Convicted Killer Wisely Fights On and On : Latest Maneuvers to Avoid Sentencing Win More Time

Perhaps the most disarming thing about convicted killer Willie Ray Wisely is his intelligence.

For more than six years, longer than any other inmate at the Orange County Jail, he has used it to dazzle courtroom observers with rapid-fire legal discourse while serving as his own self-taught attorney.

His legal skills have effectively delayed his second sentencing trial for more than four years. He was sentenced to death after his first trial.

Earlier this week, it looked as if Wisely might have run out of time. But he again avoided sentencing--the prosecution is seeking life imprisonment--by unfurling a series of legal maneuvers that he hopes will delay his personal D-Day and eventually get him a new trial.

Hours of court time were spent wrangling over Wisely’s right to fire his latest court-appointed advisory counsel--his sixth so far--and whether such a firing would mean he needs at least six more months to prepare his defense. The prosecution wasn’t buying the argument for further delay, as Wisely has acted as his own attorney from the start.

Other motions before the court included one to disqualify Superior Court Judge Manuel A. Ramirez from the case. The judge refused to step down; the motion is awaiting judgment.

A press gag order sought by Wisely was taken off the court calendar; hearings are continuing on his motion for delay. Wisely is scheduled to reappear before Superior Court Judge Kathleen E. O’Leary Tuesday.

All the legal maneuvers have meant added costs to the county--costs that the courts won’t disclose now because the trial is continuing.

“How much is all this costing?” asks Deputy Dist. Atty. Burl Estes, who is prosecuting the latest phase of the Wisely trial. “Lots.”

Maintains Innocence

Wisely, 34, maintains that he was wrongly convicted in 1982 for murdering his stepfather, Robert Bray, 61, an alcoholic with whom he never got along.

Bray’s death was officially listed as accidental--a 2,000 pound truck cab fell on him--until Wisely’s cellmate in the Los Angeles County Jail told police that Wisely had bragged about rigging the cab to fall. At the time of that jailhouse exchange, Wisely was being held on separate robbery charges.

Ever since his August, 1981, move to the Orange County Jail, Wisely has steadfastly denied any connection with his stepfather’s death.

He has portrayed himself as a crusader for justice, papering county offices with countless legal briefs in the process. There have been many lawsuits and motions against judges and jailers alike, including one in which a federal judge awarded him $5,050 last month because county jail officials abused his civil rights. Most of the money was awarded because Wisely was denied sufficient sleep during his murder trial.

“That $5,000 is like $5 million for anyone else,” said Joe Harrington, Wisely’s father-in-law.

“It wasn’t the money we were after,” added his daughter, Gail Marie Harrington, a third-year law student who serves as her husband’s law clerk. “It was the judgment.”

But other judges have not been as sympathetic. They have dismissed several Wisely motions, seemingly as a waste of their time and taxpayers’ money. At the Orange County Jail, where he is the sole occupant of an eight-space cell block, many officials barely conceal their dislike for a man they view as the ultimate con man, a smart aleck who knows how to milk the system like nobody else.

‘He Gets Results’

“They don’t like him because he is smart and he gets results,” Gail Harrington said. “And if you can read and write, you have half the deputies beat over there (at the jail).”

Harrington said that since the award in the civil suit, the harassment at the county jail, including what she calls bogus drug charges, “has increased tenfold . . . because his name is Wisely.”

Although county officials deny that they have mistreated Wisely, they agree with Harrington that the name Wisely is legendary within the Orange County legal system. And with the latest twists in the saga of a man who has spent all but 16 months of his life behind bars since he turned 18, it has taken on the characteristics of a movie script.

Wisely’s shenanigans, legal and otherwise, have already attracted movie makers, book publishers and big-name TV talk-phow hosts, who so far have been put on hold.

But unlike the stereotyped brute of the big screen or even the slickly sinister white-collar psychopath, this convicted killer looks harmlessly clean cut. He has neatly combed reddish-brown hair, fair skin and even a few freckles.

It is this image of a clever young man wronged by the system that attracted Harrington, whom Wisely married in a secret ceremony on Christmas Eve.

Together they have worked tirelessly preparing Wisely’s defense. Attorneys from six separate firms, all appointed by the court to advise Wisely on legal strategy, have put in equally long hours.

The county has the bills to prove it. Harrington carts boxes and shopping carts filled with documents to show it.

Also at the county’s expense is Wisely’s oversize cell block, granted by court order to accommodate his legal paraphernalia and help him better prepare his defense. It is equipped with a computer and an unlisted telephone. Prison cooks provide him with special low-salt meals.

Records on exactly how much it is costing Orange County to accommodate Wisely remain confidential. In order to guard against prejudice, the bills for such expenses as attorneys’ fees and other items needed to prepare a defense are handled by a judge other than the one hearing the case.

Although such accounting usually occurs at the end of a case, the extraordinary length of Wisely’s defense has meant that expenses are accounted for in periodic intervals.

Indeed, while Wisely’s moves to beat the legal system that convicted him are perfectly legal, county officials said privately that they represent an abuse of the system.

And with Wisely’s latest move to avoid paying for the expense of his trial--he deeded his $170,000 house to his father-in-law, who sold it to pay for new private attorney’s fees--county officials can’t hope to recoup much, if any, of the taxpayers’ money.

Until there is a final judgment, no hearing on Wisely’s ability to repay the county can be held.

Attorney James Brustman, who is defending Harrington on charges of smuggling drugs into the Orange County Jail, said: “I feel the vibrations in the courthouse that the court has lost its sense of humor on this whole thing.”