Death Sentence in Reporter’s Slaying Upset

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal appeals court today overturned the death sentence of John Harvey Adamson, confessed accomplice in the 1976 car bomb murder of Arizona investigative reporter Don Bolles.

The 7-3 decision by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found that the state of Arizona violated Adamson’s “double jeopardy rights”--protection against multiple trials on the same offense.

Although the ruling voids his death penalty, the court said, it does not change Adamson’s original conviction and sentence for second-degree murder based on a plea agreement.

He must serve the 20-year, plus two months, actual prison time on a 49-year sentence as agreed in the plea bargain.

Adamson originally pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and testified against Max Dunlap and James Robison, two other suspected participants, in the murder-for-hire of Bolles.

When the Dunlap and Robison convictions were overturned in 1980, Adamson refused to testify a second time in the pair’s retrial saying he had fulfilled his part of the bargain. His plea agreement was tossed out and a first-degree murder charge reinstated.

Adamson was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death.