Laguna Man’s Conviction for Rape Reversed : Courts: Judge cites defendant’s poor legal assistance. He may be released from Death Row, but murder conviction stands.

A federal judge has overturned the rape conviction of a Laguna Beach man sentenced to death for the murder and rape of a Mission Viejo woman in 1981, a ruling that could free him from Death Row.

U.S. District Judge Richard A. Gadbois Jr. ruled on March 29 that Thomas Martin Thompson received poor assistance from his attorney in his original trial and that his rape conviction, and the associated special-circumstance finding that led to the death sentence, should be set aside.

Prosecutors may appeal Gadbois’ decision or they could decide to retry the case. Regardless, the murder conviction would stand.

The prosecutor in the case and Thompson’s former lawyer, Ron Brower, ridiculed the decision.

“This is a bunch of Monday morning quarterbacking by people who didn’t play the game,” said Brower, a well-regarded criminal attorney who has practiced 20 years in Orange County.

Thompson was convicted in 1983 of rape and first-degree murder in the death of 20-year-old Ginger Fleischli, whose body was found in a shallow grave near what is now Irvine soon after she disappeared in September, 1981. Fleischli had been stabbed to death.

The prosecution said she was killed to prevent her from reporting the rape and revealing an illegal scheme Thompson and another man had concocted to smuggle Vietnamese refugees out of Thailand. The other man, David Leitch of Laguna Beach, a co-defendant in the case, was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 15 years to life in prison in 1985.

After only three hours of deliberation, an Orange County Superior Court jury voted to impose the death penalty on Thompson. In 1988, the state Supreme Court upheld the sentence by a vote of 5 to 2.

But Gadbois wrote that Brower should have called in a private pathologist to question the rape finding, Brower said. Gadbois also found that Brower should have gathered more information to discredit a jailhouse informant who testified that Thompson had bragged of the offenses while in Orange County Jail.

Brower acknowledged that he was at times at odds with Thompson.

“We put on a vigorous defense,” said Brower, who was a former prosecutor in Orange and San Luis Obispo counties. “But the defendant systematically ignored my advice. . . . His behavior in this case was a disaster.”

Brower said he advised Thompson not to talk to other prisoners about the case or write letters about it, but Thompson went ahead and talked to two prison informants and wrote letters to friends outside of jail.

Jacobs, a deputy district attorney in Orange County for 19 years, contended the judge “just wanted to throw out a death penalty.” He said he has “no doubt whatsoever” Thompson is guilty of all charges.

“This case was open and shut. . . . The jury had no problems with it,” Jacobs said. “To say Ron Brower is incompetent is ridiculous. He is one of the best attorneys in the county.”

Jack Fleischli of Mission Viejo, the victim’s father, said he had not heard of the new ruling in the case and therefore had “no thoughts on it at the moment.”

Thompson, who has been in prison for 14 years and is on Death Row at San Quentin, has “always maintained his innocence,” said his current attorney, Gregory Long of Los Angeles.

“Tom is potentially off Death Row, but the state has the option of retrying him,” Long said.