Opinion ID: 1199597
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Homicide and trial

Text: On the night of November 2, 1981, petitioner's pregnant wife Gwendolyn was killed by close-range shotgun blasts as she sat in the couple's disabled pickup truck, which was parked on an isolated stretch of highway between Porterville and Bakersfield. Gwendolyn's body was discovered when petitioner's parents drove him back to the disabled vehicle from the telephone booth he had used to call them for assistance with the truck's flat tire. The homicide was front page news at first, but press coverage sharply diminished after a few weeks. The newspaper stories identified petitioner as the prime suspect and reported, among other things, that Gwendolyn was killed in the couple's truck after petitioner went to seek help for a flat tire, that the person petitioner claimed drove him to the telephone booth had not yet been located, that petitioner had a friend buy him a shotgun a few days before the killing, that petitioner and Gwendolyn maintained substantial insurance policies on their lives despite financial difficulties, that petitioner had a girlfriend, and that two other peoplepetitioner's sister Carolyn and one Gilbert Garay were implicated in the case. Petitioner was charged with the murders of Gwendolyn and her fetus. Jury selection began in October 1982. During voir dire, panelist Gholston, who became a member of the jury, responded to questions from court and counsel about her exposure to pretrial publicity and her ability to be fair. Among other things, the court asked Gholston whether she had read in the newspaper, seen on TV, heard on the radio, or had any conversations concerning anything regarding this trial. Gholston responded that she had read about the case in the Porterville newspaper and remembered some details. According to Gholston, [t]he newspaper said that petitioner had parked the truck on the highway and pretended to have a flat tire or something, and that somebody else came by and killed Gwendolyn while petitioner was absent in search of help. Gholston also recalled that petitioner's sister popped into the newspaper in connection with the case, and that [s]omeone bought the gun, which was later disassembled and disposed of in some way or the other. Gholston answered in the negative when asked whether, from what you read, and what you just briefly recalled, as you told us right now, she had form[ed] an opinion regarding the guilt or innocence of the defendant. Gholston confirmed her understanding that only the trial evidence was relevant and stated on several occasions that she could think of nothing impairing her ability to be fair. Though specifically asked about conversation[s] regarding the case, Gholston mentioned none. Nor did she describe any other incident that might bear on her impartiality. At trial, Carolyn and Garay testified, pursuant to plea bargains, as follows: Petitioner hired them to help him murder Gwendolyn. The plan was for petitioner and Gwendolyn to visit his parents in Porterville. On the way back to Bakersfield, petitioner would stop the couple's pickup on a pretext. Garay would then shoot Gwendolyn with a shotgun from a vehicle driven by Carolyn. On two successive evenings, the scene was set, and the two accomplices drove past the stopped pickup as scheduled, but Garay could not bring himself to fire. On the third night, petitioner punctured the pickup's tire in Porterville, then stopped when it went flat on the return to Bakersfield. He left Gwendolyn in the truck and began walking for help. Carolyn and Garay picked him up and drove him to a telephone booth, where he called his parents with a feigned request for aid. Carolyn and Garay then drove him back to the disabled pickup. He loaded the shotgun, approached the pickup, shot Gwendolyn, demanded another shell from Garay, reloaded, walked back to the pickup, and shot the victim again. After the murder, Carolyn and Garay returned petitioner to the telephone booth, where he met his parents. A signed K-Mart purchase form indicated that on October 31,1981, two days before the murder, petitioner's girlfriend Brenda Burns bought a single-shot 12-gauge shotgun. Brenda testified that she procured the gun for petitioner, who accompanied her to the store, and that petitioner also bought and kept shells for the weapon. As a prosecution witness, a K-Mart clerk identified Brenda as the purchaser of the shotgun and petitioner as her sole companion. Carolyn testified that when petitioner asked her to help find someone to kill Gwendolyn, he said he had a girlfriend and wanted to leave his wife but was afraid he would lose his children in a divorce. There was also evidence that in March 1981, despite their modest means, petitioner and Gwendolyn took out large reciprocal life insurance policies and thereafter maintained the policies despite difficulties in meeting the premiums. In her police confession, admitted at trial, Carolyn stated that petitioner had told her he wanted the [insurance] money. The prosecution also introduced statements made by petitioner during police interviews. These included petitioner's initial claim that Gwendolyn had been killed while he was hitchhiking to the telephone booth, and his later assertion that she was killed by a Canadian whom he knew but refused to identify. Defendant sought to show that Garay might be the actual killer. Recanting her former testimony, the K-Mart clerk testified for the defense that the shotgun was purchased not by Brenda, but by Brenda's sister Sharon, who was accompanied by both petitioner and Garay. On rebuttal, Sharon denied being the person who bought the shotgun. [2] Petitioner was convicted of two counts of first degree murder. Three special circumstances were found true, one of intentional murder for financial gain and two of multiple murder. In the brief penalty trial, the prosecution introduced petitioner's 1974 conviction for grand theft. Through petitioner's mother, the defense presented evidence that he suffered some abuse as a child. The jury returned a death verdict. We reversed one of the multiple-murder special circumstance findings as duplicative, but we otherwise affirmed. Habeas Corpus Pleadings and Reference In July 1994, over 11 years after the death judgment was rendered and more than 5 years after completion of the direct appeal, petitioner filed the instant proceeding, his second petition for habeas corpus in this court. [3] The petition included many attacks on the guilt and penalty judgments, including several claims of juror bias and misconduct supported by recently obtained juror declarations. One of the declarations was that of Juror Gholston, then 76 years old. Among other things, Gholston's 1994 declaration stated that (1) before trial, Gholston learned petitioner blamed a Canadian for Gwendolyn's murder, (2) Gholston and a neighbor agreed this ridiculous story showed petitioner himself was guilty, (3) Gholston prayed to sit on petitioner's jury after the spirit of her deceased Uncle Frank, a bank robber and killer, exhorted her to atone for his wrongs by aveng[ing] petitioner's crimes, and (4) during trial, Gholston saw the skinnier of petitioner's sisters [4] watching her from a car in the alley behind Gholston's home, which prompted Gholston to request increased police patrols. None of these matters had been brought to the attention of court or counsel at petitioner's trial. The typed 1994 declaration bore the handwritten initials G.G. on each page. In addition, the declaration contained several handwritten interlineations, each marked with the same handwritten initials. We ordered the Director of Corrections to show cause why petitioner's conviction and death judgment should not be vacated on grounds that Juror Geneva Gholston was actually biased and/or incompetent when sworn as a juror, and that she committed prejudicial misconduct by concealing her bias during the jury selection process. [5] In July 1996, respondent filed a return, which attached a new declaration by Gholston. Among other things, Gholston's 1996 declaration stated as follows: Her prior declaration was obtained by two investigators who presented a business card from the California Appellate Project (CAP) [6] but did not make clear they represented petitioner and left the opposite impression. The CAP investigators neither recorded nor transcribed their interview with Gholston. She never read the declaration before signing it, and never received a copy. Material portions of the 1994 declaration, particularly with regard to Uncle Frank, were wrong. Gholston only felt Uncle Frank's spirit as a comfort in accepting and performing jury duty. Furthermore, Gholston had answered all voir dire questions honestly, had put aside all pretrial impressions and judged the case on the evidence alone, and had not been affected at trial by her belie[f] she saw petitioner's sister in her alley. The return also included declarations by three other jurors. These persons variously stated that they had also been misled by the CAP investigators, that they were not given copies of their earlier declarations attached to the petition, and that those prior declarations were inaccurate at least in part. After receiving the traverse, we concluded that no prima facie case of juror incompetence had been stated. We therefore dismissed as improvidently issued that portion of the order to show cause referring to possible incompetence. However, we concluded there were material issues of disputed fact whether Gholston's selection and subsequent service as a juror were marked by misconduct or other irregularity suggesting her improper bias. We therefore referred the matter for a hearing on these issues and appointed Judge Moran as our referee. We asked Judge Moran to take evidence, then determine the following: (1) whether Gholston, while serving as a juror, had actual bias arising from pretrial knowledge, an encounter with Uncle Frank, or the alleged alley incident; (2) whether Gholston gave any false, incomplete, or misleading answers to voir dire questions bearing on her ability to be fair; (3) if so, whether she did so intentionally; (4) if Gholston was biased, whether she failed, aside from her voir dire examination, to report the facts and circumstances causing the bias; and (5) whether any such failure violated an admonition of the court, or arose from her conscious effort to conceal her bias. [7]