Appeals Court Will Review Conviction of ‘Freeway Killer’

A federal appeals court Wednesday agreed to consider whether to overturn the death penalty for “Freeway Killer” William Bonin, who was convicted of killing 14 boys and young men.

If he loses the appeal and final reviews by the U.S. Supreme Court, Bonin could be the next person executed in California.

Several other federal appeals have failed for Bonin, who is on Death Row in San Quentin.

On Wednesday, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena took under submission an appeal to overturn Bonin’s sentence and hold a new penalty hearing. A decision could take months.

Bonin’s lawyers argued that the attorney who represented Bonin in the penalty phases of his two Southern California trials a decade ago was incompetent and had a conflict of interest because he allegedly had a book deal with Bonin.

“We have confidence in our claims,” said Emry Allen, the deputy state public defender representing Bonin.

But Supervising Deputy Atty. Gen. Esteban Hernandez said: “We feel this will move along quickly and that we will have an execution next year.”

Bonin had sex with boys and young men before robbing and killing them, dumping their bodies along California freeways in 1979 and 1980. He was convicted of 10 murders by a Los Angeles jury in 1982 and of four killings by an Orange County panel the next year. Former Los Angeles attorney William Charvet represented him in both cases.

Charvet resigned from the State Bar in 1990 during a disciplinary investigation unrelated to the Bonin case.

Bonin’s new lawyers argue that Charvet was incompetent because he was addicted to painkillers at the time, failed to properly investigate and present evidence that Bonin had a mental disorder, and that he failed to mount a proper defense because of “his contempt for his client” and his monetary interest in a book rights agreement he reached with Bonin.