Garceau v. Woogford

• Decision Date: 26 December 2001
• Docket Number: PETITIONER-APPELLANT,No. 99-99022,RESPONDENT-APPELLEE,99-99022
• Citation: 275 F.3d 769
• Parties: (9th Cir. 2001) ROBERT FREDERICK GARCEAU,, v. JEANNE WOODFORD, ACTING WARDEN OF SAN QUENTIN STATE PRISON,
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Page 769

275 F.3d 769 (9th Cir. 2001)

ROBERT FREDERICK GARCEAU, PETITIONER-APPELLANT, v. JEANNE WOODFORD, ACTING WARDEN OF SAN QUENTIN STATE PRISON, RESPONDENT-APPELLEE.

No. 99-99022

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

Argued and Submitted May 17, 2001

Filed Dec. 26, 2001

[Copyrighted Material Omitted] Lynne S. Coffin, San Francisco, California, and Denise Kendall, Mill Valley, California, for the petitioner-appellant.

Clayton S. Tanaka, Deputy Attorney General of California, Sacramento, California, for the respondent-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California Oliver W. Wanger, District Judge, Presiding D.C. No. CV F-95-5363 OWW

Before: Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain, A. Wallace Tashima, and Sidney R. Thomas, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Tashima; Concurrence by Judge Thomas; Partial Concurrence and Partial Dissent by Judge O'Scannlain

TASHIMA, Circuit Judge:

Robert Garceau was convicted of a double homicide in California state court and sentenced to death. The California Supreme Court affirmed his conviction and sentence, People v. Garceau, 862 P.2d 664 (Cal. 1993), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 848 (1994), and denied his state habeas petition on the merits. He then filed a habeas petition in federal district court, raising 28 separate grounds for relief. In due course, he moved the district court for an evidentiary hearing on several of these claims. The district court denied his motion for an evidentiary hearing and later denied his petition. Garceau appeals the district court's denial of an evidentiary hearing on four of his claims, as well as the district court's denial of his petition on three of his claims. We have jurisdiction over this timely appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 2253, and we reverse.

I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND AND PRIOR PROCEEDINGS

Robert Garceau was convicted in Kern County, California, of first degree murder for the September 1984 stabbing deaths of his girlfriend, Maureen Bautista, and her 14-year-old son, Telesforo Bautista. Their bodies were not found until six months later, in a bedroom dresser buried under a layer of concrete in the backyard of one of Garceau's drug partners, Greg Rambo. There was no physical evidence linking Garceau to the murders. The State's case against him consisted largely of the testimony of several persons with whom Garceau manufactured methamphetamine. These drug partners testified that Garceau had confessed to them that he had killed the Bautistas because he was worried that they would reveal his drug activities to law enforcement authorities. They further testified that after Garceau murdered the Bautistas, he returned to the scene of the crime with two of his drug partners and stuffed the Bautistas' bodies into a bedroom dresser. Garceau and Greg Rambo then transported the dresser to Rambo's house. They buried the dresser under a layer of concrete in Rambo's backyard.

A few months later, in February 1985, Greg Rambo was shot to death. Prior to his trial for the Bautista murders, Garceau was charged with and convicted of Greg Rambo's murder and sentenced to 33 years to life imprisonment. At Garceau's trial for the Bautista murders, several of his drug partners testified that he had told them that he had killed Rambo as well. After Rambo's death, his wife, Susan, led the police to the bodies of the Bautistas buried in her backyard.

Virtually every single one of the prosecution's witnesses had some connection to the murder of the Bautistas or some other self-interested reason for testifying against Garceau. Susan Rambo assisted in digging the hole in her backyard in which the dresser containing the Bautistas was buried for six months. She testified under a grant of immunity. Larry Tom Whittington helped stuff the Bautistas' bodies into the dresser at the crime scene. Patricia Shepard was Whittington's girlfriend; she and Whittington cleaned up the bloodstains at the crime scene the day after the bodies were removed. Harlyn Codd helped Garceau dispose of Rambo's body. The only witness that does not appear to have had a hand in any of the three murders was Wayne James. He was, however, involved in illegal drug manufacturing with Garceau, and he did not come forward to the police until a few days before he testified. Garceau argues that weapons charges against James were dropped after he agreed to testify. Garceau's defense at trial was that one or more of these drug partners killed the Bautistas.

At the sentencing phase, the prosecution presented evidence of Garceau's prior convictions for burglary and weapons charges. In addition, the jury heard evidence that Garceau possessed high-powered firearms on many other occasions, and that he was involved in a kidnaping. In mitigation, Garceau presented evidence of his history in prison, his upbringing, his character, and his caring relationships with people. The jury fixed the penalty at death.

Garceau appealed his conviction and sentence to the California Supreme Court, which affirmed the conviction and sentence. It also denied his state habeas petition on the merits. Garceau requested the appointment of counsel to pursue his federal habeas remedies and a stay of execution in federal district court on May 12, 1995. Counsel was appointed on June 26, 1995, and Garceau filed his federal habeas petition on July 2, 1996.¹

The district court eventually dismissed two of Garceau's 28 habeas claims for failure to exhaust them in state court proceedings. Garceau next filed a motion for an evidentiary hearing on several of his claims, which was denied. Ultimately, the district court denied his habeas petition, as well as the issuance of a certificate of probable cause. Garceau filed a notice of appeal from the final judgment on August 26, 1999, and we issued a certificate of probable cause on January 21, 2000.²

II. DISCUSSION

Garceau contends that the district court erred by: (1) denying his request for an evidentiary hearing on his ineffective assistance of counsel and equal protection claims; (2) dismissing his claim that the State used its peremptory challenges in a racially discriminatory manner; (3) dismissing his claim that the "other crimes" jury instruction violated the Due Process Clause; and (4) dismissing his claim that the trial court's failure to give the jury a "voluntary intoxication " instruction violated the Due Process Clause. Because we conclude that habeas relief is warranted based on the "other crimes" jury instruction, we find it unnecessary to address the remaining issues.

A. Standard of Review

We review de novo the district court's decision to deny a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Bribiesca v. Galaza, 215 F.3d 1015, 1018 (9th Cir. 2000).

B. The "Other Crimes" Jury Instruction

During Garceau's trial, the State introduced two types of evidence of other crimes committed by Garceau: evidence that he manufactured illegal drugs and testimonial evidence that, several months after he allegedly murdered the Bautistas, he murdered Greg Rambo (a crime for which he had already been convicted). Although Garceau did not object to this evidence (in fact, he had planned to introduce it himself), he did object to the trial court's instruction to the jury regarding this evidence, which read as follows:

Evidence has been introduced for the purpose of showing that the defendant committed other crimes other than that for which he is on trial.

Such evidence, if believed, may be considered by you for any purpose, including but not limited to any of the following:

His character or any trait of his character; His conduct on a specific occasion . . . . Garceau, 862 P.2d at 690 n.17 (emphasis added). Garceau asked instead for a modified version of the standard California (CALJIC) instruction on other crimes evidence, which would have instructed the jury that such evidence"may not be considered by you to prove . . . bad character or . . . disposition to commit crimes." Id. at 690 n.18. His request was rejected by the court.

On direct appeal, Garceau argued that the trial court's instruction violated California Evidence Code §§ 1101, which reads:

(a) Except as provided in this section and in Sections 1102, 1103, 1108, and 1109, evidence of a person's character or a trait of his or her character (whether in the form of an opinion, evidence of reputation, or evidence of specific instances of his or her conduct) is inadmissible when offered to prove his or her conduct on a specified occasion.

(b) Nothing in this section prohibits the admission of evidence that a person committed a crime, civil wrong, or other act when relevant to prove some fact (such as motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, absence of mistake or accident, or whether a defendant in a prosecution for an unlawful sexual act or attempted unlawful sexual act did not reasonably and in good faith believe that the victim consented) other than his or her disposition to commit such an act.

Cal. Evid. Code §§ 1101(a), (b) (2001) (emphasis added). The California Supreme Court agreed, holding that the instruction "impermissibly invited the jury to consider certain evidence (e.g., that defendant killed Rambo) for the purpose of establishing defendant's propensity to commit murder. " Garceau, 862 P.2d at 691. The California Supreme Court concluded, however, that the error was harmless because there was "overwhelming evidence" of Garceau's guilt. Id. at 691-92.

Garceau argues that, not only was the instruction contrary to California law, but it violated the Due Process Clause by permitting the jury to use the evidence of his other crimes to establish his criminal propensity, i.e., the likelihood that he committed the charged crimes.

The Supreme Court has held that it is not a violation of due process to admit other crimes evidence, for purposes other than to show conduct in conformity therewith, where the jury is given a limiting instruction "that it...