Died 1989 | ||
Thomas Martin Thompson (March 20, 1955 – July 14, 1998) was a convicted rapist and murderer, executed in 1998 by the state of California for the 1981 killing of Ginger Fleischli. Thompson's execution was controversial; his supporters believed him to have been innocent of the charges, while opponents thought Thompson's guilt was clear.
On September 11, 1981, Thompson and Fleischli, joined by Afshin Kashani, spent an evening in Laguna Beach, California visiting bars and smoking marijuana. Fleischli was subsequently reported missing, and three days later the authorities found Fleischli’s body buried in a field 10 miles from Thompson's apartment. The corpse had been wrapped in rope along with a sleeping bag and blanket, both taken from Thompson's apartment. Fleischli had been stabbed multiple times in the head, and her body and clothing showed signs of sexual assault. Fleischli's blood was later found on a carpet in Thompson's apartment, approximately six feet from his bed.
According to Thompson's account, he had consensual sex with Fleischli before he passed out. He said he woke up in the morning and Fleischli was gone, but her blood was on the carpet near his bed. The prosecution accused Thompson of raping and killing Fleischli. Crucial evidence came from two previously convicted fellow inmates, John Del Frate and Edward Fink, who claimed to have heard Thompson admit while in jail to the rape and murder.
On November 4, 1983, Thompson was convicted by an Orange County Superior Court jury of the first-degree murder and forcible rape of Fleischli. On April 28, 1988, the California Supreme Court unanimously affirmed Thompson’s rape and murder convictions, and affirmed Thompson’s death sentence with two of seven justices dissenting. After filing several unsuccessful habeas petitions with the California Supreme Court, Thompson was granted habeas relief as to his rape conviction by the United States District Court for the Central District of California, invalidating the death sentence on ineffective assistance of counsel grounds.
On June 19, 1996, a unanimous three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the District Court and reinstated Thompson’s death sentence. The Court of Appeals panel noted that, given the strong evidence of rape presented by the State, Thompson could not demonstrate prejudice under the prevailing legal standard, even if the court accepted Thompson's ineffective assistance of counsel argument. The panel then denied Thompson's petition for rehearing en banc, and on on June 11, 1997 the Court of Appeals issued its mandate denying all habeas relief in Thompson’s case.
Subsequent habeas petitions by Thompson failed, until two days before Thompson was to be executed, when a divided en banc panel of the Court of Appeals recalled sua sponte the court’s June 11, 1997 mandate. This occurred well after the Court's usual timeframe for reconsideration, and after the Supreme Court of the United States denied Thompson's petition for certiorari and the Governor of California conducted a clemency review. The State immediately appealed the recall to the Supreme Court, which granted certiorari and ultimately reinstated Thompson's death sentence, calling the Court of Appeals' action a "grave abuse of discretion." Thompson was executed by lethal injection on July 14, 1998.
Donald Heller, the author of California's 1978 Proposition 7 (which increased the number of reasons for which an individual could be sentenced to death), became an opponent of the death penalty after the execution of Thompson.