Judge: Prosecutor fabricated testimony of Jews being excluded from death penalty juries

The former Californian state prosecutor who claimed he conspired with a trial judge to exclude Jewish jurors in a capital case that sent the defendant to death row is a liar, a judge has ruled in an opinion forwarded to the California Supreme Court. Judge Kevin Murphy, appointed by the Supreme Court to investigate the allegations from John Quatman, said the former prosecutor's assertions "are not true" and that he was "dishonest and unethical". Last month, Quatman testified before Murphy that he colluded with now-deceased court judge Stanley Golde to exclude Jews so the jury would be more likely to sentence the defendant to death. Quatman recalled a private lecture about excluding Jews he said the judge gave him in 1987, while they were choosing a jury in the capital case of a man later sentenced to death for killing a bar patron during a robbery. Murphy, however, concluded after a weeklong trial that the conversation never took place, that no Jews were unlawfully removed and that Quatman had a motive to embarrass the district attorney's Office in general, and district attorney Tom Orloff in particular." Murphy noted that Orloff had disciplined Quatman, now a criminal defense attorney in the state of Montana, for making disparaging remarks to a female colleague.