Hang in there, Dale Penn

Letter #3

Here’s the email I sent to Dale Penn, who of course as Marion County DA presided over the railroading of Frank Gable. Plus his amusing (at least I think so) response.

Hello Dale,

You probably don't remember me but I'm the guy at the Oregonian who used to ask all those bothersome questions about the Michael Francke case. Don't know if you've been following things lately, but it turns out that the guy you prosecuted, Frank Gable, was a just a patsy. I kid you not.

Two federal appeals courts have ruled that the state – by which, of course, they mean you and all those working under you including the state police – fabricated every bit of evidence against him. And now that Gable’s been exonerated, the AG’s office has agreed to pay him $2 million (with more no doubt on the way) for his wrongful conviction. Naturally, I'd be interested if you have any thoughts on the matter.

What I'm actually writing about, though, is some new information (published on this substack) that shortly after the murder, a state legislator named Mike Burton told you – in your very own office, I understand – that Francke had discovered rampant corruption within the Corrections Department and was about to be blow the whistle on it before the senate judiciary committee.

About a week before the murder, he and Francke were driving back from an inspection tour of prisons in eastern Oregon when Francke said he’d been conducting a corruption investigation of his own and the evidence he’d compiled was all on a NEC laptop computer lying between them on the front seat of the car.

After the murder, Burton says, once he realized the official line was that it was just a car burglary gone bad, he went to you office and told you what Francke had told him. "If you find that laptop," he remembers telling you, "you'll find the murderer."

However, as you may remember, you continued to insist in all your pubic statements that the murder was most likely the result of a bungled car burglary. Burton never heard back from you. And of course there's nothing in the official records to indicate that you were even interested in finding the computer.

In fact, a few months later when Kevin Francke went public with a conversation he'd had with his brother shortly before the murder – in which, Michael said he’d discovered an "organized criminal element" within his division and was going to "clean house" – you said this was the first time you'd ever heard such a thing. Then you dismissed Kevin as either crazed by grief or perhaps just a liar.

So, Dale, here’s the question: Is it your position that Mike Burton is crazy too? Or would you agree that the entire Francke murder investigation was little more than a cover-up from the beginning?

Best,

Phil Stanford

* * *

This is Dale’s email back to me

I agree with the Or Sup Ct, the unanimous jury, the numerous appellate courts that repeatedly affirmed Gable’s conviction and not the magistrate’s (temporary employee) ruling without any testimony and above all without any cross examination of the allegations. My opinion is that the temporary judge had no basis for his ruling.

Sent from my iPhone

* * *

And here’s my response to Dale

Well, of course you do. But you forgot to mention the (very un-temporary) Ninth Circuit court’s ruling that all the evidence against Gable was fabricated – or as they put it, the product of government misconduct.

You also failed to answer my question. Not long after the murder, did Mike Burton tell you about his conversation with Francke and the NEC laptop?

Good to hear from you, though. As you've probably surmised, I'm writing a book about all this and your comments are most welcome.

The interview with Burton is in fact an important bit of evidence in this case. If you haven’t read it yet just scroll down the list of Francke Murder substack episodes to 4. “It’s going to blow the top off everything.”