Pizzuto v. Arave

Decision Date06 February 2002
Docket NumberNo. 97-99017.,97-99017.
Citation280 F.3d 949
PartiesGerald Ross PIZZUTO, Jr., Petitioner-Appellant, v. A.J. ARAVE, Warden, Respondent-Appellee.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Robert H. Gombiner, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Tacoma, WA, for the petitioner-appellant.

L. LaMont Anderson, Deputy Attorney General, Boise, ID, for the respondent-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Idaho; Alan A. McDonald, District Judge, Presiding.

Before B. FLETCHER, RYMER, and GOULD, Circuit Judges.

OPINION

RYMER, Circuit Judge.

Idaho state prisoner Gerald Ross Pizzuto, Jr. appeals the district court's dismissal of his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 habeas petition, in which he challenges his 1986 conviction and sentence for the first degree murders of Berta Herndon and her nephew, Delbert Herndon. Pizzuto was sentenced to death.

Because Pizzuto filed his habeas petition before the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) was enacted, AEDPA does not apply to the merits of his appeal. However, on April 26, 2000, the Supreme Court held in Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 482, 120 S.Ct. 1595, 146 L.Ed.2d 542 (2000), that the procedural requirements of AEDPA govern any habeas petitioner's appeal commenced after the statute's effective date, April 24, 1996, regardless of when the petition was filed. Consequently, Pizzuto needs a certificate of appealability (COA) rather than a certificate of probable cause (CPC) for this court to have jurisdiction. As Pizzuto could not have known that a COA rather than a CPC was required, we treat "the petitioner's notice of appeal as a request for a COA on the issues raised in the briefs, and we grant a COA on those issues as to which the petitioner has made the requisite `substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right.'" Morris v. Woodford, 229 F.3d 775, 779 (9th Cir.2000) (quoting Schell v. Witek, 218 F.3d 1017, 1021 n. 4 (9th Cir.2000)). We conclude that Pizzuto has made such a showing and so grant a COA on the issues raised in his briefs.

On the merits, we affirm.

I

On July 25, 1985, Berta Herndon and her adult nephew Delbert Herndon were robbed and murdered and their property was stolen while they were camping in the Ruby Meadows area, a remote campsite near McCall, Idaho. The police discovered their bodies in shallow graves that had been dug near their cabin. The victims' hands were bound behind their backs with shoelaces and heavy wire, and Berta's and Delbert's jeans were pulled below their knees. The murders occurred in the Herndon cabin.

Both the Idaho Supreme Court and the district court's order denying Pizzuto's petition for writ of habeas corpus describe the facts in detail. In sum, testimony at trial showed that Pizzuto, James Rice, and William and Lene Odom knew each other from Orland, California. They (along with the Odoms' two children) traveled to Idaho in the Odoms' vehicle, and were camping together that day in a cabin in the Ruby Meadows area. William Odom and Pizzuto discussed robbing two fishermen, Stephen Crawford and Jack Roberts. While they were at the pond, the Herndons drove by in their pickup truck. Pizzuto and Odom abandoned their plan to rob the fishermen, and returned to their cabin. Shortly thereafter, Pizzuto left the others and walked off in the direction the Herndons had driven. He picked up a .22 caliber rifle and said he was going "hunting."

Twenty to thirty minutes later, Rice and Odom drove up the road in Odom's truck looking for Pizzuto. As they drove past the Herndon cabin, they saw Pizzuto standing in the doorway, holding a revolver. Pizzuto came up to Rice and Odom and told them to "give me half an hour and then come back up." Rice and Odom drove back to their cabin, left their truck, and walked back to the Herndon cabin.

Approaching the Herndon cabin, Rice and Odom heard "bashing hollow sounds" like a watermelon being thumped. Pizzuto emerged with a hammer, the rifle, a revolver, and a pair of cowboy boots. He also had a "wad of hundred dollar bills" that he gave to Odom; Rice took the rifle. Pizzuto told them that he had "put those people to sleep, permanently." He also said that he told the Herndons that he was a "highwayman" and that, when Delbert Herndon didn't believe him, Pizzuto put a gun up to Delbert's face, "made him drop his pants and crawl around the cabin," and asked Delbert: "Does this look like a cannon from where you are standing at?"

Rice then heard some snoring sounds coming from the cabin and went inside. There, he found Berta and Delbert lying on the ground, with blood on their heads. Both bodies were still, except for Delbert Herndon's legs which were shaking. Rice shot Delbert Herndon in the head because he "didn't want him to suffer."

Pizzuto, Rice, and Odom returned to their camp, divided up the money Pizzuto had stolen from the Herndons, and gave Lene Odom a leftover $100 bill. Pizzuto and Odom then went back to the Herndon cabin to bury the bodies. At the cabin, Odom saw that the Herndons' hands were tied behind their backs. They buried Berta Herndon in a hole that Rice had previously dug. Pizzuto and Odom got Rice to help them bury Delbert Herndon; they threw his body in a shallow ditch and covered it with dirt.

After they returned to their cabin, Pizzuto, the Odoms, and Rice sorted through the Herndons' possessions and took what they wanted. They left Ruby Meadows with Odom driving his truck and Pizzuto and Rice riding in the Herndon truck. They camped that evening at a nearby hot springs; the next morning they parked the Herndon truck in a wooded area, drove into Cascade and checked into a motel. They stayed there for several days and, while there, took pictures of each other with a camera stolen from the Herndons. Rice then took a bus to Orland, where he reported the murders to the police.

On July 31, Pizzuto met Roger Bacon in Gold Fork Hot Springs. Bacon and Pizzuto decided to go fishing and hunting. As they walked toward a small stream, Pizzuto pulled out a gun and said "he was a highwayman." Pizzuto tied Bacon's hands behind his head with shoelaces, took money from him, and left him tied to a tree. Bacon eventually freed himself.

Sometime in early August Pizzuto visited his sister, Angelinna Pizzuto, in Great Falls, Montana. Pizzuto arrived with cowboy boots, a revolver, and a two-tone gold wedding band in his possession, all of which were subsequently identified as belonging to Delbert Herndon. Pizzuto told her that he was a "highwayman" and that he had robbed and murdered a man and a woman (with the man's gun, which he had) after he had tied them to some trees. Later, Pizzuto told his sister that he had not killed the man but Rice had; later still, that Rice and Odom had killed the people and he, Pizzuto, had freaked out, had a seizure, and tied a guy to a tree.

Autopsies revealed that Berta Herndon and Delbert Herndon each suffered two fatal blows to the head, consistent with hammer blows, and in addition that Delbert Herndon had been shot between the eyes which would also be fatal. The pathologist was unable to determine which occurred first. Delbert Herndon's wrists had been bound with a shoe lace and a piece of wire, and Berta Herndon's hands and wrists were tied behind her back using a shoe lace which was wrapped several times around her right thumb.

Pizzuto, Rice and the Odoms were charged with the Herndon murders; Rice and Odom pled guilty to lesser offenses and charges against Lene Odom were dismissed in exchange for their agreeing to testify at Pizzuto's trial.

Following a jury trial Pizzuto was convicted of two counts of murder in the first degree, two counts of felony murder, one count of robbery, and one count of grand theft on March 27, 1986. The trial judge, Hon. George C. Reinhardt, ordered that a presentence report be completed and that psychiatric examinations be conducted by Dr. Michael Emery and Dr. Roger White. Pizzuto declined to meet with Dr. White on advice of counsel. During the sentencing hearing before Judge Reinhardt, convened May 21, 1986, Pizzuto called his two sisters, Toni and Angelinna Pizzuto, and his aunt, Kibby Winslow, who described the abuse he (and his sisters) suffered in childhood; his former probation officer from Great Falls, Montana, Jerome Skiba, who gave a positive report on Pizzuto's adjustment; and Dr. Emery. Pizzuto did not testify but made an unsworn statement to the court. The state presented eight witnesses, including Pizzuto's former wife, 1822 Pamela Relken, who testified that Pizzuto could be "very violent, punishing" in that he had pushed her head into a wall, drowned her cats and their puppy (who Pizzuto then hung from the shower stall), pushed her down the stairs when she was six-and-a-half months pregnant, pointed a gun at her head and played roulette, described himself "as a fourth generation Al Capone," and threatened her with death in a letter written after he had been arrested on rape charges. It also called Michael Berro, the presentence investigator on Pizzuto's Michigan rape conviction, who testified that Pizzuto was "one of two people who have ever threatened [his] life where [he] believed it"; Paul Blumbaum, who worked at Pizzuto's jail and testified that Pizzuto claimed to have put snakes in mailboxes said that he could "get anything out of anybody he wanted by the technique of tying them tightly around the ankles," and threatened his jailers by saying that he was going to bring in the Mafia; Annette Jones, who authored the presentence report for the Herndon case; Berta Herndon's widower; and Dr. Emery.

On May 23, 1986 Judge Reinhardt sentenced Pizzuto to a fourteen-year fixed term with no possibility of parole for grand theft and a fixed life term for robbery. On the murder charges, the judge found that the mitigating circumstances did not outweigh any one of five statutory...

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