six Jurors Urge Sparing Killer's Life----Echoing the trial judge and citing new evidence...

six Jurors Urge Sparing Killer's Life----Echoing the trial judge and citing new evidence, they ask the governor to halt the execution of Michael Morales for a girl's murder in 1981.
6 jurors who condemned Michael Morales to execution for the brutal, 1981 slaying of a 17-year-old student urged Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to spare the death row inmate's life.
In a surprising turn of events, the jurors sided with the trial judge in the case, who 12 days ago asked the governor to stop the Feb. 21 execution and commute Morales' sentence to life in prison without parole. The judge and jurors cited the testimony of a jailhouse informant who they now say lied about Morales' role in the murder.
The jurors' change of heart came in a 17-page letter submitted in reply to the San Joaquin County district attorney office's case against clemency. The district attorney, in a letter to Schwarzenegger on Monday, argued that "the evidence that [Morales] tortured, raped and murdered Terri Winchell is overwhelming."
In 1983, the 12-member jury unanimously convicted Morales, now 46, of killing Winchell. Ventura County Superior Court Judge Charles R. McGrath sentenced him to death.
A jailhouse informant, Bruce Samuelson, testified that Morales had bragged during a jailhouse conversation in fluent Spanish that he had planned to rape and kill Winchell.
A decade after the trial, however, it was learned that Morales does not speak Spanish.
First McGrath, and on Tuesday the jurors, said they now believe that Samuelson lied and that Morales should be allowed to spend the rest of his life in prison. The jurors' declarations were filed under seal and not available for public viewing, Weston said.
The 6 jurors - a majority of those still living who heard the case - declared that without the informant's testimony, they never would have returned a verdict of death, Weston said.
A spokeswoman for Schwarzenegger has said the governor would thoroughly review the matter.