Phoenix, AZ—Debra Milke has been waiting for some uniformed strangers to take her, strap her down to a table and kill her for over 20 years.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed and remanded Judge Robert C. Broomfield’s earlier ruling over a serious and limited technical question that suggested Debra Milke had never waived her right to a lawyer before speaking with former police detective, Armando Saldate. This time the burden of proof was on the state.

The real problem was much deeper than a waiver but the unrecorded, un-witnessed and hotly contested conversation that a former police detective claimed to be a murder confession. Here the waiver not the conversation was the the issue.

The rub here was within a couple of hours of her arrest I interrogated Milke at the jail while recording her with a hidden tape recorder. Milke wasted no time in giving me a strong and somewhat emotional denial of telling police she was involved in the crime. Milke also told me she had asked for a lawyer and nobody would tell her when she could see one.

Milke’s so-called confession became the only evidence of her involvement in the murder. Milke lost the, he said, she said contest in court. Who would a jury believe, a citizen without a criminal record or a cop? This woman’s very life has been hanging in the balance. The cop knew who the jury would believe so why use a tape recorder even though his boss in homicide told him to do so.

Judge Broomfield ratified this officer’s version of events in his ruling that will now be reviewed by the same court that reversed him.

There are other issues in this case that have not been fully reviewed and may never get examined. They resulted by the horrible representation of Milke by a beleaguered court appointed lawyer, Kenneth Ray. Among some of his fatal blunders were:

1. The failure to subpoena and view news reports that would have derailed the police detective’s confession claim.

2. The failure of Ray to even ask me what his client told me hours after the arrest. I strongly believe the jury would have cleared rather than convict Milke if I was called as a witness.

3. Kenneth Ray’s hiring of John Fritz as a trial forensic expert. I did a TV news story about Fritz, his fabricated resume and later the trial judge held a Contempt of Court Hearing on Fritz’s mishandling of the evidence. I should tell you that there never was any forensic evidence against Milke. This only shows evidence of a really lousy defense lawyer.

4. That the hapless defense lawyer in yet another significant lapse of representation allowed an audio tape of a witness interview to get in the jury room. The tape was never played in the courtroom or the subject of testimony. The tape was grossly inadmissible evidence that swayed the jury after they were in a 50/50 deadlock for acquittal or conviction.

These were far from the only mistakes and unfortunately issues not raised during the trial cannot be appealed.

There is also an affidavit on file from Kenneth Ray acknowledging his inability and failure to provide adequate representation of Debra Milke.

This report was taped some 19 years ago and was admitted into evidence and played at the hearing before Judge Broomfield:

Judge Broomfield’s 21 page Ruling:

Broomfield's Milke Ruling