<i> Snapshots of life in the Golden State.</i> : Truth, Justice and the American / Estonian Ways

A question for those civil rights buffs out there: Are college undergrads in California or in long-authoritarian Estonia more willing to see guilty felons go free in order to save an innocent person from jail?

When it comes to murder, rape and drunk driving, Estonian education students were slightly more apt to protect the rights of the innocent than UC Davis psychology students, according to a study in the latest Criminal Justice and Behavior quarterly.

UC Davis professor Robert Sommer says cultural differences explain most of the findings in his study that tested belief in the dictum that it’s better to free 10 guilty people than wrongfully punish an innocent man.

In Estonia, where few people have cars, collegians were far more willing to release guilty drunk drivers, he said. And with few handguns around, the Eastern European students were less willing to release armed robbers.

But the 86 American students sampled were unwilling to set any murderers free even if it would prevent an innocent man from serving a one-to-five-year prison sentence. Estonian students, on the other hand, said they would allow several murderers to go free if that would save an innocent man from the same fate.

POLITICAL INSIDER

Frankly speaking: Labeling the current system “a blatant abuse,” veteran Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Los Angeles) is sponsoring a bill forbidding incumbents from sending free mail to voters in areas they would newly represent due to redistricting.

To announce his position, Beilenson, who is poised to run in a new Congressional district, mailed a press release to The Times. The release was mailed for free--through use of the taxpayer-supported mailing privilege for Congress.

Fund Raising by Senate Hopefuls

Candidates for California’s two U.S. Senate seats recently filed reports on campaign receipts and expenditures for the last six months of 1991. The reports are an indicator of a candidate’s ability to finance an expensive statewide campaign.

Six-Year Senate Seat to Replace Alan Cranston

JULY-DEC. TOTAL CASH CONTRIBS. RECEIPTS ON HAND DEMOCRATS Rep. Barbara Boxer $1,562,033 $2,776,607 $1,257,825 Rep. Mel Levine 991,801 4,742,836 3,724,744 Lt. Gov. Leo T. McCarthy 741,331 1,561,952 801,489 REPUBLICANS Rep. Tom Campbell 1,434,003 3,206,442 2,096,866 Bruce Herschensohn 1,229,378 1,423,340 496,377 Palm Springs Mayor Sonny Bono 55,016 100,367 10,624

Two-Year Senate Seat

JULY-DEC. TOTAL CASH CONTRIBS. RECEIPTS ON HAND DEMOCRATS Dianne Feinstein 1,176,194 1,999,781 766,777 Controller Gray Davis 464,827 1,836,759 1,536,621 REPUBLICANS Sen. John Seymour 1,666,947 2,939,405 1,062,933 Rep. William E. Dannemeyer 589,717 1,983,863 509,662

LAW AND ORDER

Killer cards: Seizing on the popularity of baseball cards, a small Sonoma County publishing house has issued trading cards on such subjects as the Iran-Contra Affair, the savings and loan scandal and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

But it is Eclipse Enterprise’s latest topic--True Crime--that is drawing heavy flak.

The 110-card set, due out this spring, contains cards depicting California multiple killers Richard Ramirez, Charles Manson, Juan Corona and Ramon Salcido. That has prosecutors and crime victims seeing red.

“Kids that get baseball and football cards look up to the people on the cards and want to emulate them,” says Miriam Gaon, victim advocate in Sonoma County, where Salcido killed seven people in a wine country rampage. “I certainly don’t think people would want their children to look up to serial killers.”

Eclipse editor Valarie Jones contends that the cards, which include legendary crimefighters such as Eliot Ness, are an educational tool. As for the large number of California killers, Jones asserts it’s just a matter of reality.

“I don’t know why our state manages to have more psychopathic criminals than others,” she says. “But we do.”

MEDIA WATCH

Rock and rural: The 51st State Movement, spearheaded by conservative rural politicians, has found an unlikely ally--the late rock concert promoter Bill Graham.

In a new Details magazine interview, billed as his last prior to the gruesome helicopter crash that took his life last year, Graham is quoted as saying that if he had it to do over again, he would have gone into politics.

“My platform would be very simple,” asserted the Godfather of the San Francisco counterculture. “To have Northern California secede from Southern California. You can never win. You can’t beat it. But what a challenge.”

Mining revenues: And if the budding new state needs a site of natural beauty to exploit for economic gain, why not the Trinity Alps north of Redding?

The rugged region of mountain peaks, abandoned gold mines mines and 140-year-old Wild West saloons is “The Last American Wilderness,” according to the latest issue of Travel & Leisure.

“Environmentalism is curbing the logging industry, and as timber revenues shrink so too does the tax base,” the upscale magazine reports. “For better or worse, tourism is gaining a foothold, with a few dreamy flatlanders leading the leisurely charge.”

EXIT LINE

“The truth is that all of California, urban and rural, North and South, has been mistreated or ignored by the Legislature and Sacramento bureaucrats.”

--Contra Costa Times editorial opposing the 51st State Movement.