Death Sentence Will Be Reviewed

Convicted killer Willie Wisely finally got an appellate hearing on his death sentence Wednesday, to the relief of sheriff’s officials who have grudgingly given him eight cell beds at the crowded Orange County Jail.

Wisely, who turns 33 today, is the jail’s senior inmate, a resident since 1981. But he is best known, perhaps, for having more living space than anyone else there because of a Superior Court order that he be provided enough room to store his voluminous legal papers.

Justices of the 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana, following Wednesday’s hearing, must now rule whether Wisely should get a new trial on his death sentence--as a trial judge has ordered--or be sent to Death Row in San Quentin, as a jury recommended nearly four years ago.

More Motions Expected

Meanwhile, jail officials are braced for a flurry of new court motions from Wisely, who has in recent years bombarded federal and Superior Court with dozens of motions, citing violations of his rights as an inmate and interference with his efforts to serve as his own lawyer.

In a recent jail interview, Wisely defended his actions.

“I’ve had to do everything on my case,” he explained. “If I had depended on lawyers, I’d be on Death Row right now. . . . “

Wisely was taken to the Orange County Jail in March, 1981, to stand trial on charges that he had murdered his stepfather, Robert E. Bray, 61, by rigging Bray’s truck cab to fall on him.

Wisely chose to be his own attorney and won praise from prosecutors and other jurists for his courtroom work. But on March 16, 1982, a jury convicted him of first-degree murder. A few weeks later, the same jurors gave him the death penalty.

In April, 1982, however, Judge Kenneth E. Lae, the trial judge, threw out the jury’s death penalty verdict. At issue was a Los Angeles robbery case of Wisely’s still pending in court, which prosecutors had brought up in the penalty phase of the Orange County trial.

Lae explained that, under appellate law, he should have instructed jurors that they had to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Wisely committed the Los Angeles County robbery before weighing it as evidence in the Orange County trial.

Prosecutors argued that Wisely had admitted to the robbery in his own statements to jurors and that evidence about his involvement was overwhelming. But Lae, who has since retired, said he had no choice but to order a new penalty trial.

5,500-Page Transcript

Prosecutors decided to appeal Lae’s ruling, but the action bogged down after the appellate court held that it could not properly review the case without a full transcript of the trial--more than 5,500 pages. The hearing finally took place Wednesday, but the justices’ decision could still be months away.

Wisely’s appeal was handled by Santa Ana attorney Keith Monroe. But, as in the past, Wisely has kept himself busy with other legal matters.

During his stay in the Orange County Jail, for example, Wisely became a veritable information source for the state Board of Corrections, sending officials numerous letters about conditions at the jail. He also has been busy lobbying in Superior Court for better access to legal materials.

Soon after his Orange County trial, Wisely was moved back to the Los Angeles County Jail for the robbery case in which he pleaded guilty and got a six-year sentence. Later, he was sent briefly to the state prison in Chino. His current appeal brought him back to the Orange County Jail last year, but in the meantime, jail officials had denied him access to the legal papers he had amassed as part of his defense.

Ruled for Prisoner

Wisely filed his own court motions to protest, and Superior Court Judge Robert H. Green subsequently issued an order protecting Wisely’s right to mount his own legal defense.

More than a year ago, in an attempt to comply with Green’s order, former Jail Commander George King set up Wisely all by himself in an eight-man cell on the medical floor. A partition was built to separate Wisely’s cellblock and adjoining dayroom from nearby juvenile quarters.

In another action, Wisely filed a lawsuit against overcrowded conditions at the County Jail, in addition to a case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union. Wisely was in a Los Angeles courtroom, handcuffed but in coat and tie, when U.S. District Judge William P. Gray issued his contempt-of-court citation against Orange County Sheriff Brad Gates and the county earlier this year for failure to ease crowding at the jail.

The irony is not lost on jail officials. Wisely supported the eventual ruling won by the ACLU that no inmates be allowed to sleep on the jail floor. But while jail officials are scrambling to meet that order, Wisely and his court files are taking up eight bunk spaces.

“We’re anxious to see this case get going because we want Willie on Death Row where he belongs,” said Assistant Dist. Atty. Ed Freeman, who was Wisely’s prosecutor, in a recent interview. “But we’re also anxious because we know what a problem Willie poses for the jail.”

His Own Law Office

In his cellblock, Wisely has stacks of legal boxes, numerous legal books and even a word processor to help him prepare motions both on his case and against his jailers.

These resources have frequently paid off. The day before his hearing in the 4th District, for example, Wisely won a $60 judgment from the same justices. The inmate--who earlier won a ruling against a lower court as part of his legal defense--had been denied the $60 in court costs that he said were incurred in filing the order. The justices, on a motion written by Wisely, agreed that he was owed the $60.

Despite these victories, Wisely is not happy. For one thing, his court motions now go to a new jurist, Superior Court Judge Robert R. Fitzgerald, who has turned out to be much less accommodating than Judge Green.

Fitzgerald turned down Wisely’s request for a computer to help him keep track of case law and various legal points. Wisely says he hasn’t given up on that one, and he is also asking that a law library be constructed next to his cell, not just for him but for the other inmates as well.

Law officials have complained that it would be impossible to run the jail if every inmate were granted the same privileges as Wisely. But he sees it differently.

“Hell, they’re trying to send me to the gas chamber,” Wisely said. “No one is going to lift a finger to stop them unless I do it myself.”