Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: 08/27/08

Contact person(s):

Media Coordinator, Hilary Moores - 565-3099 Media Spokesperson, Assistant District Attorney Christine M. Cook

Santa Rosa, Sonoma County, California

CALVIN COLEMAN RECEIVES LIFE WITHOUT THE POSSIBILITY OF PAROLE

Sonoma County District Attorney Stephan Passalacqua announced today that Calvin Coleman will be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for a murder, rape and stabbing committed on May 13, 1980. In 1981 a Sonoma County jury returned a verdict of death against Mr. Coleman. Coleman had recently claimed he suffers from “mental retardation” as defined in Atkins v. Virginia and started a lengthy Appellate process to litigate that claim. On June 20, 2002 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Atkins v. Virginia that executing a “mentally retarded” person violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. In 2005, the California Supreme Court established the framework for handling these types of claims and subsequently ordered a hearing on the issue in Sonoma County in March of 2006.

Sonoma County District Attorney Stephan Passalacqua said “We exhausted all resources to ensure the jury verdict for the death penalty would stand. The recent United States Supeme Court decision, however, precludes the imposition of the death penalty in this case with the evidence of Mr. Coleman’s psychological condition. I am hopeful the resentencing of Mr. Coleman will provide closure to the surviving victim and the victims’ families.”

On May 8, 1980, Coleman was released from prison and took a bus to Sonoma County. He went to the Chalk Hill Road neighborhood looking for a home he had visited years earlier in 1973 while a ward of the court at the Chalk Hill Road boys’ ranch. Coleman knocked on the door of the victims’ residence and contacted the first victim, a 19 year old who worked at the home. Coleman went inside the home and raped her. When the two additional victims returned home, Coleman shot and killed Patricia Neidig, 54, and stabbed both the 19 year old and Jean Prendergast, 62, leaving them to die. Coleman then drove off in one of the victim’s vehicles and crashed. Coleman was arrested several hours later. Coleman was charged with murder, rape and assaults in the attack of the three women. Two of the women survived their injuries and testified at Coleman’s trial. Ms. Prendergast subsequently died of unrelated causes.

In 2006, the Coleman case was returned to Sonoma County to litigate the issue of Coleman’s “mental retardation.” The District Attorney’s office immediately hired Daniel Martell, PhD, a nationally known Forensic Psychologist from Southern California to assist in evaluating Coleman based on the change in the law relating to mental retardation and the imposition of the death penalty. The District Attorney’s office also began the laborious process of locating any records available from the birth of Coleman, up to and including all of his time in prison to date, that was, or might be, relevant to his mental condition. Since more than 26 years had passed since the conclusion of the trial, many of those documents were difficult to locate. Nevertheless, thousands of pages were eventually located for evaluation.

Dr. Martell reviewed Coleman’s prior psychological history, which consisted of over 4000 pages of background materials. These documents included high school records, juvenile placement records, mental health records, medical records, criminal records, psychological test records, legal pleadings, testimony transcripts, court opinions, expert reports, and witness affidavits. He also interviewed Coleman for two days in San Quentin and administered cognitive and psychological tests. The question to be determined was whether Coleman suffered from “mental retardation” pursuant to Atkins v. Virginia, which adopted the definition of “Mental Retardation” from California Penal Code section 1376(a):

“As used in this section, “mentally retarded” means the condition subaverage general intellectual functioning existing concurrently with deficits in adaptive behavior and manifested before the age of 18.”

Based on his extensive review of the background materials and his thorough examination of Coleman, Dr. Martell determined that Coleman meets the clinical and the statutory definition for a diagnosis of Mental Retardation, as defined by Atkins v. Virginia and California Penal Code Section 1376(a). The defense also received similar opinions from two mental health experts they retained.

In light of the change in the law by the U.S. Supreme Court and the current diagnosis of Coleman suffering from Mental Retardation pursuant to the Atkins case, the parties agreed and the court ordered today that Mr. Coleman will not be sentenced to death, and will receive a sentence of Life in Prison Without the Possibility of Parole. Coleman will be returned to a Sonoma County court to be resentenced on October 8, 2008 at 1:30 p.m. in Department 4.