Death Penalty for Reporter’s Killer Voided

In its first full review of one of 300 death penalty cases pending in nine western states, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday reversed the death sentence of a man who admitted killing Arizona newspaper reporter Don Bolles with a car bomb in 1976.

The 7-4 decision by an 11-member panel of the court--split along clear liberal-conservative lines--overturned a decision last year by a three-judge 9th Circuit panel upholding the death penalty for John Harvey Adamson, 42.

The 11-member panel said Arizona authorities violated Adamson’s double-jeopardy protection by filing a first-degree murder charge against him in 1980, after originally agreeing to sentence him to 20 years and 2 months in prison for second-degree murder in exchange for his testimony against two alleged accomplices in the Bolles killing.

While striking down the first-degree murder conviction, the seven-judge majority on the 9th Circuit panel said the terms of Adamson’s original plea to second-degree murder remain valid, giving the Arizona Supreme Court six months in which to reinstate the lesser conviction.

Plea Bargain

Adamson had cooperated with authorities as a witness in a 1977 murder trial of Max Dunlap and James Robison, but refused to cooperate during a retrial of the two men after the Arizona Supreme Court reversed their convictions in 1980. Adamson contended that his plea bargain did not extend to a second trial.

Left without the testimony of their key witness, Arizona officials dismissed the Bolles murder charges against both Dunlap and Robison.

Writing the opinion for the majority was Circuit Judge Warren J. Ferguson of Santa Ana, one of the most liberal of the 9th Circuit’s 28 active judges.

Ferguson criticized the wording of the Adamson plea bargain, which referred to his testimony at “all interviews, depositions, hearings and trials.” The language did not specifically make clear that there would be a retrial, Ferguson noted.

Period of Cooperation

Another mistake made by Arizona officials, Ferguson wrote, was sentencing Adamson on the second-degree charge conviction before his period of cooperation was over.

“Double jeopardy prohibits multiple prosecutions for the same offense,” he wrote. “The state maintains that Adamson waived the double-jeopardy protection when he signed the (1977 plea-bargain) agreement. The state’s contention . . . is without merit.”

Joining Ferguson in the majority were Judges Procter Hug Jr., Mary M. Schroeder, Harry Pregerson, Dorothy M. Nelson, Robert Boochever and William A. Norris.

Strongly dissenting from the majority opinion were four of the circuit’s most conservative judges on criminal matters, Anthony M. Kennedy, Arthur L. Alarcon, Robert R. Beezer and Melvin Brunetti. Kennedy joined in one dissent and was so upset with the decision, that he wrote another by himself.

‘Lesser Charges’

“The majority’s first false premise is that there was a double-jeopardy right to be waived; there was not,” he wrote. “Prosecutors do not have to explain the mysteries of double jeopardy before entering into an enforceable plea agreement. The whole purpose of such agreements, as in this case, is to permit the defendant to plead to lesser charges, subject to the risk of facing more serious ones if he does not keep his end of the deal.”

Bolles, a reporter for the Arizona Republic in Phoenix, was fatally injured June 2, 1976, when a bomb exploded under his car outside a Phoenix hotel. Before he died 11 days later, he said he had gone to the hotel to meet Adamson.

Adamson testified in 1977 that he killed Bolles, 47, as part of a murder-for-hire conspiracy. He said he received $5,800 after the car-bombing from Dunlap, a land developer. He also implicated Robison, a plumbing contractor, in the scheme.