan for the 1984 murder of Clifford Merck, 75, at his East Bakersfield home. Cowan was also convicted of killing Clifford Merck’s wife, Alma, 81, and sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of parole for that crime.

    Cowan was charged with the murders in 1994 and was tried and sentenced in 1996.

    The trial began before Judge Stephen Gildner, who disclosed in open court that he had just realized that scheduled prosecution witnesses Jerry and Terri Jones were the parents of a very close friend of his son’s and he had learned that Terri Jones was related to Alma Merck.

    The Joneses were expected to, and later did, testify that certain property items obtained by police may have belonged to the Mercks. The judge’s disclosure came during the testimony of Danny Phinney.

    Property Seized


    The witness had been arrested in a drug raid on a Bakersfield motel about a month after the murders. Certain property was seized from him at that time, and he told police, and subsequently testified, that he had gotten it from Cowan.

    Following the disclosure, Gildner continued to preside over Phinney’s testimony, but announced the next day that after researching the law, he had decided to recuse himself and have the case reassigned to another judge.

    Justice Carlos Moreno, writing for the high court, said that neither Gildner’s delay in recusing himself, nor the fact that Felice stepped in without being familiar with the prior testimony, violated the statutory or constitutional rights of the defendant.

    As a matter of statutory law, Gildner was required to recuse himself at the point he realized such action was required, so his mere expression of concern the previous day did not trigger any such obligation. And there was no due process violation, he said, because the judge recused himself before the Joneses testified.

    Earlier Proceedings


    Nor was Felice required to familiarize himself with the prior testimony before taking over as judge, Moreno explained, because he had presided over some earlier proceedings in the case and was “was familiar enough with the pertinent portions of the record to exercise his discretion in an informed manner.”

    The justice also rejected the claim that the 10-year delay between the crime and the arrest violated due process.

    The delay, Moreno said, was not the result of intentional misconduct or even negligence, but simply police error in failing to recognize, until a new investigator was assigned to the case years after the fact, that fingerprints taken from the scene matched the defendant’s. And the defendant’s showing of prejudice from the delay was “very weak,” the justice said, in part because the defendant knew within months of the crime that he was a suspect, and thus had a motive to preserve any exculpatory evidence.

    The original investigator, Moreno explained, had spoken to Cowan’s then-girlfriend, who had told Cowan about the interview, and Cowan had then called the investigator, telling him that Cowan had no information about the murders.

    The case is People v. Cowan, 10 S.O.S. 4511.

    http://www.metnews.com/

  3. #3
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Death penalty upheld in 1984 killings of elderly couple

    The death penalty for a Bakersfield man convicted in the brutal deaths of an elderly couple 26 years ago has been upheld by the California Supreme Court.

    In a 138-page opinion, the court ruled Robert Wesley Cowan, now 62, was justly convicted and sentenced to death for the shooting death of 75-year-old Clifford Merck and the killing of his wife, 81-year-old Alma Merck, who was strangled with an electrical cord and stuffed in a closet.

    It was a case that went unsolved for 10 years until a new sheriff's homicide detective took a fresh look at evidence that haunted him since he responded to the Merck home as a patrol deputy on Sept. 4, 1984. The home was on McClean Avenue near Oswell Street and Virginia Avenue.

    Cowan had been a suspect in 1984 because of circumstantial evidence, but the reopening of the case by Detective Jim Christopherson revealed two fingerprints -- one on the back service porch door and one from a sewing tray in the dining room -- matched Cowan. Christopherson said in a 1994 interview that he had been bothered by the demeaning way the couple was killed.

    A sheriff's technical investigator in November 1984 compared more than 40 prints lifted from the house to several suspects, including Cowan, but found no match. A supervisor for the technical investigator had questioned his competence before 1984 but a review of his work then produced only one problem, the Supreme Court opinion said.

    A second search in 1987 using a computer database also failed to produce a match, the opinion said.

    But in 1994 the fingerprint match was added to other evidence -- items such as jewelry, a 1922 silver dollar and a wallet taken from the Merck home that were linked to Cowan -- to build a stronger case, the opinion said.

    In addition, a re-examination of a gun -- based on evidence revealed just a few weeks before the trial that the gun had been altered -- led to another critical element in the case against Cowan, the opinion said.

    In 1994, Cowan, then 46, and his 42-year-old brother, Gerald, were charged not only with murdering the Mercks, but also with the Sept. 7, 1984 throat-slashing and beating death of Jewel Francis "Bobby" Russell, 51, of Shafter. Russell was the father of Gerald Cowan's wife, Mitzi.

    No hard evidence linked Gerald Cowan to the Merck killings but he pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter for a 4-year prison term. The jury hung up 9-3 on the Russell case for Robert Cowan, resulting in no conviction.

    But in the Merck case, the judge followed the jury's recommendations of life without parole for the relatively quick shooting death of Clifford and the death penalty for the slower strangulation death of his wife.

    One of the issues Cowan raised on appeal was he was prejudiced because the case went unsolved for 10 years, leaving him unsure of what he was doing at the time the couple were killed.

    But the Supreme Court ruled there was no intentional delay by the prosecution to gain an advantage over Cowan.

    The defense also challenged the last-minute finding by county Criminalist Greg Laskowski that a gun connected to Cowan was the murder weapon. Laskowski had earlier ruled out the weapon, but a witness came forward to say he saw Cowan stick a screwdriver in the barrel to change the bullet markings.

    Laskowski made a mold of the barrel using a casting compound, compared the mold to the bullets taken from Merck's body and concluded the bullets were fired from the gun, the opinion says. The defense challenged the science of the technique, but the court found Laskowski used two old techniques to reach a conclusion understandable by the jury.

    The defense on appeal faulted the court for allowing the preliminary hearing testimony of Gerry Tags, a former girlfriend of Cowan, to be read to the jury. Tags died before the trial.

    She testified she hated Cowan because he forced her to prostitute herself, and she believed he killed the Mercks even though she didn't know for sure. The court ruled her bias was stated and her admittedly unfounded belief that he killed the Mercks wasn't overly prejudicial.

    The Supreme Court did find fault in that the trial judge did not repeat a reasonable doubt jury instruction in the penalty phase of the trial, including how that might relate to Russell's killing, but the court said that "under all the circumstances and considering the strength of the aggravating evidence," the errors "were harmless."

    http://www.bakersfield.com/news/loca...elderly-couple

  4. #4
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    In today's United States Supreme Court orders, Cowan's petition for a writ of certiorari and motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis was DENIED.

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    Cowan's habeas case has been fully briefed before the California Supreme Court since September 1, 2015.

    http://appellatecases.courtinfo.ca.g...1TQCAgCg%3D%3D

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    On April 3, 2018, oral argument in Cowan's habeas case will be heard before the California Supreme Court.

    http://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/SAPR0318.pdf

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    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    In today's opinions, the California Supreme Court discharged its show-cause order on a juror misconduct claim. The remainder of Cowan's habeas case is still to be resolved.

    http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/S158073.PDF

  8. #8
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    On May 15, 2019, Cowan's habeas petition was DENIED by the California Supreme Court.

    https://appellatecases.courtinfo.ca....1TQCAgCg%3D%3D

    On May 28, 2019, Cowan filed a habeas petition in Federal District Court.

    https://dockets.justia.com/docket/ca...cv00745/355822

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