Federal Habeas Claims of “New Evidence” of Undisclosed Exculpatory Evidence Should be Remanded to State Courts
By: Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
In January 1982, Scott Lynn Pinholster, a California native, was an Aryan Brotherhood-type who, along with two like-minded cohorts, went to the home of a local drug dealer named Michael Kumar. The drug dealer was not at home when the Neo-Nazi trio arrived so they began to ransack the residence in search of drugs and money. At this inopportune time, two of Kumar’s friends, Thomas Johnson and Robert Beckett, arrived at the drug dealer’s home where they confronted the burglars. That confrontation led to Pinholster and his cohorts brutally beating and repeatedly stabbing Johnson and Beckett until they were dead.
The total net of the robbery was $23 and approximately a quarter ounce of marijuana. As the trio drove away from the scene, Pinholster reportedly said: “We got ‘em, man, we got ‘em good.”
Two weeks later one of Pinholster’s cohorts, Art Corona, surrendered to the police and named Pinholster as the mastermind of the Kumar residence robbery/double murder. Pinholster was arrested after which he threatened to have Corona killed if he did keep his mouth shut. The threat did little, if anything, to intimidate Corona who became the State’s key witness against Pinholster at his February 1984 trial. Two attorneys, Harry Brainard and Wilbur Dettmar, were appointed to represent Pinholster, but he rebuffed their representation and elected to represent himself—even though the prosecution had noticed him that it would seek the death penalty.
Pinholster testified in his own behalf during guilt phase of his trial. He admitted burglarizing Kuman’s residence and stealing some marijuana. He denied killing anyone, boasting to the jury that he was a “professional robber,” not a murderer, and insisting that during the hundreds of robberies he had committed during the previous six years he was always armed with a gun, not a knife. He also pointed the finger at Corona as the real killer of Johnson and Beckett.
Subscribe
