Jackson v. Brown

• Decision Date: 23 January 2008
• Docket Number: No. 04-99006.,No. 04-99007.,04-99006.,04-99007.
• Citation: 513 F.3d 1057
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit
• Parties: Earl Lloyd JACKSON, Petitioner-Appellee, v. Jill BROWN, Warden, Acting Warden, California State Prison at San Quentin, Respondent-Appellant. Earl Lloyd Jackson, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Jill Brown, Warden, Acting Warden, California State Prison at San Quentin, Respondent-Appellee.

513 F.3d 1057

Earl Lloyd JACKSON, Petitioner-Appellee, v. Jill BROWN, Warden, Acting Warden, California State Prison at San Quentin, Respondent-Appellant.

Earl Lloyd Jackson, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Jill Brown, Warden, Acting Warden, California State Prison at San Quentin, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 04-99006.

No. 04-99007.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted December 7, 2006.

Filed January 23, 2008.

Tracy J. Dressner, La Crescenta, California, and Jay L. Lichtman, Los Angeles, CA, for petitioner-appellee/cross-appellant.

Bill Lockyer, Attorney General; Robert R. Anderson, Chief Assistant Attorney General; Pamela C. Hamanaka, Senior Assistant Attorney General; Scott A. Taryle, Deputy Attorney General; Kyle S. Brodie, Deputy Attorney General; and Susan Lee Frierson, Deputy Attorney General, Los Angeles, CA, for respondent-appellant/cross-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California; Edward Rafeedie, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. CV-95-03286-ER.

Before: KIM McLANE WARDLAW, RICHARD A. PAEZ, and JAY S. BYBEE, Circuit Judges.

WARDLAW, Circuit Judge:

Earl Jackson petitions for a writ of habeas corpus challenging (I) his state court convictions for two counts of burglary and two counts of murder, (2) the jury's findings of special circumstances making him death-eligible, and (3) his ultimate death sentence. The district court denied relief as to his convictions, but granted conditional relief as to the special circumstances findings and the death sentence.¹ Warden Brown (the "State") does not appeal the district court's judgment as to the death sentence itself, but appeals the relief granted as to the special circumstances findings.² Jackson cross-appeals the district court's denial of relief as to the underlying convictions. We affirm the district court's partial grant of Jackson's petition as to the special circumstances and death sentence and its partial denial as to his convictions.

I. BACKGROUND

A. The Crimes of Conviction

In 1977, two elderly widows—neighbors in the same apartment building in Long Beach, California—were beaten to death during burglaries of their residences. Vernita Curtis, eighty-one, was found lying unconscious on her bedroom floor on August 29, 1977. Her face was swollen and severely bruised. She had suffered multiple injuries to her head, neck, and chest, and died in the hospital four days later. Less than two weeks later, her next door neighbor, Gladys Ott, ninety, was found dead in her bed. The injuries suffered by Ott were even more severe, and included bruises on her face, broken ribs, a fractured sternum, a detached lung, and extensive lacerations to her vagina. Various household items were missing from both apartments, and Ott's apartment had been ransacked.

Jackson was sought for questioning after his fingerprints were found in Ott's apartment. He turned himself in to the police and gave two recorded statements. In the initial round of questioning, Jackson denied any participation in the crime. Instead, he said he was weightlifting on a nearby balcony and saw someone walking around looking at the neighborhood houses. He went for a walk later that evening and passed Ott's front door. He told the police: "the lady's door was open so I just you know, opened the door, walked in. When I walked in the lady was laying in bed. I seen the bottle and I touched it you know."

Jackson subsequently recanted and confessed to his involvement in the burglaries that led to the two murders. He said he had a number of accomplices with whom he had broken into the apartments seeking money. He entered Ott's apartment at night through a kitchen window and unlocked the front door for his accomplices. He claimed their purpose was "[t]o find money. That's all." When Ott awoke, one of Jackson's accomplices punched her in the jaw, apparently knocking her unconscious. Jackson admitted to "grabb[ing] her two or three times" and asking her where her money was. Jackson also said, "I think I hit her once, just once." He described taking a television, a vacuum cleaner, and a toaster. Jackson also described the Curtis burglary. He attributed the idea to one of his accomplices, Elton Boyd, who was later convicted for his participation in Curtis's murder. Jackson claimed that he did not know Curtis was in the apartment asleep and that she had woken up in the middle of the burglary. Boyd grabbed Curtis and told Jackson to hold her. Jackson complied, believing that Boyd was only planning to tie her up, but Boyd instead started to hit her. Boyd's actions "kind of shocked [Jackson]. He hit her so quick. It happened so fast." Jackson "didn't know that [Boyd] was trying to kill her or nothing." He did not find out that Curtis had, died until a few days later.

B. The Trial

Jackson was charged with two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of burglary. He was represented by Theodore Veganes, a court-appointed defense attorney. The case was prosecuted by Paul Marin, a Los Angeles County deputy district attorney from Long Beach.

At trial, the prosecution presented Jackson's taped confession, along with the testimony of several other witnesses tying him to the crimes, Al Rivera, an identification officer with the Long Beach police, testified that he had matched a number of Jackson's fingerprints to the prints lifted at Ott's apartment.

Nathaniel Johnson, an older gentlemen who was familiar with Jackson, testified that he convinced Jackson to turn himself in to the police. According to Johnson, Jackson said that "[t]hey looking for me on a murder rap which I didn't do." Jackson apparently told Johnson that he knew that "four or five" people were involved in the murder and claimed the police would never know who was involved unless he told them.

One witness, Ilena Gaines, testified that she lived in an apartment upstairs from Curtis and saw Jackson outside the apartment building when the paramedics removed Curtis from the building. According to Gaines, when Jackson saw Curtis, he "smiled" and "laughed" and "said that he was the one who did that." On cross-examination, however, Gaines admitted that Elton Boyd, Jackson's alleged accomplice, was her boyfriend and the father of one of her children. She admitted that Boyd had himself been convicted for Curtis's murder and that he blamed Jackson for "say[ing] he beat the old lady up when he didn't." Finally, Gaines admitted that she had only come forward with her description of Jackson's statements and actions after Boyd's arrest, even though she had previously been questioned about the Curtis killing.

The prosecution read to the jury the testimony of two unavailable witnesses who had previously testified at the preliminary hearing. The first was Larry Rushing, a fugitive who claimed to know Jackson "from the streets." Rushing stated that in August 1977, Jackson told him that he had "ripped off the house downstairs" and "said something about he had hit the old lady." Rushing had also seen Jackson try to enter one of the apartments when the "lady left to go to the church." On redirect, he said Jackson told him "that the old lady had messed around and walked in on him and he hit her."

The second unavailable witness was Debria Lewis, a woman acquainted with Jackson. Her preliminary hearing testimony was read at trial and described a conversation with Jackson on the evening of September 11, 1977. According to Lewis, Jackson "was looking in the evening paper and he saw the article there of Curtis, the 83-year-old woman. And he said, `This is what I done.'" Jackson further said that "if she had just been still— she had been still and given him the money, that she would have been walking around today." Lewis spoke with the police on September 13, 1977, describing her conversation with Jackson. In this discussion with the police, Lewis attributed statements to Jackson that "he and his partners had planned what they were going to do for a couple of weeks but one of them messed up" and also that "if she had been still, she would not have been choked to death."

Debra Ann Hall, Jackson's cousin, testified that she talked to Jackson on September 11, 1977 at Debria Lewis's apartment. Hall claimed that he pointed out a newspaper article about the deaths of Curtis and Ott and said something to the substance of "this is what I did." Jackson also told Hall that he did it because "he needed some money."

Finally, the State presented two inmates who claimed to have met Jackson in jail. Ronald McFarland testified to a conversation with Jackson in October 1977:

Well, we talked about his case. He was telling me about his case, about the murder case; that he killed an older, aged woman in Long Beach here, and he told me that him and three of his buddies —one stayed outside and him and the other two went into the side kitchen window of her house and they started ransacking her house and then the lady came out of her bedroom. And Jackson said he seen her and pushed her back onto the bed and started beating her, and then they continued to ransacking. And then the old lady woke up and started hollering and Jackson started beating her and then she was unconscious. This is what he told me.

And then he said he seen a wine bottle or long-necked bottle of some kind and stuck it into her vagina.

On redirect, prosecutor Marin queried, "And is it true that no one promised you anything in exchange for your testimony against Mr. Jackson?" McFarland responded, "Yes, that's right."

Another co-prisoner, Mark Mikles, claimed to have had several conversations with Jackson. According to Mikles, a group of inmates were "woofing at Jackson about his cases, you know, trying to make him into a tough guy because he had a couple of 187's." He recounted:

So, one guy told him—he says "Come on, man, you know you killed those two old ladies.

And at first he said "Na, na, that ain't me man."

And they woofed at him for a...