Opinion ID: 2633199
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Case Against Thomas

Text: Thomas must demonstrate a reasonable probability that the foregoing additional evidence would have made a difference to the jury. In light of the considerable evidence against him, we conclude he cannot do so. As mentioned above, that evidence fell into four categories: (1) Thomas's ownership of a high-powered rifle that could have been the murder weapon; (2) sightings of him with the victims shortly before their deaths; (3) incriminating statements and actions by Thomas in the days following the murders; and (4) certain additional physical evidence. We summarize that evidence, recounted in full in our opinion on automatic appeal. ( Thomas, supra, 2 Cal.4th at pp. 505-512, 7 Cal.Rptr.2d 199, 828 P.2d 101.)
Gioia died from a gunshot to the face; Kniffin died from a gunshot to the neck. A firearms expert described the differing ballistic properties of .44 magnum handguns and rifles. Based on his examination of postmortem photographs of Gioia's wounds, he opined that the exit wound would be normal for a high-powered rifle or shotgun, but was inconsistent with any he had seen made by a handgun. The prosecution established that Thomas had acquired a Remington .44 magnum Model 788 rifle from Lenise Christy Allen, his girlfriend. The person from whom Allen acquired the Model 788 rifle, Martin Barbena, described its peculiarities. Barbena testified that the rifle had no clip, but could be fired by hand-loading each round into the chamber. The breech was recessed, so a user had to push each round fully into place or there was a chance of jamming. If a bullet were half in and half out, it would tend to simply hang; if it were out any more than that, it would fall through the space for the charge clip. On the basis of this testimony, the prosecutor argued that only a person familiar with that model rifle could have committed the murders and hence that Thomas, the owner of the rifle, was the killer. Thomas Medlin, a Rainbow Village resident, testified that Thomas still had his rifle the night before the murders; he saw Thomas firing it just before sunset on August 15.
The testimony of several Rainbow Village residents placed Thomas in the company of the victims during the night of the murders. Jim Prew testified that sometime after 10:00 p.m. on August 15, Thomas, Gioia, and Kniffin were among a group of people that included Prew, Chris Campbell, and Paul Harter, who were drinking beer in Prew's van at Rainbow Village. About 1:00 a.m. on August 16, Prew agreed to drive Campbell to his home in Richmond. All except Kniffin rode along. After dropping Campbell off, the group drove to a convenience store where they bought burritos, beer, and ale. On the way back to Rainbow Village, they picked up Kniffin along an access road near University Avenue, arriving at Rainbow Village about 1:50 or 2:00 a.m. The group stood around drinking for awhile. About 3:00 a.m., Gioia and Kniffin announced they were going to take a walk. Around that same time, Thomas left too without saying where he was going. Vincent Johnson testified that he spent the hours between midnight and about 2:00 a.m. on the night of August 15-16 visiting with a friend in his bus at Rainbow Village. Because the friend was afraid to drive on the access road by herself, on her departure Johnson rode along with her as far as University Avenue. After she dropped him off, Johnson walked back to the village alone. Near the landfill office, he saw Thomas with a young White couple. Johnson passed within 15 to 20 feet of them. Thomas was standing and staring into space. He appeared angry.
Sometime after sunrise on August 16, a body was seen floating in the bay. Berkeley Police Detective Fred Eihl arrived at the Berkeley dump landfill area shortly after 11:00 a.m. Detective Eihl testified that he was standing about 30 feet from the body, which was floating facedown. Some white upper clothing was visible, but neither the face nor the legs could be seen. Thomas was standing about 15 feet behind Eihl, about 45 feet from the body. As personnel from the coroner's office began to remove the body from the water, while the face was still not visible and before Eihl could tell whether the body was male or female, Thomas said, That's Mary. Because Thomas had made a tentative identification, Eihl asked him for more information. Thomas told Eihl that he knew the victim only as Mary. Asked when he last saw Mary, Thomas said they had partied the night before in a van just outside the gate. Thomas's account of the party was generally similar to that provided by Jim Prew. Eihl asked Thomas what he did after that. Thomas told him he saw Gioia and Kniffin as he was walking out the dump road from Rainbow Village to Ledger's Liquor Store. Gioia and Kniffin asked him for a match; [12] Thomas stopped to give them one and smoked marijuana with them. He then proceeded to Ledger's, found it closed, and returned to Rainbow Village. He got money and went to various locations to try to purchase marijuana. When it grew light out, he went to a laundromat in the area of University and San Pablo Avenues. [13] After finishing his laundry, he returned to Rainbow Village. [14] Thomas Medlin testified that after Gioia's body was found, Thomas asked him to hold his gun cleaning kit for awhile. Medlin took the kit and hid it in his car. Later, Thomas asked Medlin to hold his ammunition, but Medlin refused and gave him back both the gun cleaning kit and the container with the ammunition. Thomas told Medlin he had been dumpster diving (i.e., searching for salvageable items) all the previous night and had been back and forth from Rainbow Village into town several times. On August 17, Berkeley Police Inspector Daniel Wolke interviewed Thomas at Rainbow Village. Thomas's statement generally agreed with what he had earlier told Detective Eihl, with certain discrepancies. In the August 17 interview, Thomas said that Kniffin was not at the party in Jim Prew's van; in the earlier interview, he had said Kniffin was present. Additionally, he described his encounter with Gioia and Kniffin near the landfill office somewhat differently to Wolke than he had to Eihl. When he met Gioia and Kniffin about 1:30 a.m. on his way to Ledger's Liquors, Thomas told Wolke, they asked him for some marijuana and he shared some with them, smoking it in his corncob pipe. He said he also drank beer with them. Thomas claimed he must have lost his pipe at that time. Thomas said he got his laundry from his car about sunrise. Asked if he owned any guns, Thomas said he had a Remington .44 magnum bolt-action rifle without a clip. When Wolke asked to see the rifle, Thomas told him it had been stolen late Thursday afternoon or Thursday evening (August 15). Thomas showed Wolke a lidded Tupperware container and claimed that the 10 or 11 bullets he kept in it were missing. Wolke asked if Thomas had made a police report or told anyone the gun had been stolen; Thomas said no. Thomas said he had last fired it on Thursday evening. On August 20, Thomas again spoke with Wolke and gave another account of the events of August 15-16, more detailed than his earlier statements and inconsistent with them in some respects. He told Wolke that just before dark on August 15, he had gone with David Bergman and Melody Medlin, Thomas Medlin's wife, to liquor stores on University Avenue. Thomas purchased ale. After returning to Rainbow Village, Thomas ran into Tracy Scarborough. He and Scarborough drank ale and smoked marijuana in Thomas's car. About 9:00 p.m., Scarborough fell asleep. Thomas joined Gioia, Jim Prew, Chris Campbell, and Paul Harter at Prew's van and drank with them. They were drinking whiskey, and Thomas returned to his car to get a pint bottle of Wild Turkey. Later in the evening, Campbell asked for a ride to Richmond, so they all got in the van and drove out to Richmond. At the San Pablo Dam Road exit, they went to a convenience store and bought burritos and beer. It was 12:59 a.m. They dropped Campbell off and returned to Rainbow Village, stopping to give Kniffin a ride from University Avenue. They continued to drink together for 15 or 20 minutes. Then Prew said he was tired, Gioia and Kniffin left, and Thomas went back to his car to drop off his pint of Wild Turkey. At that time, Thomas decided to go to Ledger's Liquors to buy some beer. Walking out past the village, he saw Vivian Cercy's car pointed north along the roadside. He also saw Gioia and Kniffin near the concrete docks. Kniffin called him over to ask him if he had any matches. Thomas gave them some wooden matches in a leather-like pouch with a beaded design of deer mating, which he called Peruvian love beads. They asked him if he had any marijuana. Thomas said he did and took out a wooden pipe in which they all smoked the marijuana. They also drank beer. Thomas told Wolke he also had a corncob pipe with a broken stem and that he must have left it behind for Gioia and Kniffin or else lost it where they were. While Thomas was with them, Vincent Johnson passed by on his way to Rainbow Village and said hello. Thomas spent a total of less than 10 minutes with Gioia and Kniffin before proceeding to Ledger's Liquors. Finding the store closed, he returned to the village. He got his jacket and $20 from his car. He then walked to various locations in an unsuccessful effort to purchase marijuana. He did not see Gioia and Kniffin on his way. He then returned to Rainbow Village, removed his jacket, got his laundry from his car, and walked to the laundromat at University and San Pablo Avenues. It was about daybreak when he got his laundry out of the car. Asked what time it was when he got to the laundromat and began to do his laundry, Thomas said it was after 6:00 a.m. Wolke asked if he knew when the laundromat opened; defendant said it opened at 7:00 a.m., so he must have done his laundry after 7:00 a.m. While doing his laundry, Thomas went across the street to a bakery and got some coffee. Thomas said he ran into a man named Claude Roseman, who lived at the UC Hotel, and he lent Roseman a dollar. On his return to Rainbow Village, Thomas stopped by the landfill office and noticed several people there. He then went to his car, opened the rear door, and noticed that his rifle was missing from its case, along with a white Tupperware container that had approximately eleven .44 magnum shells in it. [15] Wolke told Thomas that the police could not figure out the motive for the murders. Thomas said he could think of plenty of reasons why somebody would want to murder the victims. Wolke said, Why don't you tell me one? Thomas paused and then said he could not think of any at the time. Wolke asked if he would be willing to take a polygraph test regarding his missing rifle. Thomas said he would have to think about it and get some legal advice.
Inspector Wolke testified that on August 16, he examined a sand pile north of where Gioia's body had been found and adjacent to the spot where Kniffin's body was recovered. He observed two sets of drag marks in the sand and bloodstains on some rocks near the water. Detective Eihl testified to the same observations. A corncob pipe with a broken stem was recovered from the area. Thomas's rifle and the distinctive match pouch he said he had loaned the victims were never found. In short, though circumstantial, the evidence against Thomas was considerable. In addition, the prosecution called rebuttal witnesses that cast doubt on Cercy's testimony. Inspector Wolke testified that he interviewed Cercy on August 17 after Harry Shorman, the unofficial mayor of Rainbow Village and Cercy's boyfriend, introduced him to her. She told Wolke that she had had quite a bit to drink on the night of August 15. She did not mention seeing a rifle, but said that, while overhearing the conversation she reported, she saw a person stick a 10- or 12-inch object down his waistband. She was positive it was not a rifle. She did not tell Wolke that someone had threatened to kill her. Additionally, Rainbow Village resident Vincent Johnson testified that in September or October 1985, Cercy had told him she basically hadn't seen anything on the night of the murders, and everything she had said she was told to say by Shorman. Against that evidence, a competent investigation would have offered, in addition to Cercy's testimony, Cho's testimony that he knew of a man named Bo who was tall, thin, and blond and who had gone swimming in the bay the night of the murders, and Turley's testimony that he too knew of a tall, blond Deadhead named Bo. Neither Cho nor Turley could have provided any corroboration of what Cercy saw the night of the murders, nor could either have offered any testimony that would materially sharpen suspicion that Bo, not Thomas, was the true killer. In short, their evidence would not have made a difference; when compared with the evidence against Thomas, we conclude there is no reasonable probability it would have led to a more favorable verdict. Our conclusion would not change even if we were to disregard the referee's findings that many of the habeas corpus witnesses could not reasonably have been located or would not have been called had they been found. The sum total of the evidence presented at the evidentiary hearing establishes that a person known as Bo existed in the Deadhead community and was one of many Deadheads in Rainbow Village in the days before and after the murders. It does nothing to move from the realm of speculation what Bo's ties were to Gioia, if any, whether he had access to a weapon, whether he had reason to kill Gioia, andgiven the absence of foundation for how Cercy attached the name Bo to a person she had never metwhether the blond man others knew as Bo was even the person Cercy saw with Gioia the night of the murders. The real difficulty with the potential case against Bo, however, is that it does absolutely nothing to undermine the case actually presented against Thomasthe fortuitous disappearance of his .44 magnum rifle, the multiple witnesses who saw him with the victims, his identification of Gioia the next morning, the repeated inconsistencies in his shifting explanations, and the corncob pipe found at the scene. Put another way, even if listening to the habeas corpus witnesses might in the abstract make one ponder a small possibility that Bo might have killed Gioia and Kniffin, listening to the prosecution case would have established in a reasonable juror's mind the near certainty that Thomas did kill them. We thus conclude that Thomas has not demonstrated a reasonable probability of a more favorable outcome.