In July of 2006, Cole Wilkins went to an empty construction site late at night and stealthily loaded light fixtures, a sink, a stove, various other appliances, and more onto his truck. He was sixty miles away headed home when the stove he had stolen fell off the back of the truck onto the highway. A few minutes later, David Piquette, a sheriff's deputy in Los Angeles, swerved to avoid hitting the stove and collided with a tractor trailer carrying cement. He was killed. Two years later, Wilkins was convicted of first degree murder.
Does first degree murder sound like an outrageous charge here? Well, this is an extreme example of the problems with the felony murder rule, which says that a defendant can be found guilty of first degree murder if a person dies in the course of that defendant committing a felony. Wilkins had recently committed burglary and therefore, the state argued, was guilty of murdering Piquette.
Wilkins appealed the ruling, but the appellate court ruled for the state, too. He appealed again, and this time the California Supreme Court reversed.
The court found that the jury had not been given adequate instructions before convicting Wilkins, because they weren't instructed that the crime of burglary only continues until the burglar has successfully escaped from the scene. Successful escape in this case means until the burglar "is no longer being chased and has unchallenged possession of the property." At the time of the accident, Wilkins was driving home 60 miles away, the burglary had already been committed, and he wasn't fleeing anyone or actively trying to escape the scene. Nor was he even speeding or driving recklessly. Had the jury been given these instructions, they may very well have found that felony was over by the time of the accident, and Wilkins would not have been convicted of murder.
Of course, we’re talking about Orange County here, so the story doesn’t end there. Not only did the Orange County DA overcharge this guy, and not only did the court fail to give the jury the correct instructions, OC Weekly reports that there was serious misconduct on the part of prosecutors.
From OCWeekly:
[The] California Highway Patrol (CHP) doctored a traffic-fatality report involving a stolen residential stove that accidentally fell off a pickup truck[.]
…CHP bosses quietly destroyed the original report, [and] the replacement document helped the Orange County district attorney's office win a controversial, first-degree murder conviction against Wilkins, the driver who—everyone agrees—hadn't intended to kill anyone.
According to court records, John Heckenkemper, a veteran CHP officer, responded to the 5 a.m. July 2006 freeway scene after the stove fell off the pickup truck and resulted in numerous collisions, as well as the death of a motorist, David Piquette. Heckenkemper's report concluded that Piquette, who'd been driving to work as a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy in Whittier, was to blame for swerving into another lane and slamming into a cement truck as he approached the appliance that had been blocking the road for five minutes. While Heckenkemper took vacation, other CHP officials erased his finding to blame Wilkins, a move that helped Senior Deputy District Attorney Mike Murray file charges based on a felony murder theory.
Despite all of this, prosecutors are now trying to retry Wilkins for first degree murder. Sara Ross, Wilkins's public defender, is trying to avoid retrial, as she "believes outrageous government conduct precludes her client, who has already been incarcerated for nine years, from receiving a fair, second trial."
But Superior Court Judge Marc Kelly said in December that while the Orange County District Attorney's office had violated discovery rules, he didn't think it was enough to qualify as "outrageous government conduct." He also denied the Ross’s request to question law-enforcement officials about the altered accident report under oath. Naturally, of course, Judge Kelly worked as a prosecutor in the Orange County district attorney's office for twelve years before becoming a judge.
Tomorrow Ross will make her last attempt to stop the case from being retried.
Just another reminder of how fast and loose they play with the law over there in Orange County. This story from November is also especially a doozy and one I highly recommend reading—and suffice it to say it's pretty outrageous what they've pulled over the years.
In recent months they've come under increased scrutiny, finally resulting in an outside committee doing some investigations into the office. The committee, (which wasn’t exactly independent as it was established and handpicked by the district attorney, Tony Rackauckas) released a report just this month which "described the office as functioning 'as a ship without a rudder' and faulted some of its prosecutors for adopting a 'win-at-all-costs mentality.'" They also cited a "failure of leadership."
Yes. His own personally chosen committee said all of that. But despite widespread misconduct, Rackauckas won’t resign.
Meanwhile, Wilkins has been in jail for nine years now for murder. And if the district attorney’s office gets it their way, he’ll be in there for years to come.