Opinion ID: 2639434
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Referee's Findings Regarding Joanna's Trial Testimony

Text: This court asked the referee to determine whether Joanna's trial testimony was false. He made these findings: Joanna was a chronic liar, who throughout her life had made up elaborate and creative falsehoods. The referee nonetheless concluded that Joanna had not lied about seeing petitioner kill Denise. But he disbelieved Joanna's trial testimony that she fled through the forest and hitched a ride back to Placerville with someone named Joe. Based on his personal observation of the steep and rugged terrain, the referee concluded that it would have been impossible for Joanna to make her way from the murder site to the paved highway. Because petitioner's jury at the trial had visited the murder scene, the referee considered it highly unlikely that the jurors would have believed Joanna's testimony about how she got back to Placerville and thus would not have considered that testimony in finding petitioner guilty of Denise's murder. For that reason, the referee concluded that the false part of Joanna's trial testimony was not material. In the referee's view, there was no way for Joanna to have returned from the murder scene to Placerville other than riding back with petitioner. He posited that Joanna thought she could be prosecuted as an accessory to murder for having done so. That, the referee said, would explain Joanna's initial reluctance to tell Detective Harnage and Sergeant Wilson about seeing petitioner stab Denise. The referee believed Joanna's reference hearing testimony that sometime after petitioner's trial she told Sergeant Wilson that she had lied about seeing petitioner stab Denise (she had only heard screams) and about riding back to Placerville with Joe (she rode back with petitioner). But the referee disbelieved Joanna's claim to Wilson that she had only heard but not seen the murder. That, according to the referee, was just another posttrial attempt by Joanna to distance herself from the murder.