Morales v. Woodford
| Decision Date | 28 July 2003 |
| Docket Number | No. 99-99020.,99-99020. |
| Parties | Michael Angelo MORALES, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Jeanne S. WOODFORD, as Warden of San Quentin State Prison, Respondent-Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit |
David A. Senior, McBreen & Senior, Los Angeles, CA, for the appellant.
Keith H. Borjon, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, Los Angeles, CA, for the appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California; Dickran M. Tevrizian, District Judge, Presiding.
Before: FERNANDEZ, KLEINFELD, and McKEOWN, Circuit Judges.
ORDER
The opinion filed on July 28, 2003, is hereby amended. The clerk shall file the attached amended opinion and the attached dissent. The petition for rehearing and petition for rehearing en banc remains pending.
OPINIONMichael Morales, a state prisoner convicted of murder with special circumstances and sentenced to death, appeals the district court's denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus.
We previously issued this opinion at 336 F.3d 1136 (2003). This version is identical to that one except for this paragraph, and the section on the lying-in-wait special circumstance, which appears in Part B of the Analysis section, pages 31 to 45.
Seventeen year-old Terri Winchell disappeared on a Thursday evening, January 8, 1981. Her mother lay sick in bed. Terri was getting ready to go out to pick up some food at a local restaurant. Before she left, she got a telephone call around 5:15 p.m. from Rick Ortega, a young man she knew through her friends. She spoke with him, then called her best friend Glenda Chavez. Terri told Glenda Chavez that Rick Ortega had asked her to go with him to the mall to pick out a present for his new girlfriend. Driving her mother's car, she left to pick up the food, telling her mother she "would be right back" and would be "back within the hour." Hours passed. Terri's mother became increasingly worried. She called the police to report that her car was missing around 10:00 that night, and reported that Terri was missing at 8:00 a.m. the next morning.
That day, Friday, the police interviewed Terri Winchell's mother, Terri's best friend Glenda Chavez, and Terri's friend Christine Salaices. They also interviewed Terri Winchell's boyfriend Randy Blythe.
The interviews led the police to Rick Ortega, whom they interviewed at a police station Friday night. Ortega gave the police permission to search his house and car, and they did, starting just before midnight Friday night. They found Ortega's shoes, which were wet, and noted that the tires and undercarriage of his car were also wet. The police found blood splattered all over Ortega's car, which smelled of ammonia. The officers returned to the station house around 1:00 a.m., Saturday morning. Around 2:00 a.m., Ortega led the police to a vineyard on the outskirts of town where they found Terri Winchell's body.
Terri was found naked except for a shirt and bra, which were pulled up over her breasts. She had suffered six blows to the side of her head and seventeen blows to the back of her head. The base of her skull had been shattered. Her skull, cheek bones, and jaw were fractured. She had been stabbed four times in the chest. Her face and body were severely bruised and much of the skin of her front side was torn up. She had multiple wounds on her hands and forearms, typical of a person defending herself.
Michael Morales was Ortega's cousin. He lived in Pat Flores's house. The police came there the next morning, Saturday, with a search warrant. They found a claw hammer, not in a toolbox or tool drawer, but in the vegetable crisper in the refrigerator. Blood was found on the hammer, but there was not enough to get a blood type. They found a kitchen knife with the tip broken off in a kitchen cabinet. In a bedroom, they lifted the mattress off the box spring and found hidden between them a broken belt, which had blood on it consistent with Terri's. A wet towel smelling of ammonia was in a wastebasket. In another bedroom, they found a large kitchen knife on a night stand, and Terri Winchell's purse in the closet.
Morales was arrested and tried and convicted for rape and murder. So was Ortega, but his separate case is not before us.
The government tried Morales on three theories of first degree murder—murder with premeditation, murder by torture, and murder by lying-in-wait—and two special circumstances—intentional killing by torture and intentional killing by lying in wait. The prosecution theorized that Rick Ortega wanted to kill Terri Winchell out of jealousy, because Rick's male lover, Randy Blythe, was also Terri Winchell's boyfriend. Also, Terri had embarrassed Ortega by calling him a homosexual to her friends. Ortega recruited his cousin Michael Morales to help him kill her, and Morales agreed out of family loyalty.
Randy Blythe, Terri's boyfriend, testified at Morales's trial that he had indeed been in sexual relationships with both Rick Ortega and Terri Winchell. His relationship with Rick Ortega came first, though it was not entirely over when he became Terri Winchell's boyfriend.
Rick's former girlfriend Christine Salaices had been a friend of Terri Winchell. Christine testified that Rick Ortega had called her, crying, a few days after Terri and Randy Blythe started dating—ten months before the murder. Rick told Christine that he was crying because he had written Randy Blythe a letter proposing a sexual relationship, but that Randy then began seeing Terri. Christine then dumped Rick Ortega.
Randy Blythe testified that Terri Winchell did not know he was having sex with Rick Ortega, but Rick Ortega knew that he was having sex with Terri. After Randy Blythe began dating Terri, Rick told him that "I wish you wouldn't spend so much time with her." When Randy tried to end his relationship with Rick Ortega, Rick threatened to kill Randy and his family.
Christine Salaices, Rick Ortega's previous girlfriend, testified that five months before the murder, in August 1980, she met Ortega at a restaurant, where Ortega had told her that Christine testified that Ortega had told her that According to Christine, Ortega said that "if Terri was there, she was gonna get it, too." Around the same time, Ortega repeatedly asked Christine to help him kill Randy Blythe. Christine testified that she had told Terri Winchell about Rick Ortega's threats. But, Christine, testified, by October 1980, three months before the murder, Rick Ortega "was supposedly feeling better about himself and trying to make amends with everyone that he had said these things to."
Mike Morales's girlfriend was Raquel Cardenas. Raquel testified that she had known Morales for seven months at the time of the murder. She testified that a few months before the murder, Morales told her that his "friend" had "gotten hurt by a girl, and ... that he was feeling close to his best friend since he got hurt by that girl." Morales told her that this girl had "dumped" his friend and because of this "he turned gay."
Glenda Chavez, Terri Winchell's best friend, testified that two weeks before the murder, she spoke with Rick Ortega on the telephone. Rick told her that Terri "was going around saying that he was gay" and that Terri "was gonna pay back for everything she was saying about him." But Rick Ortega called Glenda back a week later and told her "to tell Terri that everything was okay, that he wanted to be friends with her, and that he was gonna come over sometime and talk with her."
Pat Flores lived in the same house where Morales lived. She testified that the day before the murder, while she was sitting in her kitchen, "
Around 11:00 in the morning on the day of the murder, Morales's girlfriend Raquel Cardenas went to Morales's house, where he lived with Flores. Raquel testified that Morales got a phone call at 4:30 p.m. According to Raquel, Morales told her that it was Ortega, and that "Rick was gonna come over later" and "pick up a girl." Raquel testified that Morales said "he was gonna do Rick a favor," that "he was gonna hurt this girl," that "he was gonna strangle her," that "he was gonna use his belt" and "put it around her neck."
Glenda Chavez also testified that Terri called her the afternoon before she was murdered. Terri told Glenda that Rick Ortega had called and asked Terri to come to the mall to help him pick out a present for his new girlfriend.
Raquel Cardenas, Morales's girlfriend, testified that Flores came home to where Morales lived around 5:30 p.m. the afternoon of the murder, and that Rick Ortega showed up around 6:00 p.m. Rick stayed around ten minutes, then left with Flores to go to the store, and came back fifteen minutes later with some wine. Morales drank the whole bottle of wine. Raquel testified that Morales and Ortega left around 6:30 p.m. and someone said that "Rick was supposed to take a girl to the mall." She testified on cross-examination that she didn't see Morales leave with a knife or...
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