Billy Wesley Monk was a young man who was brutally raised by an uncaring mother in a home of constant replaceable stepfathers who subjected him to beatings and torture. How would you expect him to turn out?
I was a senior prosecutor at the time and was about 33 years old, but a Calendar deputy charged with supervising two other deputy DAs, reviewed all cases in my trial department, and designated me to deal with those cases assigned to my court, and to try the heavy cases assigned there. The decision whether to seek the Death Penalty, in those cases where that could be the punishment, was left up to me. That decision has been dramatically changed today, and the decision is not let to one person who may be prone to seek the death penalty, the arbitrariness has been eliminated, and the decision is now in the hands of senior prosecutors as a committee.
Billy Monk never to my knowledge killed anyone. In 1960, the penalty for kidnapping for the purpose of robbery with bodily injury was either death, or life without parole.
On March 14, 1960, Mrs. Rose S. was returning to her home from shopping, when she was accosted by Monk in the parking lot of a shopping center when she came upon Monk who forced her at gunpoint to enter his car, threw her wallet containing about $10.00 into the back of his car after moving her a short distance. He made her get in, telling her “we’re not through yet.” After driving her a distance, she managed to throw herself out of the car while the car was still moving and escaped, but suffered injuries of bleeding, and she was hospitalized for a short period
On April 19, 1960, Monk by way of a ruse, first dismantled Mrs. Katherine S. car lights, and then offered to drive her and her six-year-old boy to her home. After approaching the home he told her to disrobe and when she resisted, he smashed her face to the extent it looked like an eggplant and was swollen, plus he gouged her with a screw driver and drove her about eight miles from the place of abduction to a shack in the San Fernando Valley, forced her to orally copulate him until she passed out for lack of air, became unconscious, and was awakened by his touching her private parts, and then forcefully raped her all while her little boy was covered with her blood. When Monk was satisfied, he drove her back to the area of her residence, but before he dumped her out, he had her give him all her money.
Monk was subsequently arrested and charged with multiple counts of kidnapping for the purpose of robbery with bodily injury, two counts of robbery and one count of forcible rape, one count of forcible oral copulation and two counts of attempted rape of the victim. Monk pled not guilty, and not guilty by reason of insanity. The case was assigned to me for trial and here it traveled a strange path until it was finished.
The way it worked is if the Court you are assigned is tied up in trial, then the case can and does go out to an open Court. My court was in trial, so we were sent to Judge Mark Brandler, whom I mentioned earlier. It was my choice to ask for the death penalty, and I thought it was deserved for what Monk had done to the victim; her life was just taken from her, resulting in divorce, the child was still screaming with nightmares. In other words, Monk’s conduct destroyed her life as she knew it, made it a living hell. The investigators from the LA sheriff’s Office did not want the death penalty but it was my shot.
The defense attorney was Deputy Public Defender James Nunnelly, an experienced attorney with plenty of serious cases assigned to him. Well, the first thing he did, which astonished me, was to have his client waive a jury trial. I could not for the life of me understand why he would recommend a jury waiver in front of one of the toughest judges in LA County. In order to waive a jury and go by way of Court Trial, both the prosecution and the defense just waive trial by jury and go by way of Court Trial. I did something I don’t think has been done before or since. That is, I questioned the judge as if he was a juror to make sure he would be willing to render a death verdict even though no one was killed, and he said without hesitation he would if appropriate. So I agreed to go by Court Trial as well. Why I was astonished was because I believed once a jury is gone to the jury room, instead of one decision the jury of twelve people all have to agree to the sentence which is not so easy as a judge trial. Also, in death cases, there is an automatic appeal and any error is magnified to make sure the jury did not vote with inadmissible evidence. In a Court trial, generally the appellate courts ignore small errors on the basis an experienced judge would ignore any error in the trial leading to an affirming of the verdict.
The trial was routine with no real problems, except Monk did not take a liking to me, and actually tried to attack me after he testified and came around the corner where I was sitting, made an unpleasant comment to me, which I returned, and when he came at me, the bailiff, a rather huge human being, had him down very quickly. That outburst in a jury trial would have been an issue but was not even raised later.
Long story short, evidence was presented on the issue of guilt and we submitted our reports and Monk was found sane. The judge found him guilty of all counts except one of the attempted rape counts and after motions for new trial and reduction of sentence, both denied, Monk was sentenced to death.
As mentioned earlier, there is an automatic appeal in death cases to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court, in an unanimous opinion, affirmed the verdict and sentence. You can read the opinion by googling People v Billy Wesley Monk 56 Cal 2nd 288.
Once the Court remands the case, the next step was to prepare a death warrant signed by the judge ordering the Warden of the State Prison at San Quentin where the Gas Chamber is located to set a date and execute the condemned prisoner, which was done.
Before any execution, the Governor of the State of California has the power to commute the sentence, and in Monk’s case that would then mean life without parole.Life without parole can be altered by a governor commuting a sentence or a change in a law or even it is not unknown for prisoners to escape.
The Governor at the time was Edmund G.(Pat) Brown, father of the State’s present Governor, Jerry Brown.
Supposedly, “Pat” Brown was unavailable and had assigned the hearing to his then Clemency Secretary, Arthur Alarcon. Arthur was my boss during a stint in the Santa Monica Branch Office where I was a trial Deputy and Art was the Calendar deputy. When I first entered the LADA’s Office, Art had written the Treatise used by every DA in every County in California, which was on search and seizure due to a new case which excluded evidence obtained unlawfully.a rule of evidence only. He had traveled an upward roll since, from a top DA to Clemency Secretary to Executive Secretary to Judge of the Municipal Court to Federal District Court ending one step before the US Supreme Court to Justice of the 9th Circuit Court Of Appeals until his recent passage last year. While on the Circuit Court, he and a Law Student at my Alma Mater, Loyola Law School, did a research and study project recommending the abolition of the Death penalty, concluding it was not enforced, mostly (but I think not inappropriate.) Should add I think the study also claimed it was arbitrary. He did not take that position while Clemency secretary.
Well the hearing was going to be held in a mansion in the ritzy neighborhood in LA called Hancock Park (it’s still elegant and ritzy) I arrived and, to my surprise, Governor “Pat” Brown was in attendance. Again I was dumbfounded by the defense presentation. First James Nunnelly, the trial attorney, together with Malcolm Mackey, the appellate lawyer, who himself ended up as a Superior Court judge later argued on behalf of Monk and boy did they start off wrong. The first thing they said to the Governor was that this case was just a little Chessman Case.
Carol Chessman was known as the Red Light Bandit. By using a false red spot light, he and his partner would accost couples on Mulholland Drive, a lover’s Lane area in the Hollywood hills, kidnap by moving the victims from one place to another, rape the women and rob them. Chessman, after trials, motions, writs and demonstrations was convicted of kidnapping for robbery with injury and sentenced to death. I prepared the death warrant and was in Sausalito at Sally Stanford’s Cafe, a restaurant run by a former madam who stood vigil in opposition at San Quentin the night of the execution. Her place was the Valhalla at the time when Chessman was executed. But the point is, the Chessman case was a political liability for Pat Brown who was opposed to the Death Penalty but claimed to have to enforce it in spite of a lot of opposition.
Let me tell you, the Governor’s face got brick red when the defense team said the Monk case was a little Chessman case. The defense followed up with the religious “tactic” telling the governor the victim Katherine S was Catholic and did not believe in the death penalty, hitting at Pat Brown’s religion.
One should always know the facts before spouting off. Art Alarcon then produced a letter from Katherine S relating how her life basically was taken from her by Monk, together with how her son cannot cope with the horror and how her marriage dissolved as a result of Monk’s conduct, and yes she thought execution was proper.
The Governor then turned to me and said “Isn’t this just a rape case where the penalty is not death?” and my response was “Governor, if this was just a rape case we would not be here” I then laid out the facts and that ended the hearing.
Clemency was denied and Monk, without any further proceedings, had a death date set and he was executed without any stays, without any writs, without any federal hearings, just one two three and that was it.
Today with the same statute, the basis of the conviction does not carry the Death Penalty. Kidnapping for robbery requires the robbery to be an integral part of the kidnapping, not as an afterthought, and maybe without a jury waiver and a presentation of Monk’s life a jury would not have sentenced him to death. Maybe with another set of lawyers he might not have been executed. I have often wondered what would have been the result. Don’t get me wrong, Monk’s conduct in destroying the rest of the victim’s life and in effect caused a living death deserved the extreme penalty. I just would have like to have seen a stronger presentation.
(I mentioned Charles Lindberg earlier,. The Lindberg baby was kidnapped for ransom and Federal Laws were enacted setting out Capitol Punishment of kidnap ransom. The California statute like many was known as the “The Little Lindberg Law.” Later, I had a murder case where the defendant told the victim “we told you we would let you go, but have you ever heard of the Little Lindberg Law?”and then shot the victim in the face That case will be discussed later.
(enough heavy stuff, talk to you later)
Marshall
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