By Michael Goodwin
February 1, 2011
Famed and controversial race car driver, promoter and inventor Mickey Thompson and his wife Trudy were tragically murdered on March 18, 1988.
I was convicted of ordering those killings on January 4, 2007, almost nineteen years later, even though nothing connected me to the murders except a failed business relationship 3½ years earlier. I was sentenced to two life sentences, with no chance of parole - and now live in a concrete and steel small box.
The trial, conviction, sentencing and original killing generated 22 National TV Specials across all networks. Coverage included many CBS 48 Hours airings, Good Morning America, Sports Illustrated, Time, People, Car and Driver, Los Angeles Magazine, Hot Rod, plus thousands of electronic and print clips, both local and national. Harper-Collins has commissioned a major book.
I had been cleared of all charges in December, 1988, after 600 interviews following the murders. 450 of those interviews are illegally hidden. For the first nine years of the investigation after the murders, the first two lead investigators both focused on me and could find nothing to link me to the murders. They focused on me because of lies by Campebll and Cordell.
I was charged in Orange County, CA, in December, 2001 (13½ years after the murders), just one week after I'd opened a multi-million dollar civil litigation against the victims' sister, Colleen Campbell.
Colleen Campbell is a powerful politician in Orange County, CA. (She was on the Republican National Committee, was four times Chair of the California Peace Officers Training and Procedures Committee, and much more.) This suit would have exposed multiple, multi-million dollar Federal crimes by her. I was charged out of jurisdiction in Orange County, CA, for the Los Angeles murders (which is unlawful) by Campbell's ex-personal lawyer, business associate, political crony and close friend, Tony Rackauckas. He was then and is now the Orange County District Attorney, whose activities in other cases have attracted scrutiny by investigative agencies. Evidence proves perjuries and frauds by him.
After I was first arrested in Orange County, CA, in 2001, I was eventually freed in 2004 (with an Appeal Court ruling that "there was no evidence to justify charging Goodwin in Orange County to start with“). It generated a banner headline in the Orange County Register, GOODWIN GOING HOME.
Then, Los Angeles County recharged me the same day I was released. The evidence on which I was charged was not only the same evidence from when I was previously cleared in a very top level L.A.S.D. (Los Angeles Sheriff's Dept.) report in 1988, but it was the very same evidence on which the Los Angeles D.A. had previously and repeatedly rejected for prosecution due to lack of evidence. Every trial witness wasknown of 17 years before trial.
Even after a key component of the evidence was proven as faulty, the Los Angeles D.A. still agreed to prosecute me (and even after I'd been cleared in Orange County, with the Appeal Court ruling "there was no evidence to justify charging Goodwin in Orange County to start with“). The LADA no doubt agreed to the charge to help their OCDA friend, since he was in such huge exposure for large damages under RICO and § 1983 civil rights violations.
In my suit against Coleen Campbell, we can prove that Campbell committed material perjury at the L.A. trial. Even the 1st lead detective reported in writing that her husband and witnesses that she had referenced had called her a liar.
Coleen Campbell then posted a million dollar reward, targeted on me alone, ironically funded with the money she had stolen from my Federally protected pension and my business. That was the subject of the suit I had initiated against her and her associates. She clearly did this to protect herself.
Every witness who testified at trial and/or the preliminary hearing to issues thaty helped the D.A. convict me had radically changed their story from initial statements that were either nuetral or exculpatory (tending to support my innocence, vs. inculpatory, tending to support guilt) to one to help convict me - or told a new story that had never been told before by them.
All evidence used to convict me had been known of 17 years before and discarded, but the D.A. twisted it and lied about it to make me sound guilty. The last evidence list was in November, 1989. The false testimonies/perjuries, alll of which can be irrefutably proven as perjuries (as the D.A. knew), were the only evidence vs me.
Critical witness statements were then suppressed for every one of the 25 most prejudicial witnesses vs. myself. Those were required to have been produced by Penal Code (PC) 1054.9. Many of those contain exculpatory information, so they are more strongly required to be produced under BRADY V. MARYLAND.
Those "changed stories" created forty three material felony perjuries or false testimonies. 30 of these were by four D.A. "experts" and two of their own investigators. Thirteen were D.A. witnesses and thirty were by their own two investigators and four "experts“. Of these, fourteen were told by Colleen Campbell's current lawyer, Dolores Cordell (who was acknowledged by the D.A. as "the #1 source of information" to convict Goodwin). Ironically, Cordell had led the criminal frauds to steal my money, that in turn initiated the litigation that got me charged (in retaliation). We have all evidence organized and available to prove their multi-million dollar criminal frauds. They are slam-dunk guilty.
Within that evidence are "declarations against their own interests", admitting to felony crimes by Cordell’s and Campbell’s co-conspirators. But, because of Campbell's political influence, no law enforcement agency will investigate. She is so well connected that she has had four lawyers who have gone over the line to harm me, appointed or elected as Judges. She had an ex-lawyer who changed sides to help her set up as the lead counsel for the Orange County Republican Party, and arranged a cushy County job for a witness who we can prove committed material perjury at trial for her.
Colleen Campbell, via a series of secret meetings, for which no witness statements (WSS) have been produced (although PC 1054.9 requires that they are to be produced), brought on a third lead investigator, a very corrupt Detective Mark Lillenfeld to take the lead in 1997. We can prove 100+ material perjuries by him, witness threats, evidence fabrication and destruction, and forgery. He simply decided to frame me for Campbell, using the new million dollar reward as bait. He immediately announced, even with no supporting evidence, "Goodwin did it”.
Detective Lillenfeld then used the reward to lie to witnesses to make them believe that Goodwin did it (as he was a monster), and even if they had to "fudge" a bit (or a lot as many of them did) on their testimony, it was for the good since I (Goodwin) was guilty and needed to be punished. The problem was that there was no true evidence to link me to the crime. None. Lillenfeld just created it. No hard evidence connects me to the crime, only perjury.
Lillenfeld got twenty six witnesses to change their stories after he spoke with them (and after the million dollar reward was posted), some of them even contradicting their earlier sworn declarations that they had given in support of my innocence. He made this possible by working with the D.A. to illegally suppress and/or hide over 250 pieces of evidence that would have proven my innocence. We can prove that the D.A. has this evidence. This evidence exists nowhere else and is not repetitive. Each one of those (evidences) that is found to be material mandates a reversal of my conviction. If this evidence was produced, I wouldn't have been convicted. (Plus hundreds of witness statements).
As part of his scheme to falsely convict me, Lillenfeld actually 'reversed' the true order of Mickey and Trudy‘s death, as is proven by initially suppressed, but newly discovered, evidence - and created a bizarre bogus crime scene script worthy of a pulp fiction novel. He then created phantom black killers on bicycles when every crime scene witness had reported a white shooter (no crime scene witness ever reported blacks or bikes on the crime scene). He did this since he had found witnesses who "spoke out" (for the first time thirteen years after the crime and only after the reward was offered) to say they saw me 2½ miles away, a few days prior to the crime (and also where another witness saw black riders that morning). But, initially suppressed and newly discovered evidence proves that both that I was not there and the riders seen near this location were not killers. It is impossible that they were.
With these frauds, and many more, I am told that I was the first person in U.S. history to be convicted of "ordering a hit", when the killers were never identified or found. We don't even know what race they were, for sure. No forensic evidence connected me. It was stipulated I was not at or near the scene of the crime. There is no evidence I was connected to a conspiracy. There is no confession. And, suppressed evidence proves that every allegation supporting my alleged guilt is fraudulent, every one of them, knowingly done by the D.A.
Four years after my conviction, my Appeal still isn't filed. The court transcript has ‘disappeared’. My appeals attorney has not been able to do anything. Two cases have ruled that since the delay is caused by the State appointed counsel, a reversal of judgment is called for, now. E.G. see COE V Thurman 922 F2d 528, 530.
All evidence to prove my claims is organized and ready for court. This is despite the fact that I have been severely hampered from exercising my legal rights while in prison. Access to the prison’s legal law library and simple copying privileges has been severely restricted. My mail has been tampered with. Undo searches of have been of my cell, which never produce anything, but delay my legal research and filing abilities for days afterwards (as the result of the subsequent ‘trashing’ of the cell). Even my electricity is mysteriously turned off for days at a time, leaving me in the dark and unable to read out of the one good eye that I still have left (even with the electricity on, the one light in the cell is barely adequate). I lost my vision while "in" because guards refused to to provide me prescibed ophthamology medication.
In summary, although there are many issues that were knowingly fraudulent by the D.A., the ultimate issue that allowed the wrongful conviction was the suppression of the 250+ pieces of material exculpatory evidence which prohibited meaningful cross exam which would have proven 43 perjuries and impeached the witnesses. Thus, there has been no true "adversarial testing" of the prosecution case as is anticipated/guaranteed by the Constitution. However, there are also numerous huge D.A. frauds on the Court.
I, Michael Goodwin, declare that the above statements are declared of my own personal knowledge and if required I could and would testify thereto truthfully under oath. All statements made by me (above) are known by me personally, except any which I have specifcally attributed to being told by others. I declare to the above under penalty of perjury, under the laws of the State of California, that the foregoing is true and correct. Executed this 27th day of February, 2011, in Susanville, CA.
Michael Frank Goodwin
All evidence to prove my claims is organized and ready for court. This is despite the fact that I have been severely hampered from exercising my legal rights while in prison. Access to the prison’s legal law library and simple copying privileges has been severely restricted. My mail has been tampered with. Undo searches of have been of my cell, which never produce anything, but delay my legal research and filing abilities for days afterwards (as the result of the subsequent ‘trashing’ of the cell). Even my electricity is mysteriously turned off for days at a time, leaving me in the dark and unable to read out of the one good eye that I still have left (even with the electricity on, the one light in the cell is barely adequate). I lost my vision while "in" because guards refused to to provide me prescibed ophthamology medication.
In summary, although there are many issues that were knowingly fraudulent by the D.A., the ultimate issue that allowed the wrongful conviction was the suppression of the 250+ pieces of material exculpatory evidence which prohibited meaningful cross exam which would have proven 43 perjuries and impeached the witnesses. Thus, there has been no true "adversarial testing" of the prosecution case as is anticipated/guaranteed by the Constitution. However, there are also numerous huge D.A. frauds on the Court.
I, Michael Goodwin, declare that the above statements are declared of my own personal knowledge and if required I could and would testify thereto truthfully under oath. All statements made by me (above) are known by me personally, except any which I have specifcally attributed to being told by others. I declare to the above under penalty of perjury, under the laws of the State of California, that the foregoing is true and correct. Executed this 27th day of February, 2011, in Susanville, CA.
Michael Frank Goodwin
