Cardinal Urges Clemency for Thompson

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony urged Gov. Pete Wilson to grant clemency for Thomas Thompson, a death row inmate facing execution next month for the 1981 murder of a Laguna Beach woman, the church announced Thursday.

Thompson’s execution is scheduled for Aug. 5 at San Quentin. Thompson, now 42, was convicted of murdering 20-year-old Ginger Fleischli.

She was killed in the apartment Thompson shared with the victim’s former boyfriend, David Leitch.

In a separate trial, Leitch was convicted of second-degree murder.

The state Supreme Court last week denied a stay of execution and refused to order a hearing on Thompson’s claim of new evidence.

In a letter sent to Wilson on Wednesday, Mahony, the leader of the nation’s largest Roman Catholic archdiocese, said, “I share the concerns of the attorneys who represent Mr. Thompson . . . that raise serious doubts about the circumstances which made this case eligible for the death penalty and other substantial questions regarding his role in the crime for which he was convicted.”

Thompson’s lawyers say a statement from Leitch that the victim and Thompson had consensual sex confirmed Thompson’s trial testimony and undermined the rape conviction.

The rape conviction was the legal basis for the capital murder charge and death penalty and Thompson’s alleged motive for the murder.

Mahony said his appeal for clemency was in line with the position taken by U.S. Catholic bishops against capital punishment.

The position “in no way seeks to minimize the tremendous pain and loss suffered by the victims of violent crime and by their family and friends,” he said.

Dwight Smith, a member of an Orange County anti-death penalty group, said Mahony “has often spoken out against capital punishment.” It is, Smith said, “not an appropriate measure in the Catholic catechism.”

Father John McAndrew of St. Angela Merici in Brea said Mahony’s letter is consistent with the church’s increasingly vocal stance against the death penalty. He pointed to Pope John Paul II’s plea last week to halt a Virginia execution as a sign of the church’s activism on the issue.

“There’s been a real rethinking, and the death penalty is something we can no longer apply morally,” McAndrew said.

On Monday, the state Board of Prison Terms heard dramatic appeals from seven family members of Thompson.

Four lawyers urged the board to recommend clemency on grounds that reasonable doubt exists as to Thompson’s guilt. They also pointed to what they said were questionable tactics by the prosecutor and incompetence on the part of Thompson’s first defense attorney.

Prison Board Chairman James Nielsen said the board’s recommendation would not be made public until Wilson announces his decision on whether to grant clemency to Thompson.

“It is ultimately the decision of the governor, and we are the entity that provides him the information he needs to make his decision,” Nielsen said.

Michael Jacobs, the Orange County prosecuting attorney in the trials of both Thompson and Leitch, argued that both trials were sound and evidence used to convict Thompson of both rape and murder is solid.

“The evidence was clear and unequivocal” that Thompson murdered Fleischli, Jacobs told the board.

Ron Low, a spokesman for Wilson, said the governor and his staff are reviewing about 3,000 pages of files from the Thompson case.

“It’s a meticulous and thorough review,” Low said.