World Famous In San Francisco

from SF Gate 9/14

A federal judge in San Francisco has overturned the murder conviction of a man who was caught up in a cult conspiracy known as Pendragon for a paramilitary takeover of Marin County in 1982.
U.S. Magistrate Judge James Larson said Crossan Hoover, 42, did not receive a fair trial in Marin County Superior Court in 1984 when he was convicted of murdering antique car restorer Richard Baldwin, 39, of San Rafael, by hitting him with a baseball bat on July 6, 1982.
Hoover was 17 at the time and worked for contractor Mark Richards, who promoted a plan in meetings with his teenage employees to take over Marin County by destroying the Golden Gate and Richmond-San Rafael bridges and placing a laser gun on top of Mount Tamalpais.
The plot was aimed at creating a modern-day Camelot with Richards as King Arthur and his workers as knights, according to descriptions in court rulings on the case.
Hoover was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. He appealed with a habeas corpus petition in federal court in 1999 after losing appeals in the state court system.
Larson said in a Sept. 7 decision that the trial judge gave an incorrect jury instruction on sanity and the prosecutor caused a psychiatric expert to give distorted testimony by failing to tell the psychiatrist about the Pendragon plot and other factors that supported Hoover's claim of temporary insanity.
Larson ordered that Hoover be released in 60 days unless prosecutors seek a new trial.
Richards was convicted of first-degree murder in a separate trial and sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.