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

Heading: Materially False Testimony by Joanna

Text: On petitioner's claim that Joanna gave materially false testimony at his capital trial, the majority adopts the referee's findings and conclusions that Joanna lied only about how she got back to Placerville (see 135 Cal.Rptr.2d p. 320, 70 P.3d p. 317, ante ) and that her false testimony was not material. Thus, according to the majority, Joanna testified truthfully at petitioner's capital trial that on the night of June 12, 1984, she saw Denise enter petitioner's car; that petitioner turned around and picked up Joanna, telling her they were going to a party; that the three traveled to a forested area, where Joanna left the car and vomited; that shortly thereafter, she saw a naked Denise running with her hands behind her back as if tied, and petitioner chasing and ultimately stabbing Denise with a knife. In reaching that conclusion, the majority highlights certain findings by the referee. We usually defer to a referee's factual findings when they are based on the referee's observation of witness demeanor at the reference hearing. ( In re Avena, supra, 12 Cal.4th at p. 710, 49 Cal.Rptr.2d 413, 909 P.2d 1017.) Here, however, the referee's findings are based not so much on witness demeanor at the reference hearing but rather on a series of inferences drawn from the evidence presented at trial and at the reference hearing. These inferences do not warrant deference, as this court is in as good a position as a referee to draw logical inferences from evidence. The majority relies on the referee's finding that at the 1994 reference hearing Joanna could give no details of her whereabouts on June 12,1984 (the night Denise disappeared), between 9:30 p.m. and 3:00 or 3:30 the next morning (the approximate time Joanna encountered Bruce Nesthus with whom she spent the night). (Maj. opn., ante, 135 Cal.Rptr.2d at p. 333, 70 P.3d at pp. 328-329.) I see nothing unusual about Joanna's inability to recall at the reference hearing details of events that took place 10 years earlier. Bruce Nesthus's October 4, 1984, telephone interview with Detective Harnage is instructive on this point because it took place only four months after Denise disappeared. (Nesthus moved to another state before Denise's body was found and thus did not know she had been murdered.) Asked by Detective Harnage about the twelfth of June and the drinking party [that] wound up down at [the auto dealership], Nesthus replied, I can't remember. It doesn't click in my mind. In concluding that Joanna's trial testimony was essentially true, the majority points to her having directed the sheriffs deputies in November 1984 to the approximate location off Ferrari Mill Road where Denise's body had been found earlier. (Maj. opn., ante, 135 Cal.Rptr.2d at p. 334, 70 P.3d at p. 329.) But as Joanna explained at the reference hearing in 1994, she had previously lived on Sly Park Road off Highway 50 (near Ferrari Mill Road) and she knew from news reports the approximate location where loggers had found Denise's body one-half mile west of Ferrari Mill Road. The majority also makes much of Joanna's ability on June 22, 1985 (her third trip to the scene of Denise's murder), to lead Sergeant Wilson to within 75 yards of the spot where loggers 11 months earlier had found Denise's body. (Maj. opn., ante, 135 Cal.Rptr.2d at p. 335, 70 P.3d at p. 330.) I am not persuaded. The circumstances of that trip are highly suspect. Sergeant Wilson arranged the trip just days before the guilt phase of petitioner's capital case was to be submitted to the jury and right after the prosecution learned that a critical piece of evidence linking petitioner to Denise's murdera man's reversible black-and-orange jacket found with Denise's clothes on April 30, 1985belonged not to petitioner but to Bruce Nesthus. The prosecutor had already introduced evidence suggesting that petitioner owned the jacket when Nesthus (who by then had left California) returned to Placerville to testify. Nesthus inquired about a jacket he had lent to Denise at the wandering party on the night she disappeared. Shown the jacket found with Denise's clothes, Nesthus identified it as his and thereafter testified about lending Denise his jacket. When the prosecutor learned that the jacket was not petitioner's, he began bouncing off the walls, as Sergeant Wilson testified at the reference hearing, for fear of losing the case. It was then that Sergeant Wilson took Joanna on one more trip to the scene of Denise's murder in the wilderness area outside Placerville in an effort to bolster the case against petitioner. It is undisputed that on that June 22, 1985, trip, Sergeant Wilson drove straight to the intersection on Ferrari Mill Road, where he told Joanna to direct him to the place where she saw petitioner stab Denise. It is also undisputed that it was only on her third try that Joanna picked the road where Denise's body had been found. As Joanna explained at the reference hearing, body language hints by Sergeant Wilson helped her to pick the right location. The referee rejected Joanna's account, however, instead believing Sergeant Wilson's reference hearing testimony denying any intent to give Joanna hints about the location. Even so, in a last-ditch effort to make the case against petitioner, Wilson may have unwittingly used body language to hint to Joanna which road to take to the murder scene. Moreover, Sergeant Wilson's credibility is in question. As the referee found, Wilson and his partner, Detective Harnage, had coerced the false testimony that Darlene gave against petitioner at his capital trial. (See 135 Cal.Rptr.2d p. 353, 70 P.3d p. 345, ante. ) Furthermore, although Wilson denied at the reference hearing that Joanna had ever mentioned to him after the trial that she lied at petitioner's trial, the referee accepted Joanna's testimony at the reference hearing that she told Wilson she heard Denise scream but did not see petitioner stab Denise, and that thereafter she rode back to town with petitioner rather than hitchhiking a ride from Joe as she had testified at trial. Implicit in the referee's finding is his conclusion that Wilson's reference hearing testimony on this point was false. The circumstance of Bruce Nesthus's reversible jacket lends additional support to my conclusion that petitioner has, by a preponderance of evidence, proven the falsity of Joanna's trial testimony about witnessing petitioner kill Denise. Nesthus testified at trial that he lent the jacket to Denise at the wandering party (see 135 Cal.Rptr.2d p. 355, 70 P.3d p. 347, ante ) after she complained about being cold. The jacket was found together with the clothes Denise was wearing on the night she was killed. Thus, Denise must have worn the jacket when she left the party. Joanna testified at trial that when Denise left the party, she walked toward the freeway underpass and then got into petitioner's car. Curiously, in Joanna's many sessions with Detective Harnage and Sergeant Wilson in November 1984, when she described what Denise was wearing on the night of her death, Joanna made no mention of Denise wearing a man's black-and-orange jacket. The referee had no persuasive explanation for Joanna's obvious reluctance at Darlene's initial interview by Harnage and Wilson on November 9, 1985, to tell Darlene about seeing petitioner kill Denise. (The two sheriffs deputies repeatedly asked Joanna to describe her crime scene observations to Darlene, but Joanna would not do so. Ultimately, the sheriffs deputies in revealed to Darlene what Joanna had told them about petitioner's killing of Denise.) The referee concluded that Joanna was reluctant to tell Darlene what she had seen because she was ashamed of not helping Denise escape from petitioner. It is more likely that, as Joanna testified at the reference hearing, she thought that Darlene, who had been petitioner's girlfriend, knew what had happened to Denise and would catch Joanna in a lie. In my view, petitioner has amply satisfied his burden of proving that Joanna's trial testimony that she witnessed petitioner kill Denise was a lie. Joanna repeatedly told others, including her ex-husband, his mother, a friend, and ultimately Sergeant Wilson, that she had lied at trial. And she twice under oath recanted her trial testimony, first at a recorded deposition by the El Dorado County District Attorney and later at the reference hearing. Other than Darlene's testimony at trial that petitioner told her about killing the three girls (see 135 Cal.Rptr.2d p. 352, 70 P.3d p. 344, ante ), only Joanna's testimony put petitioner at the scene of any of the three murders. If believed by the jury, that testimony must have had a devastating effect on petitioner's defense. Accordingly, the evidence was `of such significance' that with `reasonable probability' ( In re Sassounian, supra, 9 Cal.4th at p. 546, 37 Cal.Rptr.2d 446, 887 P.2d 527), it affected the outcome on guilt and on penalty at petitioner's trial. Therefore, based on materially false testimony by Joanna, I would grant petitioner the relief he is seeking. Even if I were to agree with the majority in rejecting Joanna's recantations of her trial testimony, petitioner would still be entitled to relief based on the materially false testimony of Darlene, as discussed below.