Christopher Goffard is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist who works for the Los Angeles Times. Most famous for his book and podcast about,“Dirty John,” a con man of bottomless moral depravity, Goffard’s most recent work covers the investigation and subsequent trial of Modesto attorney Frank Carson, a larger-than-life character whose public contempt for local authorities was the apparent motive for a charge of murder based on the testimony of a convicted methamphetamine addict whose story changed almost as often as he told it.
Investigators in the Carson case cast a net that was almost as wide as it was full of holes. Ultimately, Carson’s wife and stepdaughter, three California Highway Patrolmen, and the co-owners of a Turlock liquor store were charged and jailed during an investigation based on attempts to validate theories developed in a vacuum uncontaminated by evidence.
Based on an alleged murder that occurred in 2012, the Carson case featured an 18-month preliminary hearing — the longest in California history — and a 14-month trial during which the prosecution called 140 witnesses. In the end, Frank Carson was acquitted, but not until 2019, some seven years after the start of the investigation. The Stanislaus County District Attorney’s Office dropped charges against the last defendant in the case, California Highway Patrolman Walter Wells, in December of that same year.
In part because the investigation and trial took so long, few Valley residents were able to follow the Carson case closely enough to realize just how egregious a perversion of justice it really was. Carson himself spent over a year in jail. While incarcerated, he suffered kidney failure and went on dialysis. Once acquitted, he, his family, and the other defendants filed lawsuits that will almost certainly result in millions upon millions of dollars of damages paid for violations of their civil rights. Carson, however, won’t get any vindication from the judgments. He died last year at sixty-six years old.
Stanislaus County authorities were probably hoping the Carson case would have disappeared from local memories by now, but Goffard’s podcast has resurrected it in stunning detail. Highlighted by taped interviews conducted during the investigation and featuring interviews with Carson and other defendants, including the Highway Patrolmen, the podcast presents a damning indictment of a justice system gone horribly wrong. Listen to the podcast here.
Frank Carson was the best attorney Stanislaus county ever had, he worked hard and diligently on every case, to be frank! I’ve never heard of him losing, rest in peace Frank Carson see you at the crossroads big guy.
recall the D.A.
Should have been done at the start of prelim. What the hell is wrong w Modesto voters. She is a criminal. She knows who the murders were. She is not doing it because her lies will be exposed. You would think the victims family would force her hand.
Unfortunately, i think Carson got a taste of what these officials/judicial officials do to most every person who gets arrested… It is NOT about guilt or innocence. As i think, they could care less. I think it is all about how much money can be made on each person. I know some investigations are not done as law books say they are to be done.
I have heard this county has a reputation for literally SCARING people into taking plea deals. I have heard this from people, too many times. Example: representatives of a defendant, could tell the defendant “if you don’t take this deal, you are going to get up to 30 years in prison” and of course, the defendant being scared, will take that “less time deal” and be found guilty. Even innocent people! Innocent people are convicted all the time.
I think the courts violate most, if not all of our civil rights. I think it is easy for them to do, especially when people are unaware of their rights. Yet Carson called them out! We need more brave people like him.
I was really anticipating Carson’s lawsuit. I read the entire complaint. I understood all he talked about and the “procedures” taken. (I know how they work… deeply) Yet I had a very bad feeling the lawsuit wouldn’t go far… Hmm…
I think this county has gotten away with way too much INTENTIONAL injustice. I recall a van owner who was falsely accused of kidnapping recently. Arrested and charged by mere words, having no REAL evidence whatsoever. Luckily a video, which the DA had from the beginning, showed the mans innocence…. after a few weeks. The DA herself, put out an article basically stating the county is wanting to prevent false accusations and wrongful convictions…. I laughed as i read the article… and commented with something along the lines of …yeah right, you were just caught red-handed, trying to convict an innocent person, knowing he was innocent, like you have done before… NOT exact words, but you know, similar. Funny… no one else commented.
Certain officials in this county have put my family through a living H-E-L-L. In my opinion and maybe, many others, injustice REIGNS here… And everyone could care less. Until something happens to them.
Injustice 707, and, Those Also Injured,
I so much want to believe in Justice, but, long ago, I learned through both others sharing their experiences, plus my own first hand witnessing of multiple state, and city police departments, including county sheriffs, that the unjust system is rampant throughout. We need votes for a complete overhaul?
Allow me to share personal experiences of ways police and sheriff officers went sideways. I did an internship, towards one of my degrees, with a Domestic Violence group. One of my duties included assisting the DA overseeing Domestic Violence crimes. The DA had received multiple complaints from domestically abused persons who had contacted her office wanting to know the status of their cases. The DA had no knowledge of their incidents. It turned out that often certain law inforcement officers had been falsely logging incidents as merely verbal arguments, rather than the assault and battery that had clearly taken place.
This clarity came about because of photos, emergency room records, face to face meetings, and case notes derived from my counseling both visibly injured clients, and/or clients who had allegedly received terrorist threats, substantiating much more than verbal arguments. Additionally, the DA appointed me to make regular visits to police stations in local cities and the the county sheriff department to review the daily logs to identify any domestic violence incidents, written up as verbal or otherwise, for a closer look.
Once present inside police and sheriffs departments, as I fulfilled my assignments to review logs for the DA, I found myself in hostile environments, where officers of all genders demonstrably made mean spirited gestures and vocally snide remarks specifically directed at me. I came away from each of those departments well aware that those policing authorities did not hide that they did not like being policed.
During another police department visit, while accompanying a domestically violated client and her father for the purpose of requesting the dispatched officer who originally logged the police record as a verbal argument to change the record to accurately show that assault and battery had actually taken place, as emergency room records and the deep long gash, sewn together by multiple stitches, on the top of her head supported. As we sat in a small room, going over the necessary information to change the record, I could hear, just inches behind me, multiple sets of footsteps, then chairs being shifted around, then silence.
Moments later, the responsible officer asked my client for documents that necessitated she and her father go to their car to retrieve, then the asking officer himself left the room. Curious, I swiveled around in my chair to see who had come in close behind me. There were six uniformed officers sitting around a small table, not eating lunch, not doing paperwork, just sitting there, as if there to listen in, as I had been communicating that it was absolutely necessary that the record reflect the collected facts and nothing less.
I spontaneously smiled as I looked around the table at each officer and greeted them with my usual friendly demeanor, as I said, “Hello”. It was eerie as they gestured nothing in response but rather stared right through me with less than friendly eyes, to state it frankly. The thought that came to mind was that I would not have wanted to meet up with anyone of them, again, especially, in a dark alley. That was years ago but quite memorable.
I am a resilient individual, with lots of life experience, and, I could tell you multiple first hand experiences with the so called legal system and the agencies that prop up or make their livings catering to each others systems. I am not willing to throw all in the legal system under the bus but for the sake of all, including the policing authorities that adhere to the rules, as they exist now, things are drastic and nothing less than a complete overhall has to be conducted, soon. Police, when it comes to investicating an alleged crime scene, need a tremendous amount of training in critical reasoning skills.
A note about many Domestic Violence groups is that their hiring and training procedures are lacking common sense. I am not saying everyone hired must be an expert or degreed. But hiring people and keeping them employed, after they reveal they have very little empathy for and understanding of the shattered people who come to them for healing, revictimizes, and is not benign negligence.
This can be said about the homeless, justice, mental health and health care industries, etcetera, as well. Yes, by now, I do not see how any citizen could not admit to themseves, atleast, that what is happening to those who are homeless, is an industry, lucrative via a game of keeping the costs of meeting regulations high and prolonged. Many seeking jobs have skills in building homes and are not part of a union and should not have to be unionized. Holding out for unionized builders serves to artficially jack up the costs of housing, making affordability less and less possible. Anything non-essential holding up housing for the homeless and poor must be set aside for now.
As for the culture within many domestic violence agencies is one where I often witnessed counselors regularly making fun of clients, calling them pejorative names, and, literally creating an environment where a client does not feel safe. It may surprise the public to learn that many social service agencies have bullying and mobbing going on within their field. What is worse is that they cover up for one another. Imagine being an individual barely keeping yourself together after being traumatized and having to try to pull together enough of your own agency to successfully heal, despite the adverse stuff surrounding you. The question the public ask is why do the domestically violated go back, when they could stay safely within a battered persons shelter. We have all heard the expression, “Better the devil you know, than the one you do not”. Plus, Domestic Violence sheltering is usually temporary at best. Then what?
Another point is that after reporting domestic violence, the majority of cases are not really prosecuted to the extent that the domestically abused are finally safe, and few, if any, places exist to house the angry, alternatively. Generally, their is not enough funding to follow through, thus only the worst cases hold up to sentencing. Then what? A couple of months of court ordered anger management barely scratches the surface. There needs to be enhanced couseling for abusers and abused alike. Where they can reach deep healing. Jails are full enough. Noone gets a deep healthy reboot experience there.
I say all this fully expecting backlash, from someone, yet I still voice my thoughts because those injured within the justice system will recognize that some do know what they are up against and some do care deeply and some do want change now.
Thanks for hearing this out.
To Birgit Fladager: “Frank Carson case, what the hell have you been up to? What kind of a county have I been living in?”
Frank Carson was the best at what he did and was a winner in defense. Stanislaus DA office is a disgrace. They hated him and envied his talent as a defense attorney always beating them at their own game. As a Stanislaus resident I will never trust Stanislaus DA. Stanislaus DA killed Frank not dialysis.
100 percent right.
“The Trials of Frank Carson” podcast series in the LA Times hasn’t been completed yet, I was able to listen to the first five parts, and the bonus pieces for subscribers. I assume they will be publishing more. The revelations about the Stanislaus County DA office led by Birgit Fladager are meant to be part of a wider story on the way the enormous power of prosecutors is wielded in the obtaining of plea bargains in lieu of jury trials and the dire implications that has for injustice in our criminal justice system. It is a very important story, and a very disturbing one. It is also documentation of a shocking and tragic misappropriation of resources by the Stanislaus County District Attorney. We need a better District Attorney and a reformed justice system, which will take a lot of work, nation wide.
Thank you Nancy Jewett. If Stanislaus County authorities can do what they did to a prominent attorney, his family, three Highway Patrolmen and two successful business owners, imagine what they do to poor people.
DARE WE IMAGINE? THE POOR ARE AT THE UNJUST MERCY OF MASSES
they have tormented my family for years… They bully juveniles into doing whatever they want. They convict innocent people, knowing they are innocent. I don’t know if you have noticed but there have been many lawyers dying in the past few years. Many names were not announced in the papers, but their obituaries are there… I do not believe in coincidences.
Why hasn’t the state bar move to revoke the DA’s License? Why aren’t the investigators, especially Bunch, in Jail for fabricating evidence? Why are these perpetrators of this heinous crime against these 9 people, being allowed to hide behind their badges, and offices, instead of rotting in prison where they belong?
GROUPTHINK FOR A LARGE PART AND CIRCLED WAGONS FOR THE DURATION.
IT IS UP TO US TO SEE TO IT CHANGE HAPPENS. THOSE CUSHY IN THEIR POSITIONS ARE NOT GOING TO WILLINGLY MAKE NEEDED CHANGE HAPPEN.
IF I WERE A BETTING INDIVIDUAL, I WOULD WAGER THAT THOSE PROPPING UP THE INJUSTICE ONCE KNEW BETTER, BUT ONE FOUL ACT AFTER ANOTHER, A LITTLE WRONG HERE, A LITTLE WRONG THERE, LOOKING THE OTHER WAY WHEN EVIL HAPPENED, SEARED THEIR CONSCIENCES OVER, MAKING IT IMPOSSIBLE FOR THEM TO FEEL OBLIGATION TO DO THE RIGHT THING.
THEY FEATHERED THEIR NESTS, AT THE EXPENCE OF OTHERS, AND THEY LOST THEIR NERVES UNDER CALLOUSED FLESH. THEY FEEL NOT FOR ANYONE BUT THEMSELVES. THEY SELL OUT THEIR OWN CHILDRENS’ FUTURES. THEY CANNOT HELP THEMSELVES, SO DO NOT BE SURPRISED WHEN THEY DO MORE HARM TO OTHERS, INCLUDING THE ECONOMY WE USED TO SURVIVE.
THEY HAVE TO BE MOTIVATED TO REPRESENT HUMANITY, SHAMING WILL NOT WORK, BUT WILL ALERT OTHERS. MOST OF WHAT IS WRONG IS STRUCTURAL, BAKED INTO THE SYSTEM, THEREFORE MAKING FURTHERANCE OF HARM EASY
PEOPLE ARE UP AGAINST SYSTEMIC ISSUES: RACISM, CLASSISM AND WORSE. MANY OF OUR INSTITUTIONAL NORMS, MORES, TRADITIONS, THE THINGS WE TAKE FOR GRANTED SO NEVER QUESTION OR CHALLENGE, NEED GUTTING OUT.
THE MOST INSIDIOUS BYPRODUCTS GET ESTABLISHED AS PARTS OF OFFICIAL ORGANIZATIONS: INSTITUTIONALIZED DISCRIMINATION, BIAS, SECRECY, AND TOO MANY OTHER DANGERS TO COUNT HERE, SUCH LACK OF ACCOUNTABILITY.
WE MUST HOLD FEET TO THE FIRE. WE NEED TO DEMAND CHANGE. NOW!
WE NEED TO DEVELOP OUR BACKBONES AND CORE STRENGTH OF CHARACTER BECAUSE OBVIOUSLY NOONE ELSE IS GOING TO DO FOR US WHAT WE CAN DO.
Qualified immunity. Every damn time.
May 2009: Sheriff’s deputy Alfred Huskey admitted to having sex with a minor under the influence of alcohol and meth but was only sentenced to a year in county jail and did not even have to register as a sex offender. Many local attorneys agreed the deputy got an unprecedented “sweetheart” deal, which was approved by current DA Birgit Fladager.
This is Skandalous County DA for you.
Frank carson was my friend. My husband and I enjoyed many conversations with frank over hundreds of subjects. He was the smartest attorney in modesto. He was generous with time and knowledge in helping anyone. He loved collecting antiques. He was a dealer for years in my antique mall. My husband gave him a hand forged knife he made just for him. Frank almost cried. There will never be another frank carson. The d.a. won. She got what she wanted. To destroy frank on tax payer dollars. He went way to soon. My last conversation with frank at his step daughters funeral a short time before he died. I hope the pod cast wakes modesto voters up and they go after the d.a. and her office. He won his case but it would be great if the real murders were caught and convicted. It will only happen if the d.a. is recalled. Rest in peace frank.
I can’t believe what a campaign to set up your husband occurred. You can hear the sincerity and truth in your husband’s voice just as sure as you hear the trooper feeding the information needed in their “confession”. If anyone believes that every officer and personnel from the DA who went to the location where the body was found and believes EVERY ONE of them had low batteries and therefore there was again no recording?!?? Unbelievably evil and corrupt and also insulting to anyone who listened to her tell stupid, stupid lie.
That DA got waaay too greedy and arrogant with her bullshit. I’m sure she’s gotten away with planting evidence, coerced/fed confession and threats for so long she got lazy and crazy with what she tried to do.
Police think everybody lies, yet once they tell you what they want to hear and you finally get it right, then they believe that, after several different stories?!? Unbelievable!!