James Karis

Case identification

James Karis (full name: James Leslie Karis Jr.) was convicted in connection with the kidnapping, rape, and murder of El Dorado County employees in July 1981, and he was later sentenced to death and died in prison.

Status

He was sentenced to death on September 17, 1982. His death sentence was overturned, and he was re-sentenced to death on April 25, 2007. He died in prison on January 31, 2013.

The offence

On July 8, 1981, Karis kidnapped two El Dorado County welfare department employees, Peggy Pennington and Patty Vander Dussen, during their morning break. Karis took them at gunpoint to a remote area near Placerville. He forced both women to remove their clothes, raped one of them, let them get dressed, marched them to another spot, and shot both of them.

Peggy Pennington died, while Patty Vander Dussen survived and later testified at trial.

Victims

• Peggy Pennington, 34, was shot and died.
• Patty Vander Dussen, 27, survived and later testified at trial.

Investigation

The surviving victim directed authorities to the shallow grave off Rock Creek Road where Pennington was declared dead at the scene.

Police, tipped off by Karis’ parole officer, apprehended Karis in Sonoma County one week later.

Arrest

Karis was arrested in Sonoma County one week after the July 8, 1981 offence.

Trial

In July 1982, Karis was tried in Sacramento because of extensive pretrial publicity about the crime. The surviving victim testified at the 1982 trial.

At the 1982 trial:

• The jury found Karis guilty.
• The jury deliberated for two days to find him guilty.
• The jury took 2 1/2 days to sentence him to death.

During the death penalty phase, the judge did not allow evidence about Karis’ childhood abuse to be used and ordered Karis sent to death row.

Karis’ public defender in the original trial was Stephen Tapson.

Sentencing

Karis was sentenced to death on September 17, 1982.

Karis was sent to death row on September 20, 1982.

Appeals

A federal judge overturned Karis’ death sentence in 1998. The federal judge overturned the death sentence after hearing evidence that Karis’ tormented and abusive childhood had not been presented as evidence during the penalty phase.

A federal appeals court ruling described how trial attorneys had failed to adequately investigate Karis’ childhood, including beatings and molestations. The panel ruled that trial attorneys’ failures were deficient and prejudiced Karis’ case. The 9th Circuit also sustained the ruling of the federal district judge upholding the guilty verdict against Karis.

The conviction and death sentence had previously been upheld by the California Supreme Court, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined review.

Second trial and re-sentencing

Karis faced a second penalty phase trial in Sacramento in 2007. He refused to allow his lawyers to offer evidence of his childhood abuse or anything else that might win him a life sentence.

Jurors concluded that Karis should die, and he was returned to death row.

Karis was re-sentenced to death on April 25, 2007.

Death and custody

Karis was an inmate on death row at San Quentin State Prison.

On January 31, 2013, Karis, 61, was found unresponsive in his single cell and pronounced dead at 6:40 a.m. The cause of death was pending autopsy results. An autopsy was performed, and the death was described as not being a state-ordered execution.

He had been on death row since September 20, 1982.

Other details

Parole and earlier convictions referenced in related proceedings

At the time of his arrest, Karis had been free on parole six months from the 1976 rape of a 17-year-old high school student in Santa Clara County.

He had been imprisoned from 1971 to 1975 for a rape in Orange County.

As a condition of parole, he registered as a mentally ill sex offender and attended monthly therapy sessions.

Refusal to present mitigating evidence

During the 2007 proceeding, Karis refused to allow his lawyers to offer evidence of his childhood abuse or anything else that might win him a life sentence.

At sentencing-related proceedings referenced in later accounts, Karis took over the case himself and told the judge that the evidence “didn’t ‘amount to a hill of beans.’”

Verbatim statements and quotations

James Karis Jr. told his attorney:

“Mike, I hate to do this to you, but I’m going to have to go Faretta.”

In an account of what Karis told counsel, Bigelow recalled Karis saying:

“Look, you can present anything you want as long as I don’t have to be there. You keep me from being in that courtroom and you can present anything you want.”

Bigelow recalled Karis’ later courtroom statement:

“I know everything Bigelow is going to put on,” “I can’t live it again.”

A public defender described Karis’ decision in reported terms and included the remark attributed to counsel recollections:

“They spent hours digging up all these terrible things about his childhood to present to a jury in hopes they would not send him to death and he basically said ‘(Screw) you,’ ”

The quoted phrase attributed to Karis regarding the mitigation evidence was:

“amount to a hill of beans”

El Dorado County District Attorney Vern Pierson was quoted:

“It’s a shame that a monster like Karis was permitted to die of natural causes,” “Obstructionist tactics and weak representatives in Sacramento allowed this to happen. ” “It’s time for the governor to enact real reforms to the death penalty system.”