Wilson Denies Clemency for ‘Freeway Killer’

SACRAMENTO —  Saying “justice delayed is indeed justice denied,” Gov. Pete Wilson rejected a clemency plea Tuesday for William G. Bonin, the notorious “Freeway Killer” who faces execution this week by lethal injection for a brutal murder spree in Southern California 16 years ago.

In a short statement at the Capitol, Wilson said claims by Bonin’s attorneys that he was not given adequate legal representation during a pair of trials failed to compel the governor to halt the execution scheduled for 12:01 a.m. Friday.

Wilson had the power to reduce the death sentence against Bonin--convicted of molesting and murdering 14 teenagers and then dumping their bodies along roadways in Los Angeles and Orange counties in 1979 and 1980--to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

But the governor said arguments that Bonin’s execution would be a miscarriage of justice because he had not received a fair trial “cannot serve as a basis for clemency.” Bonin’s guilt “is beyond dispute,” given the killer’s confessions and physical evidence linking him to the crimes, Wilson said.

“His case has been argued and examined from every angle up and down the state and federal courts,” Wilson said. “The whole process has consumed more years than Bonin allowed some of his young victims to live.”

Bonin’s defense team received added setbacks Tuesday when federal judges in Los Angeles and San Francisco denied last-minute efforts to block the execution.

Bonin, who is represented by lawyers in the state public defender’s office, is expected to turn to the U.S 9th Circuit Court as his attorneys press ahead with last-minute appeals in hopes of blocking or delaying his death. If those efforts are unsuccessful, Bonin would become only the third man executed since California’s death penalty was reinstated in 1977 and the first to die by lethal injection.

Wilson called the multiple murders “an unbelievable nightmare” because of both their savage nature and the “inexcusable, repeated failure of the criminal justice system to protect young boys against this vicious sexual predator and killer.”

He noted that Bonin was arrested for sex crimes several times during the 1970s but repeatedly was released “to kidnap, molest and murder new victims.” The governor boasted that legislative reforms he pushed through have dramatically tightened sentencing for sexual predators.

Concluding that “for certain crimes, justice demands the ultimate punishment,” Wilson said that “Bonin’s premeditated, shockingly brutal murders of these 14 boys are such crimes . . . William Bonin will never kill again. Clemency is denied.”

After reading his statement, Wilson walked out of the briefing room without taking questions.

Sean Walsh, the governor’s spokesman, said Wilson reached a final decision on Bonin by Monday evening. The governor factored in Bonin’s abuse-ridden childhood but felt it wasn’t enough to merit stopping the execution.

Wilson will have a special hotline to San Quentin Prison available to him if he changes his mind and wants to grant clemency. Walsh, however, said: “I don’t see a change of heart occurring on the governor’s part.”

Relatives of Bonin’s victims were pleased by Wilson’s decision.

Sandra Miller, the mother of 15-year-old murder victim Russell Duane Rugh, said she was “just ecstatic” at the governor’s action.

“When I actually heard it, it was a big sigh of relief,” said the Riverside woman, who plans to attend the execution.

David McVicker, who as a teenager was raped by Bonin three years before the murders began, wasn’t surprised Wilson denied the clemency request.

“There was no doubt in my mind,” said McVicker, 35, who also plans to watch the execution.

Wilson’s decision also was long expected by Bonin’s current legal team in the state public defender’s office. Although they have failed in numerous appeals, his lawyers are seeking to block the execution through continuing appeals.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Edward Rafeedie in Los Angeles rejected Bonin’s request for a new trial.

Bonin’s lawyers asserted the Downey truck driver did not receive a fair trial, alleging that the trial lawyer failed to raise Bonin’s abusive childhood and that the prosecution hypnotized a witness and used the perjured testimony of a jailhouse informant.

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In San Francisco, U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel rejected Bonin’s assertion that he was denied his right to choose the method of execution. Patel is the same judge who in 1994 barred use of the gas chamber as “inhumane.” The state has appealed that ruling.

Attempts to reach Bonin’s lawyers were unsuccessful.

Steve Telliano, a spokesman for state Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren, said California’s top prosecutor is prepared for an eleventh-hour legal joust with defense attorneys trying to save Bonin’s life.

“We believe Mr. Bonin had a full and fair hearing on all of these arguments,” Telliano said. “These last-minute filings are merely efforts to delay his sentence.”

Bonin is scheduled to be transferred to a holding cell in San Quentin about 6 p.m. Thursday for his last meal and visitors.

He will be allowed to visit with two “spiritual advisors,” but he has yet to make a request, said Tipton C. Kindel, a Department of Corrections spokesman.

Just before midnight, Bonin will be moved to the San Quentin gas chamber, where he will be strapped to a gurney. Intravenous tubes will be inserted in each arm.

If all appeals have been exhausted, the prison’s warden will order that the execution go forward. Bonin will be given a dose of sodium Pentothal to knock him unconscious as well as pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride to keep him from going into convulsions and stop his heart.

All three drugs are administered at levels that “in and of themselves would be lethal,” Kindel said.

Kindel said death usually comes in about four minutes, although in some documented cases the condemned has lingered as long as 50 minutes. A monitor on Bonin’s heart will tell when he has died.

Bonin has requested that five people--Kindel described them only as “friends”--be among the 50 witnesses who watch his execution.