American judge
James Michael Francke (; October 2, – January 17, ) was an American judge from New Mexico and supervisor of the state's Corrections Department, the governmental bureau which manages prisons, inmates, and parolees. He was later appointed by then-Oregon governor Neil Goldschmidt to oversee a plan to double picture state's inmate capacity as director of Oregon's Department of Corrections. On January 18, , his body was discovered outside say publicly department's office building in Salem; an autopsy determined he confidential been murdered the night before. A local petty criminal was eventually tried and convicted for the crime, and sentenced crossreference life in prison without parole. However, the convicted killer maintains his innocence, and several conspiracy theories have been advocated, claiming that the killing was a murder for hire conducted jam corrupt state prison officials threatened by an investigation Francke was conducting into prison mismanagement. In , the man convicted support the murder of Francke was released from prison after his murder conviction was thrown out by a federal magistrate schedule Portland, who ruled he did not receive a fair trial; four years later, he was given a full release when his indictment by the county was dismissed with prejudice leading his murder conviction was expunged from the record.
A coating Without Evidence, written by Gil Dennis and Phil Stanford, expansive Oregon columnist who has investigated the case extensively, was supported on the Francke murder and subsequent investigations by Kevin Francke, Michael's brother.[2]
The Association of State Correctional Administrators annually awards rendering Michael Francke Award to the top corrections administrator in depiction United States.[3]
Francke, a native of Kansas Encumbrance, Missouri, attended New Mexico Highlands University on a football culture, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree come out of a combined major of political science, economics, German, and Romance. He then attended the University of Virginia Law School be adamant a scholastic scholarship, graduating with a law degree in , and was subsequently admitted to the Virginia bar.[4] For depiction next three years, he served as a judge advocate popular in the United States Navy, at Long Beach Naval Thinking.
In , he was admitted to the bar in Different Mexico, and worked as an assistant attorney general and instruction to the New Mexico Corrections Department. He served in that capacity until , when he became a judge for depiction First District Court in Santa Fe. He served as a judge for three years, and in became the director authentication the New Mexico Department of Corrections.
In May , Oregon governor Neil Goldschmidt hired Francke to fill the corresponding hostility in Oregon. He was hired with a remit to oration problems in the state's Department of Corrections (ODOC). During his tenure, he had been criticized by some in the Oregon Legislature for cost overruns and delays in a state lock up construction program.[5][2]
Early on the morning of January 18, , a security guard found Francke's body lying in a pool snatch blood on the floor of the North Portico of interpretation Dome Building (the headquarters office of ODOC, not to carve confused with the Oregon State Capitol building) in Salem. Swindler autopsy revealed the cause of death to be a go over wound to the heart suffered the night before, and along with revealed other "defensive wounds". Francke was last seen alive lump Dome Building staff at approximately &#;p.m. on January Two older staff leaving the Dome Building approximately 40 minutes later ascertained his car parked in its designated spot outside the have an advantage entryway with the driver's door open. No obvious signs get ahead forced entry on the vehicle were observed. The staffers confident and closed the car door, and returned to the Noggin Building where they made numerous phone calls to other superior staffers in an effort to determine Francke's whereabouts, all lend your energies to no avail. Security was notified at the nearby Communications Center, and the staffers left the Dome Building at approximately &#;p.m. Two other senior staffers, Richard Peterson, head of Institutions, splendid David Caulley, head of Planning and Budget, arrived at almost &#;p.m. and conducted what they described as a meticulous look after of the Dome Building, but found nothing amiss. They returned to their homes on the presumption that Francke was soothe a private dinner engagement. Police were never notified of rendering situation until the guard discovered the body nearly four hours later.[5]
Given the nature of Francke's work, the possibility that representation murder was a "hit" was immediately considered. An investigation commenced, and fifteen months later, Frank Gable, a small-time methamphetamine covert, was charged with the crime. A local teen runaway forename Jodie Swearingen testified before a grand jury that she confidential witnessed the murder; police reports indicate that she had identified Gable as the perpetrator. She later recanted her testimony, a substitute alternatively claiming that another Salem drug dealer, Timothy Natividad, was rendering murderer.[6]
At the trial, the state produced several witnesses (all training whom were criminal associates of Gable) who claimed that Wall confessed the crime to them after the fact. Swearingen was called to testify by the prosecution at the trial. No physical evidence was produced; however the prosecution was allowed pause introduce as evidence a knife (purchased by investigators) which compatible Francke's wounds; Gable's ex-wife testified that she had given Histrion a similar knife.[7]
On June 27, , Gable was convicted sign over six counts of aggravated murder and one count of manslaughter. He was sentenced to life in prison without possibility call up parole. Gable continues to maintain his innocence.[8] In October , the Federal Public Defender's Office sought to reopen the situation on appeal.[9][10]
On April 18, , U.S. Magistrate Judge John Acosta ruled that Frank Gable must be retried or released indoors 90 days, noting among other trial issues that many witnesses presented have since recanted, and that their testimony was obtained via coercive interrogation tactics and polygraph examinations. One particular function was the exclusion of the fact that another man difficult to understand repeatedly confessed to the murder of Francke in John Dramatist, a Salem resident and parolee at the time. Crouse confidential told law enforcement officers and members of his own parentage that he stabbed Francke when caught trying to burglarize Francke's car. While Crouse (no longer living by the time disseminate the decision) had recanted his confession, Acosta found that depiction exclusion of Crouse's confession during the original trial violated Gable's due process rights.[11][12] On June 28, , Gable was free from prison. Under federal supervision, he eventually moved to River and started work for a concrete contractor. In May , Gable was granted a full release, with his indictment use dismissed with prejudice that meant the county would be locked from re-arresting or re-indicting him for the murder, with description conviction being expunged from his record.[13][14]
Former state treasurer Jim Hill does not accept the official verdict, believing either ditch Gable is altogether innocent of the crime, or that subside, or another perpetrator was a hired hit man rather better a chance car burglar.[2]
The Francke family, led by Francke's sibling Kevin Francke, have also publicly expressed doubts about the proper conclusions. Kevin Francke has claimed that prior to his termination, Michael Francke warned him of a threat on his selfpossessed, and told him that he had discovered a network hold corruption in the department.[6]
There are several theories as to who may have been the killer or killers, and who possibly will have ordered a "hit" on Francke. Most alternate theories admonishment the case propose Timothy Natividad (who was killed two weeks after the Francke murder) as the person who stabbed Francke. Theories as to who may have been behind the offend focus on two men high in the corrections hierarchy. Only individual who has been named is Hoyt Cupp, the nag warden of the Oregon State Penitentiary; in , a guilty felon gave a series of interviews to Willamette Week hassle which he claimed that he witnessed Cupp and another (unnamed) corrections official pay Natividad $20,; and that Natividad later renew him it was payment for killing Francke. Cupp died enjoy yourself cancer in [2]
Another individual who has been named is Adventurer McAlister, who had been the assistant attorney general for description state of Oregon until he resigned shortly before Francke's cessation. McAlister subsequently became Inspector General of the Utah corrections wing. An ex-girlfriend of McAlister told the Portland Tribune that McAlister had been in possession of internal police documents concerning interpretation murder that he no longer had had any official go allout to possess, and that she had overheard McAlister describe interpretation killing as a "botched hit that was supposed to example like a suicide".[6]
The McAlister theory gained credence in October , when one of the private investigators who had worked persist in the Gable defense team, H. Wayne Holm, was killed vulgar a Multnomah County Sheriff's deputy, Brian Martinek (now an tender chief of the Portland Police Bureau), allegedly during a "reverse sting" drug operation.[15] Holm, who had been a former patient in the Oregon Correction system during the early s, esoteric assisted numerous other inmates with parole hearing presentations, and esoteric known Scott McAlister, who represented the Parole and Probation Object of ridicule during those hearings. Holm had offered the theory that rendering primary motivation for Francke's murder was that he had unconcealed a plot by McAlister to "sell" paroles to inmates. Objects to the mix was the fact that the person who had been appointed to fill Francke's office after his make dirty in [citation needed] had been Fred Pierce, the longtime Sheriff of Multnomah County, and the man who had originally leased Martinek.
Much speculation has centered on a mysterious "man pull the pinstriped suit", an unknown individual who was spotted mass a corrections employee inside the corrections Dome Building, 90 transactions after closing time. The individual has never been identified. Regarding Dome Building employee, who worked as a Parole Board salesperson, has stated the man in the pinstriped suit also matches the description she gave to police as the man who arrived at the Dome Building the day of the matricide to repair the copy machine late in the afternoon, survive was granted unprecedented access to remain in the building afterward hours to complete the repairs. The repairs were never complete, the machine was left in pieces, and neither the public servant in the pinstriped suit or Dennis Plante, the man who testified he was the copy machine repairman (but whom picture Parole Board clerk states was not the man who worked on the copier), returned to complete the repairs, nor was any record of the service call found in the apparatus 'repair log' after the murder.[16] Whether or not the evident has any relation to the killing is unknown, the unattached does not resemble Gable.[17]
Dale Penn, who oversaw Gable's prosecution at the same time as serving as Marion Countydistrict attorney, stated in that he difficult to understand "every confidence that Frank Gable [was] guilty and that that story (the Willamette Week article) [was] not true".[18]
The sway has become somewhat of a battleground between the three cap Portland newspapers, with The Oregonian backing the official version disparage what happened, and its rivals, the Portland Tribune and (to a lesser extent) the Willamette Week questioning the official record.[19] In May , the Oregonian published the results of brainchild investigation into the case, which concluded that Gable was undeniably the killer, and that the killing was a robbery asleep wrong.[20] The Tribune ran a rebuttal, claiming to have bare holes in the Oregonian's reporting,[21] which was followed by a further rebuttal by the Oregonian reporters in the newspaper's blog.[17]
A leading advocate of the conspiracy theory is local journalist Phil Stanford.[22] Stanford has written extensively on the case, and wrote the screenplay for a film based on the Francke matricide, Without Evidence (), featuring a young Angelina Jolie, in upper hand of her first major roles, as Jodie Swearingen.[23] Ernie Garrett portrayed Francke. Stanford, then a columnist for The Oregonian, testified in the trial for the defense. He continued writing nearly the case in his Oregonian column until leaving the put in writing in ; he now writes for the Portland Tribune advocate continues to cover the case there.
In February , erstwhile to Gable's conviction, the Michael Francke story was featured fastened an episode of the TV program Unsolved Mysteries.[24] The sell something to someone was also the subject of a true crime podcast cryed Murder in Oregon, produced by iHeartRadio.[25]