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I am writing this on behalf of my son Scott Larson. Scott is 35 years old. Scott was on a 4 day drug binge with his girlfriend. Scott was in the garage working on a car, when his girlfriends son, (4 years old) went into the garage and said to Scott “my mommy likes Mitch as much as she likes you.” Scott, being on a 4 day drug binge (no sleep of food for 4 days) was enraged at this statement. He said he “snapped, and went to confront his girlfriend, not thinking, picked up a gun on the way to confront her. He started shooting the gun to scare her, and to try to get her to leave the house. She wouldn’t leave. He told the police that he never tried to harm her, just to scare her. He left her son in the garage when he went to confront her, in the house, and knew that her son would be safe there. No one was harmed in any way. Scott was advised by his attorney not to take the stand during his trial. Now we realize this was a big mistake. This was our first experience as a family in a trial, and assumed that the attorney was guiding Scott in the right direction. Scott was not able to defend himself. During the trial, Scott kept on telling his attorney about the discrepancies, but she refused to do anything about them. This should be Ineffective Assistance of Counsel. There were discrepancies from the police report, to the trial, concerning physical evidence. Then before the jury went out to deliberate, they withdrew the main supporting evidence, which was the bullets and spent casings. The numbers did not match what they told the jury. They DID NOT go by the investigating police report in trial because the physical evidence DID NOT match the witness testimony. It actually contradicted it. so they manufactured a case against it. The true evidence was not brought into trial. The witness said that Scott put the gun close to her face, and fired it. She felt the pellets so the police did a test of her face. The test came back negative. This proves that the witness was lying. Scott told the investigating officer that he picked up some of the spent casings before he left the scene, but the exact amount of spent and live casings were found by the police officer at the crime scene to fit the witness statement. How can this be, when it was stated that Scott picked some of them up in another report? We even have pictures of the crime scene, where evidence was tampered with. I have a video tape of the prosecutor, Steven Sommers interviewing the witness. She states that she isn’t sure if the gun was pointed at her head, when Scott pulled the trigger, and the gun supposedly misfired. Then, in the closing statements during trial, Mr. Summers the prosecutor, told the jury that Scott pointed the gun at the witness head, pulled the trigger, and it misfired. This is a false statement. The witness never said that. Isn’t this prosecutorial misconduct? The prosecutor also stated that Scott was trying to kill the witness with the gun, but he was so high on drugs that he kept on missing her. We have pictures of the crime scene showing Scott firing bullets in a straight line, obviously not trying to kill her, just scare her. Scott told me that he was trying just to shoot in the wall, and not damage anything. If you look at the pictures, that is exactly what happened. He knew exactly what he was doing, he was trying to scare her into leaving. The witness also states that she and her son got into Scott's truck with him after this incident. Does that sound as if she is afraid of Scott trying to kill her and harm her son? They also visited Scott several times when he was in jail. Scott was found guilty of all charges, and sentenced to prison for 33
years.
Scott and his family all agree that Scott has done a very wrong thing, and should be punished for it, but 33 years, is extreme. No one was hurt. Scott needs a Christian drug rehab, not 33 years in prison. He has been wrongfully convicted, and extremely sentenced. There needs to be an investigation into the judicial corruption in his case. Over the course of the 4 years that we have been going through this hell, we have come to discover that this corruption with the Judicial System in Shasta County has happened to so many others also. We have created a web-site with some of the stories. You can go to: www.oocities.org/three_strikes_legal/judicial_terror_in_shasta_county.htm on the web. You will see many other stories just like ours. How can this be happening in America? I work in a ministry that is opening up an office in Washington D.C. We are working with Senators, and Congressmen. Perhaps someday I will be able to tell many of them my families story. I will never stop fighting to have the true justice served on behalf of my son, and so many others in Shasta Co. CA. This was Scott's written statement: “I was out of control of my life. I was making poor choices at the time. I saw warnings to get help, but I was too scared and caught up in my wrong doings. At the time of the incident, I was up on drugs for 4 days. I could not think straight. My judgment was extremely poor. I then got upset and grabbed my gun which was in arms reach, and started venting by shooting it off in my house. When I reached the victim, I was a few feet from her, and then shot to both sides of her. Not once did I even think of shooting her, or hurting her, nor did I. I didn’t touch her, and she admitted that. I was just venting.” “Due to my drug addiction I made the worst mistake of my life.
I wish I could take the day back that it happened. But I can’t.
But in a way I’m glad that I’m in jail, because it made me realize how
out of control my life was, and I’m extremely glad that no one ever got
hurt in this incident.”
The witness did not wish to provide an impact statement for the courts consideration. Mardele Duarte
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