Talk:Murder of Jimmy Farris

All those tags

Whatever we do, let's not delete the original article based on the notability of the "new" Brandon Hein, who sounds like a fine young man in spite of his lack of notoriety. --CliffC 20:36, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Restoring the original Brandon Hein article

The article posted here by the 13-year-old "new" Brandon Hein has now been in place for three weeks; I am restoring the original article about the "old" Brandon Hein who is serving life in prison for felony murder, so that the world can hear about his unfortunate situation. "New" Brandon, if you become notable enough to require your own article (and I hope you do), we will set up a disambiguation page at that time. --CliffC 19:08, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

What actually happened?

This starts with the trial, but does not describe, what actually happened. 91.152.107.167 23:24, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

That's correct, but I'm working on improving the article and hope to have it done in a week or so. Meanwhile, what follows is part of it... --CliffC 04:45, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

[Crime details from the "SUMMARY OF FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS" in the 29 January, 2001 Court of Appeal findings removed, these are now part of the article] --CliffC 01:50, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Source for immunity claim

The article claims that McLoren's testimony was given in return for total immunity from prosecution for selling drugs. Since California treats drug dealers harshly, if this claim is true it would greatly undermine the credibility of the drug dealer's evidence and give the jury reasonable grounds for doubt as to intent to rob, a crucial element of the extraordinarily harsh sentencing. In particular part IX of the rejection of Hein's appeal stating that no error was committed in connection with McLoren's statement of appellants' intent, while true as far as the determination of murder goes, would be egregiously false for the extraordinary severity of the sentencing! A reliable source for this claim is therefore very important, and should be cited. If on the other hand the claim is only supported by hearsay then justice is not being served by Wikipedia's inclusion of this sort of inflammatory hearsay. --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 04:31, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, such a claim should be reliably sourced. All I can find is this statement from the press release for Reckless Indifference:

"...As told through the eyes of veteran criminal attorney William Genego, McLoren was given total immunity from prosecution before testifying on the witness stand- a fact kept from both the defense and the jury."

and the not-useful-for-our-purposes statement at brandonhein.com:

"Although he changed his story many times, by the time of the trial McLoren's testimony had become that the boys came to steal, not buy his marijuana. McLoren was the sole witness claiming the boys came to steal, and for his testimony he was granted immunity."

My inclination is to (1) edit the "Trial" section thus: McLoren, testifying as a prosecution witness under promise of immunity from prosecution on drug charges, said there had been no prior arrangement for the sale of marijuana. and (2) edit the McLoren bullet in "Controversy - Regarding the trial" to say that McLoren was not prosecuted on drug charges (citing CBS), and preface the immunity-was-granted claim with "According to Gazecki's documentary...". --CliffC (talk) 20:55, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Ok, it now seems to fit better what the public knows of the facts. The prosecution and McLoren surely know what transpired between them, but until that can be sourced more reliably Wikipedia can do no better than what you've written. --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 01:11, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Charges

The "Charges" section reads in part: "Micah Holland, 15, Brandon Hein, 18, and Anthony Miliotti, 17, as well as the actual killer Jason Holland, 18, were charged with burglary, attempted robbery, and murder committed during the course of a burglary and an attempted robbery. Jason was also charged with willful, deliberate, premeditated murder and assault with a deadly weapon."

The last sentence is incorrect in stating that Jason Holland faced a charge that the remaining three defendants didn't. All four defendants were charged with the same five counts. Count 5 was attempted willful, deliberate, premeditated murder of McLoren.

Hein, Miliotti and Micah Holland were found not guilty as to count 5, while Jason was convicted of the lesser crime of assault with a deadly weapon. I suggest a sentence is added so it reads: Micah Holland, 15, Brandon Hein, 18, and Anthony Miliotti, 17, as well as the actual killer Jason Holland, 18, were charged with burglary, attempted robbery, and murder committed during the course of a burglary and an attempted robbery, and attempted willful, deliberate, premeditated murder.

Then under the "Trial" section a sentence could be added so that it reads..."On May 28, 1996 the jury found the four defendants guilty of burglary, attempted robbery, and murder committed during the course of a burglary and an attempted robbery, that is, felony murder. In addition, Jason Holland was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon. The jury also found the allegations of special circumstances to be true, and found the murder, burglary and attempted robbery to be of the first degree.[1] --Harper41 (talk) 18:13, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out that error and for your thoughtful wording suggestions. Feel free to be bold in the future whenever you spot something that needs fixing; the encyclopedia needs more like you. Regards, CliffC (talk) 21:00, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Fistfight and murder

This section reads in part: The following description of the fight and stabbing is from the "SUMMARY OF FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS" in the January 29, 2001 California Court of Appeal findings.[1] The findings recount the facts accepted as true by the jury. Note that the term "appellants" excludes Christopher Velardo, 17, owner of the pickup truck, who remained in the truck throughout the incident and was tried separately.

I would suggest removing the sentence that reads "The findings recount the facts accepted as true by the jury." As one of the judges of the 9th Circuit Court noted during the oral arguments in October 2009; a jury is not limited to deciding whether the prosecution is correct, but whether the charges are correct. It's possible the jury could have disbelieved certain aspects of McLoren's testimony, but still believe that that the defendants attempted to rob him. -- Harper41 (talk) 18:19, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, I've removed the sentence. --CliffC (talk) 03:15, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Federal appeals

I know that this sentence: "the first hearing of an appeal at the federal level", is from the Brandon Hein Blog, but it's incorrect. The appeal that was denied on April 3, 2007 was also in federal court, not the California Court of Appeal. While I'd like to "be bold", I'm also a bit cautious as I think my suggested update might be too lawyerly. There's also the problem that it's difficult to add References. Although the information is available from the PACER website, there is no direct link to add since that website requires an account to view/purchase information.

Here's what I suggest adding to the "Federal appeals" section (perhaps in a different wording):

" Following exhaustion of their appeals in state court, Hein, Miliotti, Micah and Jason Holland filed individual Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus in the United States District Court for the Central District of California in May and July of 2004. The petitions raised identical, overlapping, and separate claims: Brady violations, prosecutorial misconduct, ineffective assistance of counsel, improper exclusion or admission of evidence, juror misconduct, judicial misconduct, cruel and unusual punishment, and arbitrary and capricious sentence reduction. On April 3, 2007, the United States Magistrate Judge assigned to the case filed a joint Report and Recommendation, recommendng that the petitions be denied. All four appellents filed objections to the Magistrate's report, but the United States Distrct Judge adopted the Report and Recommendation without modification. Each appellent then requested a Certificate of Appealability to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which were all granted in whole or in part by the District Court. On January 17, 2008, the Ninth Circuit Court granted a motion to consolidate the appeals of the appellents. " -- Harper41 (talk) 17:17, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

That's good information, I added that pretty much as written, I'll go through it later to see what terms can be wikilinked. It's better to be lawyerly if that's what it takes to be correct, and the wikilinks can help readers who really want to dig in. Your addition greatly clarifies the flow of appeals, which I always found confusing (I am not a lawyer, as you may have guessed :) ). Feel free to edit and/or move stuff around if you see more improvements to be made or anything overlooked or misplaced.

• I'm much more comfortable citing a pay site like PACER than a family blog, which was just something to go on beyond what shows up in Google News Alerts (scarce now that the case is so old), and Google itself. Wikipedia policy WP:PAYWALL says that pay sites are fine as references, I linked to the PACER case locator page.

• I dropped the "According to an April 3, 2007 posting..." paragraph from the State section since it's now covered under Federal.

Regards, CliffC (talk) 20:30, 26 April 2010 (UTC)