Hon. Gavin Newsom

Dear Governor Newsom:                                                                           

This petition letter is to call your attention to a controversial conviction of a man who is now languishing in prison by the name of George Gage.

Mr. Gage, who had no prior record, was accused of criminal sexual conduct by his stepdaughter, Marian. He denied the charges and was offered plea bargain deals, which he refused. The prosecutor's office did not have a strong case against Mr. Gage and it took two trials to convict him. The case against him relied almost entirely on Marian's testimony and during the proceedings, the prosecutor suppressed evidence found in Marian's medical records that, if known to a jury, would have made it much more difficult to convict Mr. Gage. In both the original trial and subsequent legal proceedings, those records were never allowed to be seen or reviewed by a jury, Mr. Gage’s attorneys or Mr. Gage himself. Although the trial judge who presided over Mr. Gage's case ordered a third trial with the inclusion of Marian's medical records, the California Court of Appeal overruled her, and what was perhaps the most important evidence suggesting Mr. Gage's innocence was never presented before a trial by jury.

To date, Mr. Gage has exhausted his legal options to appeal his case. Even sympathetic judges sitting on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit could not directly intervene on Mr. Gage's behalf because of technical limitations that tied their hands. Time is critical for Mr. Gage. He is now elderly and he is serving a seventy-year sentence. His story deserves to be heard, in particular by the people who have both the power and means to do something about it as well as the fortitude to uncover facts used to maintain a conviction tainted by official misconduct. 

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Background

In 1985, while living in Texas, George Gage met Wanda, who had two young children, a daughter Marian, and a son Lionel. They moved in together in 1987 and married in 1990. It was George’s first marriage; it was Wanda’s second. However, George had an adult daughter from a previous relationship and Wanda had an adult daughter from her first marriage. Marian and Lionel were born from a second relationship Wanda had following the divorce of her first husband.

In 1993, George accepted a job transfer to work in California with Southern Pacific Railroad, where he worked as an electrician. The family of four moved to California where they purchased a two story three-bedroom home in Palmdale, California.

The family had a good quality of life together in California and spent time socializing with friends, frequented restaurants, visited parks and went out on family outings. They even traveled to London for vacation and met with other members of George’s family who had relocated there years earlier.

In 1995, the relationship between George and Wanda came to an abrupt end when Wanda learned that George had had an affair (a one-night stand) prior to the family moving to California that resulted in a child being born. George had been making child support payments, which he hadn’t revealed, afraid it would end his marriage.

Shortly after learning about the affair, Wanda moved back to Texas with her children. It was a painful separation for everyone in the family. Wanda, bitter from what had happened, did not cooperate with the sale of the California home and ran up credit card balances in retaliation. George filed for bankruptcy in 1996, and Wanda lost her share of what she invested in the house after it was foreclosed.

 
Backstory – The trial judge’s search for the truth & the legal process that quashed it

In the Fall of 1998, more than three years since the family had split up, Marian and her mother met with a detective to make allegations that George had molested Marian when they lived together. December 31, 1998, at a detective’s request, George met with authorities in California about allegations Marian had made weeks earlier. He was arrested that day and has been in prison ever since.

Because there was no physical evidence indicating Marian had ever been molested by George or anyone else, the criminal case against George basically boiled down to his word against Marian’s.  

The jury in the first trial could not reach a verdict. In the second trial, George was convicted on all nineteen counts. Given the lack of evidence and what seemed to be contrived testimony by the prosecution witnesses, the trial judge, Carol Koppel, felt conflicted about handing down a maximum sentence the prosecutor had requested. It was noted that George was in his early sixties and didn’t have so much as a traffic violation on his record. Instead of handing down an immediate sentence, the judge delayed and pressed the prosecutor for a complete copy of the records that were sealed during the trials.

To her credit, the trial judge spent a great deal of time and effort independently weighing a large portion of evidence that wasn’t available to either the defense counsel or the jury. Concluding her review, the judge acted decisively vacating the conviction and granting a new trial. She summarized her findings in the motion for a new trial and concluded: “by virtue of newly discovered evidence discovered during the sentencing phase of this trial, that the jury was not provided with the appropriate information that it should have had during its deliberations”, and that the “records support the finding of the court with respect to the lack of credibility of the two main prosecution witnesses, to wit, the victim and her mother.”

Main points that were noted in the trial judge’s motion for a new trial:

When Marian was in the 11th grade, she was under intense scrutiny by her mother over failing grades, disciplinary issues at school and who she was associating with. Marian’s then boyfriend was a 27-year felon and heroin addict who Wanda had learned entered Marian’s school grounds, which was a parole violation. Wanda informed the authorities and he was sent back to prison. It was at this point in her life, while in deep conflict with her mother, that Marian first spoke out about George having molested her, conveniently deflecting attention from herself to her stepfather.

When Marian was being admitted to a hospital seeking psychiatric care following a suicide attempt, Wanda wrote a note on Marian’s admission form that described her as “a pathological liar [who] lives her lies”.

The records contained significant evidence that was not consistent with the testimony. Also, new allegations of abuse were presented, for the first time, in Marian’s victim impact statement (not presented until after the conviction). It was noted that Marian now accused George of “sharing her sexually with another man in Texas before they moved to California as well as with his niece.”

Perhaps most importantly, there was no evidence found in the psychological records that Marian had ever discussed in detail what it was that George did to her, in contrast to her court room testimony: “describing every detail of body parts and what and where and how the defendant sexually attacked her all over the house during those years.” The judge noted that “this is very inconsistent with the almost vomitus delivery of the morbid details of abuse that the victim happily lays out at trial to the jury and is especially noteworthy in that it pales in comparison to all the other details fully described by the victim of her life with boyfriends, mother, cheerleading, and school in the ream or more constituting the psychological records of the victim.”

Undeterred, the prosecutor fought the judge’s decision to grant a new trial by bringing the case before the California Court of Appeal. For procedural reasons, the California Court of Appeal agreed with the prosecutor’s argument and reversed the motion for a new trial. A second and then third judge was reassigned to the case and George was ultimately sentenced to a 70-year prison term.

After he was sentenced, during the window of time open to file crucial legal motions and petitions, George found himself with inadequate legal representation and inadequate resources to undertake what was required. By the time his case reached a federal court, his habeas corpus petition was rejected not because his case lacked merit, but, tragically, because he could not overcome restrictive technical obstacles imposed by a legislative act called AEDPA.

To many outside observers, George Gage’s prosecution is a travesty of justice. His case has been referenced and discussed in publications and news media. A law school student contributing to a law review wrote the following:

“Since the passage of the Anti Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) it seems the system is allowing itself to uphold consistent rulings, rather than preserve the dearly held value of protecting those who are innocent”… The case of “George Gage is an egregious example of the justice system that prefers process over merits. George Gage had ample evidence to present for proof of actual innocence; however, his petitions failed because of restrictions placed on the habeas corpus process through the AEDPA”…It is maddening to know that a potentially innocent man with strong claims was procedurally barred from review, given that he was expected to argue a brady claim based on documents he was unable to access.”

Brigid E Markey; Dismantling the Great Writ | Gage v Chappell

Today, George Gage remains imprisoned 230 miles from San Francisco, sharing a jail cell with seven other inmates. He has lost a significant portion of his eyesight due to glaucoma and will turn 84 years old in September 2022. At present, with no further legal recourse, the Governor of California may be the only person that can directly assist in bringing about his release from prison.

Message from George Gage