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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
Lakeport Unified School District and Konocti Unified School District are among hundreds of school districts across the United States named in the 226-page report, released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service. Only five states – Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi and New Hampshire – didn't have schools included in the report.
Board members from both districts Lake County News contacted late Thursday were not comfortable offering comment on the situation at this time because they had little information on the new report.
Lake County News also was unable to contact district administrators late Thursday. Konocti Unified's office was reported this week to be closed due to spring break.
The beef in question – 143 million pounds of it – was produced by the Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co. in Chino between Feb. 1, 2006 and Feb 4. 2008, the USDA reported.
The report stated that not all school districts listed had any of the beef in their inventory when the recall began. Nor did the fact that a school district or “school food authority” was included on the list indicate that those schools, in fact, had received the recalled beef.
The report did not include information on quantities of beef school districts might have received.
The USDA reported that some of the recalled meat was part of the commodity beef the USDA supplies to the National School Lunch Program. In addition, the agency said that “schools may have purchased Hallmark/Westland beef commercially.”
USDA Food and Nutrition Service officials reported that, of the 143 million pounds of beef recalled, 50.3 million pounds were used for federal nutrition programs. Of that 50.3 million pounds, 19.6 million pounds were consumed and 15.2 million pounds were placed on hold, while several millions pounds more were being traced.
USDA reported that it notified all school districts to “hold and immediately discontinue use of any Hallmark/Westland commodity beef products in their inventory” on Jan. 30.
U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service reported on Feb. 5 that it had, the day before, suspended inspection at Hallmark/Westland “based on the establishment's clear violation of Federal regulations and the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act.” The company's operations also were suspended.
On Feb. 17 the USDA notified states that beef the company supplied was being recalled due to “regulatory noncompliance,” the agency explained.
That's because the the slaughterhouse was found to be using “downer” cattle – cows unable to stand or walk due to injury or illness – for slaughter, according to a report from the Humane Society of the United States.
Such animals are not to be slaughtered for food, according to the USDA, because of concerns that they may have a higher risk for certain diseases – ranging from Salmonella to bovine spongiform encephalopathy, known more commonly as mad cow disease.
Making the situation worse was that the slaughterhouse's employees were found to be guilty of using extremely cruel practices, including using forklifts and electric prods in forcing the animals to slaughter, according to the Humane Society. An undercover investigator with the group gathered videotape evidence of Westland/Hallmark's practices, which the group then turned over to San Bernardino County prosecutors.
Any products included in the recall are no longer in use at the schools, USDA reported, explaining that the agency worked with states to “quickly provide replacement commodity product” from approved sources.
No reports of illness related to the recalled ground beef have been made, according to USDA. The agency also “has given assurance that the health risk of consuming the affected beef is negligible,” and remains confident in the supply of food in the National School Lunch Program.
Beyond the recall, the packing company has bigger problems. On Feb. 15, the San Bernardino County District Attorney filed felony animal cruelty charges against two employees the company had terminated, according to a statement that same day by Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer.
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District Attorney Jon Hopkins went before Judge Sandra McLean in the case of Gerald Frank Stanley, 63, who was sentenced to death in 1984 for the murder of his wife, Cynthia Rogers Stanley.
On March 17 a federal judge – citing juror misconduct – threw out the competency trial that was held in late 1983 as part of Stanley's original prosecution after questions of his mental state were raised, as Lake County News has reported.
Hopkins asked Judge McLean for a hearing on the feasibility of retrospective competency proceedings; at the same time, he's planning to file a request for a change of venue in order to move the case back to Lake County. The trial was moved in 1983 because of pretrial publicity, he explained.
McLean granted Hopkins' request for a hearing on his motions, which is scheduled for 11 a.m. April 24 in Oroville, Hopkins said.
Stanley, based on a removal order filed by Hopkins, was transported from San Quentin State Prison's death row to the Butte County Jail in Oroville.
Hopkins said Stanley appeared in court Thursday, after having spent the morning fighting with jail nurses over his medications. Stanley has previously stated to this reporter that he suffers from a variety of health complaints, including heart issues.
Upset over the issues with his care at the jail, Stanley made demands to the court that he be transported back to San Quentin, said Hopkins.
When it came time to appoint a defense attorney for Stanley in these current proceedings, Stanley requested Mark Olive, according to Hopkins.
Olive, a Florida attorney who has specialized in defending death penalty cases for 30 years, has previously worked on Stanley's defense team, although Stanley has stated in the past that he did not want Olive and other federal defenders to act on his behalf.
Hopkins said Olive wasn't present at the Thursday hearing, although two federal defense attorneys were present. McLean appointed Chico attorney Dennis Hoptowit to represent Stanley.
While his mental competency has been questioned, Stanley's guilt in the murder was upheld in the recent ruling and in a California Supreme Court ruling, according to court documents.
In the original trial, Stanley was ruled competent and sentenced to the gas chamber. He has remained on death row since February of 1984.
If a retrospective competency hearing were held and Stanley was found incompetent at the time of his original trial's penalty phase, he would no longer face the death penalty and instead would serve out the remainder of his life behind bars without the possibility of parole, according to Hopkins.
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The US Geological Survey reported a 3.3 earthquake occurred at 2:04 p.m. It was centered two miles northeast of The Geysers, three miles west of Cobb and six miles west northwest of Anderson Springs.
The earthquake was so shallow that no depth was recorded, according to the USGS.
USGS reports noted that the quake was felt in Middletown, St. Helena and Santa Rosa.
In Cobb, resident Roger Kinney reported feeling the quake. He said the quake's shallowness made it seem like it was much larger.
Kinney also reported feeling three smaller quakes that occurred within minutes of the 3.3 temblor.
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Judge Frank C. Damrell Jr. of the U.S. District Court for California's Eastern District made the ruling March 17 in the case of Gerald Frank Stanley, 63, whose appeal was made on his behalf by federal defenders.
Stanley was convicted of the Aug. 11, 1980 murder of his wife, Cynthia Rogers Stanley, in Nice, according to case records.
Damrell ordered proceedings to begin within 30 days of his ruling on whether or not a new competency hearing – nearly a quarter-century later – should be held.
District Attorney Jon Hopkins said he intends to appear in Butte County Superior Court – where Stanley's trial was moved due to pretrial publicity – on Thursday morning.
There, Hopkins will ask Judge Sandra McLean to set a hearing on the feasibility of holding a retrospective competency hearing in the case.
Stanley reportedly shot his wife with a sniper rifle while she was at her father's resort in Nice, according to Lake County News research into the case. Stanley then fled the scene, with authorities launching one of the largest manhunts in county history in an attempt to find him. Stanley later was arrested at his mother's Anderson home.
Robert Crone, then the Lake County District Attorney, prosecuted the case, which was reported to have cost the state $1 million, research of the case revealed. Crone and his prosecution team lived in Butte County for nearly a year while the trial was under way.
On Feb. 7, 1984, Stanley was sentenced to die in the gas chamber, according to State Department of Corrections documents. He has remained on San Quentin's death row since then.
Hopkins emphasized that Stanley's guilt is not in question, and he's not going to be released. In fact, Damrell upheld the finding of guilt in the Stanley case, as has the California Supreme Court, court records show.
“The guilt stands,” said Hopkins.
If the competency trial is held again and Stanley is ruled incompetent, he would no longer be subject to the death penalty and instead would be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, Hopkins said.
One of the factors cited in Damrell's ruling was juror misconduct in the trial's competency phase, court documents show.
At the beginning of the Stanley trial's penalty phase – in which jurors were to consider whether he was to receive the death sentence – doubts about Stanley's competency were raised, Hopkins explained.
That resulted in a three-month break in the proceedings while a competency trial took place, and Stanley was ruled mentally competent to stand trial, Hopkins said.
Later, however, it was found that one of the jurors in that trial allegedly was guilty of misconduct because she failed to state that she had been a violence victim, said Hopkins. That was a concern because it could have affected her ability to make an impartial decision.
Damrell's ruling also pointed to a statement by an expert witness in the case that Stanley was incompetent as of 1981, which contradicted that witness' previous testimony.
The issue now, said Hopkins, is a complicated one.
“We have to engage in the process of deciding his competency 25 years ago,” he said.
Such proceedings are not unheard of, said Hopkins, although they're rare. He pointed to other, similar cases in other federal circuit courts where retrospective competency hearings have been ordered. “There is some precedent.”
In addition to pursuing the request for a hearing on the feasibility of a retrospective hearing, Hopkins also asked to have Stanley brought from death row to the Butte County Jail in Oroville, a duty that fell to Butte County Sheriff Perry Reniff's office. Stanley is expected to remain in custody in Oroville during the proceedings.
Hopkins also plans to file a motion to have Stanley's case brought back to Lake County if it's decided to go through with a new competency trial.
Originally, the defense was granted a change of venue due to pretrial publicity. However, Hopkins believes he can successfully argue that enough time has passed that the case is no longer well known locally, and a competency proceeding could find an unbiased pool of jurors.
Stanley's federal appeal is not being carried out at his request, according to previous statements Stanley has made to this reporter.
Several years ago Stanley began trying to have the appeals process stopped with the help of Jack Leavitt, a Hayward-based attorney, according to interviews with both men.
Stanley stated that due to his failing health he was seeking an execution date and, if one was granted, he had offered to disclose the location of the body of Diana Lynn Ramel, a woman with whom he was romantically involved and who disappeared in February 1980. He has stated he did not kill her.
He did, however, murder his first wife, Kathleen Rhiley, in 1975 as she was taking their children to school in Concord, according to Lake County News research. Stanley served four and a half years for that crime.
At one point Stanley also was believed to have been involved in the murder of a young Redding woman, Sheryl Ranee Wright, who was last seen the day before Cynthia Rogers was shot, according to case research.
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