Mancuso v. Olivarez

• Citation: 282 F.3d 728
• Decision Date: 06 March 2002
• Docket Number: No. 00-16657.,No. 00-16188.,00-16188.,00-16657.
• Parties: William Harold MANCUSO, Petitioner-Appellant-Cross-Appellee, v. Ana M. OLIVAREZ, Respondent-Appellee-Cross-Appellant.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (9th Circuit)

282 F.3d 728

William Harold MANCUSO, Petitioner-Appellant-Cross-Appellee, v. Ana M. OLIVAREZ, Respondent-Appellee-Cross-Appellant.

No. 00-16188.

No. 00-16657.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted October 15, 2001.

Filed March 6, 2002.

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Allison Claire, Assistant Federal Defender, Sacramento, CA, for the petitioner-appellant/cross-appellee.

Jean M. Marinovich, Deputy Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General, Sacramento, CA, for the respondent-appellee/cross-appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California, Lawrence K. Karlton, Chief District Judge, Presiding.

Before: BEEZER, TROTT, and TALLMAN, Circuit Judges.

OPINION

TALLMAN, Circuit Judge.

Respondent Ana M. Olivarez appeals the district court's order granting, in part, California state prisoner William Mancuso's 28 U.S.C. § 2254 habeas petition on the ground of juror misconduct. Mancuso cross-appeals the district court's denial of five of his remaining claims for relief. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291 & 2253. Because we deny the habeas corpus relief awarded by the district court as to the juror misconduct claim, we reverse, in part, and affirm the remainder of the district court's order.

I

Mancuso was convicted in 1980 of first degree murder and robbery. The California Court of Appeal summarized the facts surrounding the murder as follows:¹

In mid-April 1978, defendant made three visits to Hurst Auto Wreckers in Sacramento in an attempt to construct a silencer for a firearm.

* * *

On one of defendant's visits to the yard, he was observed to be in possession of a.32 caliber automatic handgun with a threaded barrel.

At about 1 a.m. on May 30, 1978, defendant entered the Tradewinds Bar in Sacramento. Soon afterwards another patron, Marcie Crooks, entered; at that time the only other person present was the bartender, Dale King.

Crooks and defendant conversed; defendant asked her if she knew a person named Steve, describing him as a "`little fat short guy, fat and short, and he used to work here.'" Defendant was describing Stephen Christensen, a friend of defendant's who had been employed at the bar in the spring of 1978. Crooks said she remembered him. Defendant told her Steve had made out a $270 check to Curt Thomas, the bar owner, and that Thomas was "`really mad about it.'" He repeated several times that Thomas was angry. Crooks suggested that it was hard to collect on a check after 90 days; defendant replied, "`Well, there are other means.'"

Crooks departed shortly before the bar closed at 2 a.m., leaving King and defendant alone. Before leaving she noticed the outline of an automatic handgun at defendant's hip.

After Crooks left, King saw defendant fitting a silencer to a .32 caliber automatic handgun. King put his hands up but defendant told him to put them down. He said he was there "on a contract" and "`If this goes all right,'... `I will leave you alive in the bathroom.'" Defendant ordered King to the bar's telephone, telling him to call Curt Thomas and fabricate a story to get Thomas to come to the bar. King did as ordered, calling Thomas at home and saying he could not find the keys to the front door.

After the call, defendant ordered King behind the bar and told him, "`I know you're married and got kids by your conversation ... with that lady that was just in here.'" He took King's driver's license, saying "`I am not in this thing alone.'" "`If everything goes all right,'... `you're going to [be] left alive.'" He said he would send King the driver's license in about a week "`if everything comes out all right[.] ...'"

Thomas could eventually be heard approaching. Defendant had King turn down the lights. When Thomas entered defendant ran behind him, yelled, "`You fucked over your last dude, you should have paid up, prick,'" and killed him with two shots to the chest. King, who had dropped to the floor, then heard defendant say, "`I got your gun now, prick,'" and saw defendant put something in his belt. Defendant went through Thomas' pockets and wallet, then put the gun to Thomas' head and fired once again.

After removing money from the bar's cash registers defendant told King they were going to "the house" for "the big money." He was referring to the Thomas' house behind the bar. Defendant directed King to walk in front of him to the house, instructing King to get Thomas' wife to the door and tell her there had been trouble in the bar. However, finding the house empty, the two men walked back to the bar. On their way back, they worked out a description King could give police of the killer. King said he would say the man was 200 pounds, 5 feet 7 inches, and that he said he was from the Alcoholic Beverage Control. Defendant told King to say the man was Mexican or Italian.

Back at the bar, defendant produced a set of handcuffs and had King handcuff himself to a waterpipe under the bathroom sink. Defendant again threatened, "`I ain't in this thing alone. I got a friend sitting outside in a car.' ... `I am going to leave in a few minutes,' ... `If you yell or scream or try to get out of here, he's going to come in here and finish you.'" He added, "`I'll be checking the papers,' ... `If everything comes out all right, you tell them exactly what you told me you were going to tell them,'... `You'll get your driver's license back in a week.'" He told King that if King did not make any noise he would call the police in about an hour and tell them King was there. Defendant left, then returned and said, "`Well, I am going to leave now, and don't forget my friend is going to stay out there for a while.'"

Twenty minutes later King worked himself loose and summoned the police. When they arrived, he told them a man from the Alcoholic Beverage Control came to the bar, forced him to call Thomas, then locked him in the bathroom before shooting Thomas. He described the man as 5 feet 7 inches, 200 to 220 pounds, and Caucasian.

At about 3 a.m., defendant called the Sacramento Police Department, identified himself as Joseph Murphy, and reported that a murder had taken place at the Tradewinds Bar, giving a description of the assailant that fit Stephen Christensen.

Later that day (May 30), after Crooks learned of Thomas' murder, she gave a statement to investigators and assisted in putting together a composite drawing and sketch of defendant.

Two days after the murder, King's ex-wife received an anonymous telephone call threatening King's life. King was told of the call that day. The next day King was picked up on a parole violation and jailed. In exchange for his release, he vowed to tell authorities the truth about the Tradewinds killing and implicated defendant.

Toward the end of June 1978, Stephen Christensen, while in his girl friend's apartment, fired an automatic handgun with a silencer attached. Christensen claimed to have made the silencer. A police department criminalist later identified that weapon as the handgun used to kill Curt Thomas.

In mid-June defendant learned that police were looking for Christensen and had a composite drawing resembling defendant; he went to Christensen's girl friend's apartment, and told her that Steve was holding something for him.

Later that month, defendant assisted Christensen's girl friend and her sister in bailing Christensen out of jail. The following morning, the girl friend heard defendant ask Christensen about a gun. When Christensen indicated he had gotten rid of it, defendant said, "`Well, we are going to have to get it back.'"

On June 24, defendant was arrested at his apartment. A search of his bedroom closet produced a matchbook from the Tradewinds Bar and the jacket worn by defendant on the night of the killing. In a dresser drawer in the bedroom officers found two sketches of a silencer, one of which defendant had shown to the ... auto wreckers in April. They also found an invoice from a machine shop for six aluminum washers, bearing Stephen Christensen's name and signature. The invoice was dated April 10, 1978. The officers also searched defendant's car. Under a towel on its front seat they found a loaded .45 caliber automatic handgun. This weapon was later determined to be Thomas'.

Later that day, at the sheriff's office, defendant was placed in an interview room prior to booking where he was left alone for several minutes. When the deputy returned, he found the room filled with smoke, and a partially burned business card in an ashtray. Later analysis revealed the card was from a machine shop.

That afternoon defendant was placed in an isolation cell. There he summoned a jail trusty and asked him to call his (defendant's) wife and tell her to check in the seats of their car; defendant said he wanted her to look for a "gold clip."

The next day, June 25, defendant's wife visited him at the jail. In their conversation, which was secretly recorded, defendant told her: "`That if he says it is me and then they find the thing in the car and it matches the guy that was dead things, you know, look bad.'" He also said: "`The hell with him saying it looks like me. You know, I don't care about that. That don't mean nothing.'... `Okay. The next one is to get the gun suppressed. If that's suppressed, I got a good, good chance. See, the only thing the jury would hear is this guy saying that I was there, and then hear eight people saying I was not there.'"

People v. Mancuso, No. 3 Crim. 10984 (Cal.Ct.App. Nov. 4, 1982) (order affirming conviction).

Mancuso's jury trial lasted more than one month. During that time, the jury heard thirty-one days of testimony from more than one hundred witnesses. In support of its case, the State presented the following evidence against Mancuso: eyewitness testimony of Dale King; testimony regarding Mancuso's efforts to construct a silencer; testimony of Marcie Crooks, a student intern with...