Death row inmate has a new champion in legendary lawyer who plans to have him freed

Legendary San Francisco civil rights attorney J. Tony Serra received a warm welcome Friday in Fresno County Superior Court in his first appearance in the death penalty case of Douglas Ray Stankewitz.

After introducing himself to Judge Arlan Harrell, Serra said he and his colleague, attorney Curtis Briggs, were ready to join Stankewitz’s defense team for free.

Harrell said it was “highly commendable” of Serra and Curtis to offer to work pro bono on Stankewitz’s case, but first, Fresno defense lawyer Peter Jones, the lead attorney, has to file an affidavit, explaining why he needs two more lawyers to assist him.

Once the affidavit is filed, Harrell said he has no doubt that Serra and Briggs will be formidable defenders for Stankewitz.

Stankewitz is an American Indian known as “Chief” who grew up in poverty in Fresno and the foothills east of here. Serra took the case because he believes American Indians such as Stankewitz are too poor to afford good legal counsel.

The hearing in Harrell’s courtroom took only a few minutes, but it foreshadowed the upcoming legal battle that pits one of the nation’s top lawyers against prosecutor Noelle Pebet, one of Fresno County’s top homicide prosecutors.

After the hearing, Pebet said she looks forward to the legal battle, saying Serra brings a wealth of experience in the courtroom. But Pebet also said she won’t be a pushover because she has the full support of District Attorney Lisa Smittcamp and her staff.

“It should be an interesting experience,” Pebet said. “I have a great team behind me.”

Nearly four decades after Stankewitz was convicted of fatally shooting 22-year-old Theresa Graybeal in 1978 and supposedly bragging to his friends – “Did I drop her or did I drop her?” – he has returned to Fresno for a third retrial of his death sentence.

In 1982, the California Supreme Court overturned Stankewitz’s first death sentence. The following year, he was again convicted and sentenced to death, but that didn’t hold up, either.

Stankewitz, now 58 and the longest tenured inmate on death row at San Quentin Prison, is here because a federal appellate court in 2012 overturned his death sentence due to incompetent counsel. Though he contends he didn’t kill Graybeal or utter that chilling quote that led to his conviction, the appellate court declined to reverse his murder conviction.

Instead, the appellate court ruled that a new jury must decide only whether he should be put to death or given life in prison without parole.

But in an interview after Friday’s hearing, Serra said the ultimate goal is to prove Stankewitz’s innocence and gain his freedom. “We will be firing out of both legal barrels,” Serra said, saying the legal team plans an attack on Stankewitz’s conviction.

“We plan to do it right this time,” he said.

Stankewitz’s dream team faces an uphill battle.

Court records say Stankewitz was 19 in February 1978 when he and three others from Fresno – Billy Brown, 14, Marlin Lewis, 22, and Teena Topping, 19 – were stranded in Modesto. Outside a department store, they forced Graybeal into her car and drove off.

In Fresno, they drove to the Calwa area, picked up Christina Menchaca, 25, and looked for heroin to buy. Later, they stopped at Vine Avenue and 10th Street.

According to Brown’s testimony, Stankewitz raised a gun and shot Graybeal from about one foot away. “Did I drop her or did I drop her?” Brown quoted Stankewitz as saying.

In exchange for his testimony, Brown’s murder charge was dropped. Lewis pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. Menchaca and Topping pleaded guilty to being accessories. Since then, Brown, Lewis and Topping have died.

In a letter to The Bee, Stankewitz contends he is innocent because Brown signed a declaration in September 1993 that said he never saw Stankewitz with a gun and never heard him utter the words that led to his death sentence. Stankewitz also contends there was jury misconduct in his second trial that led to his conviction.

Adding lawyers who will work for free on a capital case has happened before.

Jones told Harrell that in the 1990s the late Fresno attorney Ernest Kinney worked pro bono with Jones and attorney Michael Castro on the Dana Ewell murder case. Ewell was convicted in 1998 of murdering his family, but the jury gave him life in prison instead of the death penalty.

Jones said Kinney joined the team without an affidavit. But Harrell said that, in order to protect the record, he needed an affidavit from Jones to add Serra and Briggs.

Stankewitz, dressed in a red jail jumpsuit, appeared in a good mood Friday when Serra announced he was joining the defense team.

Serra was the subject of the 1989 movie “True Believer” about a murder in San Francisco’s Chinatown in which he won an acquittal for death row inmate Chol Soo Lee.

Serra also has successfully defended Black Panther leader Huey Newton in a murder trial and represented individuals from groups as diverse and politically charged as the White Panthers, Hells Angels, Good Earth and New World Liberation Front.

On Friday, he told the judge that he needed to get up to speed on the case. The evidence, he said, is contained in nearly four dozen boxes. He also told Harrell that Stankewitz’s trial in October 2017 should be pushed into 2018.

Because several motions still have to be filed, Harrell scheduled a status hearing for March 17.

This story was originally published December 16, 2016 at 1:43 PM with the headline "Death row inmate has a new champion in legendary lawyer who plans to have him freed."