Death Sentence in Reporter’s Slaying Upset
A federal appeals court today overturned the death sentence of John Harvey Adamson, confessed accomplice in the 1976 car bomb murder of Arizona investigative reporter Don Bolles.
The 7-3 decision by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found that the state of Arizona violated Adamson’s “double jeopardy rights”--protection against multiple trials on the same offense.
Although the ruling voids his death penalty, the court said, it does not change Adamson’s original conviction and sentence for second-degree murder based on a plea agreement.
He must serve the 20-year, plus two months, actual prison time on a 49-year sentence as agreed in the plea bargain.
Adamson originally pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and testified against Max Dunlap and James Robison, two other suspected participants, in the murder-for-hire of Bolles.
When the Dunlap and Robison convictions were overturned in 1980, Adamson refused to testify a second time in the pair’s retrial saying he had fulfilled his part of the bargain. His plea agreement was tossed out and a first-degree murder charge reinstated.
Adamson was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death.
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