Death penalty sought in murder trial
By MIKE PARFIT Editor
The prosecution in the trial of three men for the murder of Brian Clay announced yesterday that it will seek the death penalty. Clay was stabbed to death outside his fraternity in December.
Although he deputy district attorney on the case, Marian L. Obera, did not make any other specifications about the trial, one of the lawyers for the defense told the Daily Trojan that the prosecution will probably claim that George Edward Williams committed the murder and that the other two suspects aided and abetted him. All three defendants have pleaded not guilty.
If the prosecution does follow this line, Williams’ case will be severed. The other two men will face different charges. •
Williams’ lawyer, Paul J. Fitzgerald, made the statement concerning his client
following a hearing yesterday in which a defense motion for dismissal on the grounds of insufficient evidence was denied.
After turning down the motion for dismissal, Judge George Martin Dell granted in part a discovery motion, which will allow defense attorneys to examine most of the evidence which has been gathered by the prosecution.
In addition to Fitzgerald, who is a public defender, the other lawyers on the case are: George H. Lowerre III, defending George William Jordan, Jr.; and Charles Hollopeter, defending Douglas Lorenzo Tumbeau. Both were appointed by the court.
The hearing took place in Superior Court District 104. It began shortly after 10 a.m., when the three defendants were ushered in by the bailiff.
Williams, a tall, strong-looking man, wore a brown sweater and a colored shirt, open at the neck. He showed little emotion.
Tumbeau, not quite as tall as Williams, wore a turquoise sports coat and a yellow turtleneck. He occasionally glanced out at the people in the back of the courtroom.
Jordan, a short man, wore a dark jacket and an open white shirt. He looked worried, and often glanced up at his wife, who was sitting in the back row.
Each lawyer argued briefly for dismissal.
Lowerre, a tall, distinguished-looking man in a light grey suit, spoke first. He cited evidence used in the grand jury proceedings and said that it did not indicate that his client, Jordan, had anything to do with the murder.
“[One witness] saw 18 lineups and couldn’t identify Jordan,” he said. “As
far as Jordan is concerned there is no sufficient evidence.”
The other two defenders took a position that their clients were on the scene but were not involved.
“There is nothing involving Tumbeau other than evidence showing that he was an innocent person standing by,” Hollopeter said.
Fitzgerald concluded: “The admissable evidence against Williams only indicates his presence at the scene.”
The prosecution, in its reply, alleged that “these defendants were the only ones who could have caused the death [of Clay].”
In denying the motion for dismissal, Judge Dell said that the transcript of the grand jury proceedings did indicate a strong suspicion against the defendants.
The trial date was set for May 6, and the three men were returned to custody.
University of Southern California
DAILY ® TROJAN
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1969, VOL. LX, NO. 78
Hot washing machine starts fire on Row
"It was really nothing," remarked Claudia Powley, an AEPhi junior, hours after she had discovered a small electrical fire which brought two fire trucks and 10 firemen to the Row Monday night. And it really was not very much, that is not as much as the fire department had anticipated in sending two fire trucks. The motor of a washing machine at the sorority house, 624 W. 28th St., became overheated. The fire department was called when sparks flew from the bottom of the machine and smoke filled the laundry room. They simply removed the plug and aired out the room with fans.
(Photo by Steven Silverman)
Student head damns suppression on campus
Most universities have the tendency to suppress, Russell Bass, president of the Associated Students of San Francisco State College, told a small gathering of USC students yesterday.
Bass and Terry Brennan, student body president of Sonoma State College in Rohnert Park, were speaking to about 15 students in the ASSC office, and offering them an analysis of American universities and how the operation of these institutions is directly correlated to the operation of the rest of American society.
“That tendency to suppress carried out to completeness could mean that in X number of years—10 or 20 maybe—we will have a totalitarian society,” Bass said.
On the other hand, Bass added, some universities now have the tendency to liberate human potential. People may learn from the example of liberal universities and begin to restructure, redistribute power and redefine the cultural goals of their institutions.
Bass and Brennan offered the group a number of suggestions on how to work for more liberalization on campus by organizing students.
“Before you can deal with the administration, you have to learn to deal with students,” said Brennan.
“On most campuses there is a general feeling that it’s not cool to express your feelings on an issue in public,” Brennan said. “Students begin to feel that their concern in social problems is their own private hang-up.”
Brennan and Bass agreed that in order to get students to stop suppressing their feelings and ideas they would have to be taught to empower themselves and to act.
“Our environment acts on us,” said Bass. “We don’t think of acting on our environment.” Students have to overcome this characteristic of society, he said.
Bass also advised that in order to organize students and motivate them into action, student liberals would have to find out what the self-interests of the majority are.
“Don’t tell them what their needs are.”
He noted that many radicals have made that mistake in the past. “That’s why their response to the radicals is the same as their response to the administration,” he said.
As an example of using the self-interests of the majority to initiate student tactics, Brennan told of the 3.2 beer-on-campus issue which rallied thousands of students at Colorado State College behind a single cause.
Council revises elections code
The ASSC Executive Council revised the elections code yesterday, removing seven sections from the original code and replacing them with eight of 15 that were suggested by Pat Lawless, elections commissioner.
And when the revising was done Lawless complained that the revisions would make his job harder.
“In the past, all we’ve had are joke elections,” he said. “We’re trying to bring the council out of messed-up elections, and the council is putting itself right back in again.”
The sections removed from the elections code dealt with posters. They placed restrictions on where and how many posters could be placed by candidates at certain locations.
Formerly, only three posters could be put in each residence hall, one in each fraternity and sorority house, two on each island on University Avenue and none in certain buildings on campus.
Now, however, there are no restrictions as to where posters may be put.
The council passed an amendment calling for candidates who are members of any campus news media to temporarily disconnect themselves from that medium at the beginning of the formal campaign period.
The amendment will affect the only candidate yet officially announced for president, Eric Cohen. Cohen, who is editor of the campus literary magazine, Nepenthe, and feature editor of the Daily Trojan, has indicated that he will neither withdraw as a candidate nor resign his positions on the two publications.
“I will fight,” he said, after hearing of the amendent. “And, if necessary, I will win as a writein.”
The council also passed an amendment calling for a candidates’ convocation on the Saturday before the beginning of campaigning. However, it deleted a clause from that amendment making the convocation mandatory7.
The convocation is designed to orient candidates with the workings of student government. Lawless said that the original amendment would have made it mandatory for candidates to attend this convocation to give them some idea of what the responsibility of their particular office entailed.
Lawless was also critical of what he called the council’s failure to strengthen the elections code and its enforcement. He said of the council, “They won’t force anything—even a mandatory convocation.”
Other council business included the placing of an amendment to the ASSC Constitution on the March ballot. The amendment calls for the election of graduate representatives to the executive council, rather than the current system of appointments for the council.
Petitions available for ASSC, AMS and AWS office seekers
Petitions for candidates running for ASSC, Associated Men Students and Associated Women Students offices will be available at the YWCA until tomorrow.
Petitions must be turned in by March 4. Campaigning starts March 10 with primary elections on March 18. Final elections are the 25th.
ASSC offices open are president, vice-president of academic affairs, vice-president of programs, senior class president, senior representative, junior representative, sophomore representative and foreign student representative.
The AMS and AWS offices of president and vice-president are also open.