Death Row Artist James P. Anderson, A Case Of

Reasonable Doubt.



By STEVE ARGUE

Artist James P. Anderson has sat in prison, mostly

on death row, for the past 22 years. From the prison

cells where men are warehoused to die at San Quentin

State Prison, his paintings are a reaffirmation of

beauty and humanity. James P. Anderson's painting

"Desire" seems to me to show a pathway to his desire

to live, dream, and create under a system that simply

wants him to die.

Anderson was convicted of the murder of two women

in 1979, but maintains he is innocent.

If James Anderson is innocent he's in good company.

In the year 2000 alone 58 death row inmates had their

convictions overturned largely as a result of new DNA

evidence being brought to light. Still prosecutors

have fought against the use of DNA evidence to

overturn old convictions, even when the lives of

innocent people are on the line.

James P. Anderson has not had the benefit of new

DNA evidence coming to light, especially with the

crime scene never having been secured, but a number of

major questions do cast doubts on the prosecutions

version of events.

James P. Anderson is a black man. He was convicted

by an all white jury in Riverside County, California.

All white juries do not understand issues that Blacks

face in America like police, prosecutorial, and

judicial racism. In addition death penalty juries are

always more likely to convict because all who oppose

the death penalty are excluded from these juries,

making them juries that are more biased towards

supporting the prosecution. An all white death

penalty jury is in fact one that is likely to contain

a number of people who think that all Black people are

criminals, making these jurors incapable of weighing

the evidence even if it is presented fairly. For a

Black man in racist America, an all white death

penalty jury is not a jury of his peers, and is a

violation of his constitutional rights.

The gap in understanding legal realities in America

could be seen starkly during the O.J. Simpson trial.

Most whites assumed he did it based partly on

pro-police and pro-prosecutorial bias. That bias

included believing the forensic evidence. Yet blacks

were more likely to question that forensic evidence

based on the possibility that it was planted by a

white power Nazi named Mark Fuhrman who has admitted

to planting evidence in the past.

O.J. Simpson had the benefit of being defended by

the best legal representation money can buy. James P.

Anderson was defended by a public defender, Keith

Long, who was suspended from the bar while working on

his case. Incompetent attorneys are very common in

death penalty cases, but it is almost impossible to

get a new trial based on ineffective assistance. The

systems message is clear, the lives of the poor and

working class are cheep in America, justice in only

for those who can afford it.

Anderson maintains that he was framed-up by the

actual killer who he says is Fred Anders. Anderson

says Fred Anders, a white man, was angered by the

interracial relationship between his sister, Sheila

Lynn Anders and James Anderson. In addition Anderson

states that Fred Anders had the additional motive to

frame him because Anderson had just found out about

Fred Anders sexual assault of a 9-year old girl.

The prosecution called only one eyewitness to the

murders to testify, Fred Anders. A crucial piece of

police evidence does back up Anderson's claim that it

was Fred Anders who committed the crime, a piece of

the murder weapon was found in Fred Anders jacket

pocket. That section of the murder weapon was a 3 to

4-foot piece of rope that forensically attached to the

rope used to hang Louise Flanagan. Also found in Fred

Anders pocket was a knife.

The District Attorney on the case, Thomas Douglas,

told the jury that Fred Anders had passed a polygraph

test with flying colors. Later, under questioning,

that same DA admitted he had lied, stating that no

polygraph was given, even though his statement during

the trial is part of the court record.



Fred Anders was the brother of Anderson's

girlfriend, Sheila Lynn Anders. All three had been

traveling together although Anderson didn't really

know Fred Anders. James Anderson informed this

reporter that it was while the three were driving that

he found out the extreme prejudice of Fred Anders.

Detective B. Byers wrote in his police report that

Sheila Lynn Anders had stated that her blood brother,

Fred Anders, and not James P. Anderson, had committed

the murders. She later changed her story after the

prosecution, in violation of federal law, allowed Fred

Anders to visit her in jail. Suddenly she changed her

story and backed up her brother, but she wasn't called

as a witness by the prosecution. Obviously her

testimony would have been useless to the prosecution

with her earlier statements to Detective Byers being

on record, but she was now useless to the defense as

an eyewitness.

Particularly damaging to the defense of James P.

Anderson was the testimony of Deborah Baros claiming

that she was an eyewitness to another murder committed

by James P. Anderson in 1978. This was a murder of a

gas station attendant named Jack Mackey. Yet while

the prosecution claims that her statements

are consistent with evidence, the fact of the matter

is that she gave 2 different versions as to what

happened in taped interviews. In addition Deborah

Baros claims that James P. Anderson communicates with

her telepathically, she states that she remembers many

things through dreams, and claims that her imaginary

son Anthony was riding with them in the car when they

committed the murders. The prosecution admits that

Deborah's son Anthony was imaginary based on various

evidence, but considered her a good witness even with

her unable to state one version of what took place.

Obviously Deborah Baros could not differentiate

between reality and her own dreams and hallucinations,

and the prosecutions use of her in a trial to put a

man on death row was criminal activity on their part.

Deborah Baros is under the powerful medications

premarin, Tylenol with codeine, fioricet, xanax,

darvocet, amitriptyline, mellaril, mebaral, and

prophenol. She is taking these medications as a

result of "mental anguish" caused by a New Hampshire

court taking her real children away in 1987 for her

alleged sexual abuse of them.

It is very damaging to have someone come forward

and claim to be a witness to the defendant carrying

out a similar crime to the one they are being accused.

This is true even when the witness is not very

credible and other evidence in the crime are purely

circumstantial. The accusations of similar crimes

weigh heavy in the minds of the jurors, making them

less apt to rule in favor of any reasonable doubts

they may have.

For police motivated by racism, other political

motivations, corruption, or just a desire to close a

case the manipulation of mentally vulnerable people

for false testimony has occurred in other cases. In

the case of Leonard Peltier the FBI coerced a mentally

ill South Dakota woman named Myrtle Poor Bear to

testify against him in order to gain Leonard Peltier's

extradition from Canada. Myrtle Poor Bear says that

the FBI threatened to take her children away. She

says the FBI also showed her pictures of Anna Mae with

her hands cut off. Anna Mae was an Indian activist

who is widely believed to have been murdered by the

FBI. Myrtle Poor Bear says that after the FBI showed

her the gruesome pictures of Anna Mae the FBI told her

that she would look even worse when they were done

with her, that they would put her through a meat

grinder and no one would even be able to recognize

her.

Under this kind of intimidation Myrtle Poor Bear

testified that she was the girlfriend of Leonard

Peltier, even though they had never met, and that she

was a witness to Peltier's involvement in killing two

FBI agents, even though she was not. Myrtle Poor Bear

later recanted this testimony.

There is no evidence of such manipulation in the

particular case of the testimony of Deborah Baros, but

we should understand that someone like Deborah Baros

would be susceptible to manipulation.

The use of only two eyewitnesses: one who does not

even know the difference between reality and dreams,

and another who potentially carried out the two other

murders and who was carrying a piece of the murder

weapon in his pocket raises serious questions in this

case. The fact that the prosecution did not call a

third eyewitness, Sheila Lynn Anders, because she

originally had said that James P. Anderson was

innocent, is also telling of the weak case against

James P. Anderson.

The standard for guilt is supposed to be guilty

beyond a reasonable doubt, yet an all white pro-death

penalty jury raised on the prejudices of the

mainstream media does not usually have a proper grip

of reality to understand what a reasonable doubt is

and why it is important. The fact that juries are

selected in death penalty cases, eliminating all who

have the sense to oppose the death penalty, is one

more reason why the death penalty should be abolished.

The flimsy evidence used to convict James P. Anderson

and how unreliable convictions really are should make

everyone question the death penalty. Death is

permanent. Besides the fact that the prosecution

never proved a reasonable case against James P.

Anderson, the contribution he is making to the world

through his art is another reason James P. Anderson

must live.

When I spoke to James P. Anderson on the phone from

San Quinton he told me that before all this happened

he had no idea how corrupt the system really is.

Really the death penalty is a weapon of terror held by

a racist system, and nobody is safe. Adding to the

inhumane treatment of being on death row, James P.

Anderson has not been able to get proper medical

attention for a condition that has impaired his sight

and gives him constant headaches.

While the abolition of the death penalty will not assure

justice, there will be no justice as long as there is a

death penalty.

The racist death penalty must be abolished!

Death penalty juries must be abolished!

We demand proper medical attention for James P. Anderson!

Free James P. Anderson!

For more information, and to see James P. Anderson's

art visit:

www.cafepress.com/iconoclastssf



www.lynnerutter.com/jamesanderson/index



James Anderson Interviews, The Dagger Magazine

http://www.thedagger.com/thedagger/anderson/index.html

Canadian Coalition Against The Death Penalty (CCADP)

Web Page for James Anderson

http://members.xoom.com/ccadp/jamesanderson.htm

Medical Files

http://members.nbci.com/ccadp/medicaljames1.htm

Police Reports

http://members.nbci.com/ccadp/anderson-policereports.htm

The Art of James Anderson: The Dagger Magazine

http://www.thedagger.com/thedagger/anderson/ja_art.htm

The Art of James Anderson: Canadian Coalition Against

the Death Penality

http://members.xoom.com/ccadp/jamesanderson.htm

The Art of James Anderson: Iconoclast Productions

http://www.geocities.com/aamulticon//james.html

James Anderson: Surviving the System

http://www.survivingthesystem.com/anderson_james.htm#art

James Anderson T-Shirts

http://cafepress.com/iconoclastsf

http://www.todesstrafe-usa.de/death_penalty/dp_e.htm



James Anderson

PO Box C 11400 2E66

San Quentin State Prison

San Quentin, California

94974 USA