Execution date confirmed for convicted killer

Defense attorneys from the Habeas Corpus Resource Center, Beardslee's new counsel, requested a scheduling delay yesterday until February but Judge Mark Forcum refused to put it off any longer.

Calling his crimes "vicious, heinous and callous," Forcum said closure in the case is long overdue.

Beardslee's scheduled method of death is much more humane than the two murders that condemned him to California's death row. On April 25, 1981, Beardslee shot Patty Geddling, 23, twice with a shotgun and slashed 19-year-old Stacey Benjamin's throat over a minor drug debt in Redwood City. Benjamin was also stabbed in the chest with a knife and choked with a wire. During the attack, Beardlsee commented, "The b- won't die," according to court transcripts.

In 1983, Beardslee, on parole for the murder of a Missouri woman, was convicted and sentenced to death the following year. Three other men involved in the deaths of the two women also stood trial but only Beardslee received a death sentence after jurors learned of his prior murder during the penalty phase.

Beardslee never claimed innocence in the deaths but his defense always maintained the killings were not coldly premeditated. During the trials of Beardslee and accomplice Frank Rutherford, each pointed fingers at the other as the main culprit. Rutherford received a life sentence and later died in prison. A third accomplice was acquitted.

Yesterday, Judge John Schwartz denied a defense request for notes taken during the trial by then-prosecutor Carl Holm. Defense attorneys hoped the notes might unveil reasons to request a new trial for Beardslee but Schwartz decided the two boxes of documents were privileged information.

Beardslee has exhausted nearly all other avenues to escape execution. In January, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco declined to reconsider his sentence. On Oct. 4, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Beardslee's appeal but a delay was given after his attorney resigned.

Unless Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger grants Beardslee clemency, he will be the first person executed by the state in three years and the first from San Mateo County since capital punishment was reinstated in 1978.

Michelle Durand can be reached by e-mail: michelle@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: (650) 344-5200 ext. 104. What do you think of this story? Send a letter to the editor: letters@smdailyjournal.com.