Opinion ID: 2580915
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: eyewitnesses to stabbing

Text: Of the five inmates who testified against petitioner at his capital trial as eyewitnesses to the stabbing of inmate Gardner, three identified petitioner as the stabber Raybon Long, Ryland Cade, and Robert Hayes. Hayes was apparently deceased at the time of the reference hearing. The referee found no evidence that the trial testimony of Hayes was false. False evidence is that which is substantially material or probative on the issue of guilt (Pen.Code, § 1473, subd. (b)(1)); it is evidence so significant that ` with a reasonable probability it could have affected the outcome....' [Citation.] ( In re Sassounian, supra, 9 Cal.4th at p. 546, 37 Cal.Rptr.2d 446, 887 P.2d 527.) A reasonable probability is such as undermines the reviewing court's confidence in the outcome. ( Ibid.; In re Malone (1996) 12 Cal.4th 935, 965, 50 Cal.Rptr.2d 281, 911 P.2d 468.) The reasonable probability standard is an objective one, measured in light of all the relevant circumstances. ( Ibid. ) Here, the trial testimony of witnesses Long, Cade, and Yacotis was substantially material and with a reasonable probability could have affected the outcome of petitioner's capital trial. Long and Cade both testified they saw petitioner stab Gardner. Without their testimony, the trial evidence identifying petitioner as the stabber is greatly weakened. According to inmate witnesses David Calvin and Norman Goodwin, it was Menefield who had stabbed Gardner. At the reference hearing, the referee found that Calvin generally reiterated his trial testimony. Calvin testified that he saw two men involved in the attack on Gardner, but that the stabber was Menefield; although Calvin knew petitioner, the second man whose face he saw from 12 feet away was not petitioner. The referee found that no evidence had been presented to suggest Calvin's trial testimony varied from what he saw during the stabbing. Goodwin had testified at trial that he saw two men attack Gardner. One of the assailants was Menefield who stabbed Gardner three times, then ran up the stairs, followed closely by a second man whom Goodwin could not identify. Goodwin's testimony was not included in our reference order. Without the trial testimony of Long and Cade, there was only the testimony of Hayes that petitioner stabbed Gardner. By contrast, two witnesses, David Calvin and Norman Goodwin, testified that it was not petitioner but Menefield who was the stabber. Neither Calvin nor Goodwin identified the man accompanying Menefield; Calvin was certain that Menefield's companion was not petitioner, whom Calvin had seen go upstairs before the stabbing, which occurred on the ground floor. Although there was testimony at trial that petitioner had threatened Gardner and was seen with a prison-made knife on the morning of the stabbing, it is reasonably probable that the jury would not have found petitioner guilty of assault and murder of Gardner without the false testimony of either Long or Cade, or both, that they saw petitioner stab Gardner, an account at odds with the testimony of eyewitnesses Calvin and Goodwin that it was Menefield, not petitioner, who had stabbed Gardner. Accepting the findings of the referee, as I do, it is reasonably probable that the jury, faced with conflicting evidence of who had stabbed inmate Gardner in the hallway melee, would not have convicted petitioner of Gardner's murder but for the false testimony from two fellow inmates that petitioner had confessed to stabbing Gardner. Accordingly, I would grant petitioner habeas corpus relief. (Pen.Code, § 1473, subd. (b)(1).) I CONCUR: GEORGE, C.J.