Tinasky

[Orlowsky at aol.com]

Thought the Tinasky fans out there would find this article intriguing.

Bob

                Copyright 1996 The Chronicle Publishing Co.    
                          The San Francisco Chronicle

                     MAY 30, 1996, THURSDAY, FINAL EDITION

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. C3

LENGTH: 538 words

HEADLINE: Mendocino County Editor Sent Back to Jail 
Authorities doubt authenticity of subpoenaed letter

BYLINE: Jim Doyle, Chronicle Staff Writer

BODY:
    A North Coast judge sent a newspaper editor back to his jail cell in
Ukiah
yesterday after ruling that he had failed to comply with a court order to
turn
over a letter apparently written by a man suspected of killing a sheriff's
deputy.

   Bruce Anderson, editor of the Anderson Valley Advertiser, had submitted a
document to the court on Tuesday that was supposed to be the original
letter-to-the-editor published by the newspaper in January.

   At a hearing yesterday, Deputy District Attorney Aaron Williams voiced
suspicions that the maverick editor might be trying to hoodwink the court
with
an unauthentic version of the letter.  Williams suggested that the letter
submitted was just a ruse -- an attempt by Anderson to get out of jail. The
prosecutor wants to use the letter to help convict Eugene ''Bear'' Lincoln of
murdering Deputy Sheriff Bob Davis last year.  

   Mendocino County Judge James Luther ruled that Anderson had failed to
prove
the letter's authenticity by even the lowest legal standard.  He said the
editor, whom he had cited for contempt, would remain in jail until he turns
over
what appears to be the original document.

   Anderson, 56, of Booneville, has been in the county jail since last
Friday,
when he vowed to never relinquish the letter. He argued that state law gives
the
media the right to protect its sources and that turning over the letter would
inhibit convicts, dissidents and others from writing letters to the editor.

   Anderson changed his mind two days ago, saying that he was convinced that
the
letter would not help prosecutors convict Lincoln.

   The controversy stems from a shootout on the evening of April 14, 1995, on
the Round Valley Indian Reservation near the town of Covelo.  In the
firefight,
Deputy Sheriff Davis and Lincoln's friend, Leonard ''Acorn'' Peters, were
killed.

   Lincoln has been charged with Davis' murder and faces the death penalty.
He
turned himself in to authorities in San Francisco in August 1995.

   Advertiser staffer Mark Scharamella said his boss expects to be in jail
for a
long time.

   ''The judge and the DA didn't buy it. They think there's a handwritten
letter. There isn't. What we received in an envelope was a computer-printed
letter, and it appeared to us to be the legitimate opinion of Bear Lincoln.''

   In the published letter, Lincoln is quoted as saying that deputy sheriffs
''ambushed and murdered our brother Acorn. . . . He broke no laws, he had no
warrants for his arrest, there was no road block, no lights, no warning, only
darkness, and then a blaze of gunfire.''

   The prosecution contends that deputies encountered Peters and Lincoln when
they were looking for a suspect in another case: Peters leveled a rifle at
deputies, who ordered him to lay down his gun; Lincoln fired a shot, and the
deputies returned fire and kill Peters; minutes later Lincoln shot and killed
deputy Davis.

   The Advertiser staff insists that Anderson is being jailed because of his
newspaper's criticism of the way authorities have handled the Lincoln case.
''It's just an abuse of authority,'' Scharamella said.  ''We are the only
dissenting paper of any kind in the area. People come to us as a last
resort.''