Lyn Moss

STATEMENT FROM SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY ANDERSON ON GOVERNOR NEWSOM’S DEATH PENALTY COMMUTATIONS Today, Governor Newsom announced his desire to grant blanket commutations for every death row inmate in California. It is the wrong decision. The Governor is attempting to appear courageous with this decision. He is not courageous. His commutations are solely based upon power and political aspirations. Courage would require speaking with crime victims and the surviving family members of the people murdered by these death row inmates. The Governor has not called Josh Ryen or Mary Ann Hughes to ask them their opinion on a potential commutation for Kevin Cooper. Cooper, who slaughtered Josh’s entire family including Josh’s friend and Mary’s son, Chris Hughes, and then left Josh for dead. Josh has lived with the impact of that horrific night his entire life. Josh has never received a call from Gavin Newsom. Courage would require the Governor to follow Marsy’s Law, California’s constitutional rights belonging to victims of crime. He has not. I am not aware of any victims’ family members receiving notice of these commutations from the Governor. Courage would also require the Governor to respect democracy and the will of the people by acknowledging that the people of California have consistently and repeatedly voted in favor of the death penalty in California. The Governor is concerned with politics, not people. The Governor ignores victims’ and their families’ constitutional rights with this decision. He has placed the lives and interests of convicted murderers above victims and their families. Finally, courage would demand that the Governor respect the greatest example of democracy that exists, the jury system. These death sentences that the Governor is attempting to commute were all imposed by twelve members of the community who each had to independently determine that these condemned inmates were guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and determine that the crimes were so heinous that death was the only appropriate sentence. Jurors understand that not everyone should be treated the same for every homicide, because there are murders so horrific that no other verdict could be just. Gavin Newsom does not understand this, and has never attempted to understand this. What the Governor seeks to do today is not courageous. It is arrogant and political showmanship. Governor Newsom substitutes his own aspirations in place of independently elected District Attorneys, hundreds of experienced prosecutors and judges, thousands of jurors, millions of voters, and most importantly, crime victims who have been consistently misled and denied justice by him and the California Legislature.

h Follow He disguised himself as a fisherman, slipped deep into North Vietnam, and rescued two American pilots who had almost been given up for dead. Six months later he was shot in the head, and a fellow Navy SEAL refused to leave him behind. Both men eventually received the Medal of Honor. Thomas Norris was a SEAL in Vietnam. In April 1972 two pilots were shot down near the Cua Viet River. Helicopter rescues failed under heavy fire. Commanders concluded the men were lost. Norris volunteered anyway. He darkened his skin, wore local clothes, and moved by sampan and on foot with a small team of South Vietnamese commandos. He found Lieutenant Colonel Iceal Hambleton and brought him out. Days later he went back for Lieutenant Mark Clark, working with Nguyen Van Kiet. They reached him and guided him to a waiting ship. All three made it out. For the rescues Norris received the Medal of Honor. On October 31, 1972, Norris was leading a five-man reconnaissance team when they were ambushed by 50 to 100 enemy soldiers. He was shot in the head above the left eye. The bullet fractured his skull and destroyed the eye. He collapsed and lost a great deal of blood. One of the Vietnamese commandos thought he was dead. Mike Thornton refused to leave him. Thornton lifted Norris onto his shoulders and moved toward the ocean while firing with one hand. At the water he dragged him into the surf, inflated his life vest, and swam for two hours in the South China Sea, keeping Norris’s head above water. A Navy ship eventually spotted them. Norris survived surgery and infection. He lost the eye and later had part of his skull replaced with a metal plate. Thornton received the Medal of Honor for saving him. One Medal of Honor recipient had saved another. They became lifelong friends. Norris later joined the FBI and served 20 years as a special agent, working with one eye and a metal plate in his head. Thornton stayed in the Navy another 30 years. Both kept a low profile. Norris is now 80 and Thornton is 76. They remain friends.