Fair-Mindedness Matters

So, at this point, I believe I've sifted through enough information in the court documents, newspaper clippings, and the podcast to reach some conclusions and plot where I need to go next.

Fair-mindedness matters.

Fair-mindedness matters when it comes to doing good police work.  It matters in prosecuting offenders, and it matters in defending the innocent.  And it matters when it comes to good reporting.  In this post I'll try to show how the investigations into the murders of Mary and Greg might show bias, confirmation bias, and thus a lack of fair-mindedness.

It seems to me that, early in their investigation the police focused on a black man with prior felony convictions, who owned a gun, and they didn’t turn their attention from him.  Patricia Gioia's book gives an account of the investigation the day after Mary's body was found floating in the lagoon.  During a call with Mary's brother, Gerry, we're told that Dan Wolke "...surmised Mary and Greg came back to the area around 3am.  Either Greg had killed Mary and left the Village or he too was dead.  But people they spoke to were convinced Greg would not have killed Mary." (Berkeley Marina Murders, p. 28)  Greg's body was found while the brother spoke to the police.  "While Gerry spoke to the police Greg was found.  In the margin of his notes, Gerry, wrote, Just found 2nd body in bay." (Ibid.) After getting some details from the police Gerry asked Wolke about what they thought the motive for the murders was.  Gioia writes, "Since International's prior felony was on record, they surmised it was probably a sexual assault, gone bad." (Ibid. p, 28) It should come as no surprise, then, that the prosecution's main theory proposed a sexual motive for the beatings and the murders. 

Let's try to see how this theory works by considering how it answers the question:  How did the prosecution know that Thomas committed the murders?

1. Mary and Greg were shot with a high-powered rifle.
2. Ralph Thomas owned a high-powered rifle.
3. Mary and Greg were shot by Thomas's rifle.
4. Among those gathered in and around Rainbow Village that night, only Thomas knew how to load, reload, and fire this rifle.
5. So Thomas loaded, reloaded, and fired his rifle.
6. So Thomas killed Mary and Greg.

But the two were not shot "execution style"; they were brutally beaten before they were shot.  This underscores the need for the theory to answer the question:  How did the prosecution know why Thomas committed the murders?  The argument for motive is not as strong as the one for means and opportunity.

1. Thomas brutally beat Mary with the rifle he'd brought with him to the field.
2. Mary was wearing a pair of denim shorts over a pair of running pants when her body was found.
3. The shorts were unsnapped and unzipped.
4. Thomas unsnapped and unzipped the shorts.
5. Therefore Thomas's motive for attacking Mary was sexual.

6. The sexual assault went really bad before Thomas could follow through with it.
7. Greg finds Thomas assaulting Mary.
8. Thomas attacks Greg with the rifle too.
9. Thomas overpowers Greg.
10. He shoots them both--Mary first, then Greg.
11. Therefore the motive for the shootings was witness elimination.

The first part of the argument's weak because it can't be claimed that, "Thomas, and only Thomas, could have unsnapped and unzipped Mary's shorts."  Adding Thomas's prior felony convictions** to this argument might strengthen it for a jury.  But it would seem that these convictions were already the germ for the entire argument.***  If one accepts this latter claim as true, then this raises a question:  Did the investigators fit their theory to the evidence, or did they fit the evidence to their theory?

Here is some evidence that clearly challenges the prosecution's arguments for motive:

1. "The prosecution had not established motive or produced a murder weapon. There were no witnesses to the crimes. No blood stains were found on Petitioner's [Thomas's] clothing. Petitioner had no visible scars, bruises, or other marks that might be expected after a struggle." (Thomas v. Chappell, p. 4)

2.  "Defendant was arrested for the murders on August 26, 1985. That same day, police searched defendant's car pursuant to a warrant and seized Levi's and a blue shirt thought to have been worn by defendant on the night of the crimes, a pair of boots, and camouflage pants. Chemical testing failed to reveal the presence of bloodstains on any of these items. Police also seized a leather gun case, empty .44 magnum casings, a white Tupperware container holding wooden matches, some gun oil and a gun cleaning case, and papers with references to rearms and weapons and various other subjects. The police searched for, but were unable to find, defendant's rifle, the serape or poncho that Greg was wearing when he was last seen alive, the pouch decorated with Peruvian love beads, and other items belonging to Greg and Mary." (People v. Thomas, pp. 6-7)

3. "The only evidence that might suggest a sexual motive, however, was that the zipper of the outer of two pairs of pants Gioia wore was partway down when her body was recovered. But this evidence is consistent with the pathologist's testimony that Gioia's body was dragged over rough ground. Without more, the zipper evidence is insufficient to support the conclusion that Gioia was killed for a sexual reason." (People v. Thomas, p. 32)

It's clear to me that, from the very beginning the police had a working hypothesis to which they fit the evidence.  Thus their investigation began with bias****, and it was flawed by confirmation bias.  Evidence that this bias reached into the courts can also found in the majority opinions given in People v. Thomas and In Re Ralph International Thomas on Habeas Corpus.

Why does fair-mindedness matter?  Well, if realizing truth and justice matters (and I personally think it does) then fair-mindedness matters because it helps us to get past those obstacles that keep us from realizing truth and justice for each other.  We live in a cynical world, in which sophism passes for healthy skepticism—and in which the wolves still prowl around the edges of the few enclaves in which people still find and share joy.  Predators take advantage of ‘live and let live’ attitudes growing out of a cultural relativism, in which ‘you have your truth and I have mine.’  A little fair-mindedness will go a long way these days.

But you know what?  Fuck bias and what happened to International, Greg, and Mary because it got in the way of truth and justice.

*"The trial court took judicial notice of defendant's 12 prior felony convictions. On July 24, 1974, in Monterey County, defendant was convicted of two counts of rape and one count of armed robbery. On November 1, 1974, in Alameda County, defendant was convicted of two counts of kidnapping, two counts of rape, two counts of violating section 288, subdivision (a), two counts of robbery, and one count of sodomy. The jury in that case found true the allegations that defendant was armed with a deadly weapon (a handgun) during the commission of the offenses, used the weapon in committing the kidnappings, rapes, and robberies, and acted in concert in committing the rapes and sodomy." (People v. Thomas, p. 20)

**Take a look at this clipping from the Oakland Tribune, dated August 28, 1985 ("Rainbow Villagers say police have wrong man").  Here you'll read that, a day or two following Ralph Thomas's arrest, the police had already discounted the possibility of there being an alternate suspect:  "...police detectives 'have looked at (the villager's [sic] information) and discounted it', said police homicide investigator Fred Eihl.  I don't think it is a viable account of the crime.'"

***  I realize that what I've written closely agrees with Alex Reisman's thinking on racial bias in Episode 3 ("The Human Condition").  So I'll give a transcript of what he has to say.  Here it is:

“Jim Anderson, who was the prosecutor, he argued that because Mary Gioia’s zipper was down a quarter of an inch, that there had been attempted rape, than In’ had tried to rape Mary and that Greg Kniffin was killed coming to her rescue.  Nothing suggested any of that in the evidence.

She was carried across a quarter of a mile to the Bay from where she was killed.  Dragged.  And her arms were abraded, and her legs were abraded, and her zipper came down a quarter of an inch. But [Anderson] took that and ran with that sexual implication and put in the jury’s head.  The prosecutor said it was a sexual assault.  Greg came to her side to protect her and he was killed protecting her.  Where do you get that?  You get that in racial bias.  Racial bias was in this case the entire way, the whole way.  The wrong person of the wrong color has the wrong history.

He had a bad history.  He had a history of violent crimes in the early 70’s, and he was put in prison for ten or twelve years.”