Stevens v. Davis
| Decision Date | 01 February 2018 |
| Docket Number | No. C 09-00137 WHA,C 09-00137 WHA |
| Parties | CHARLES STEVENS, Plaintiff, v. RON DAVIS, Warden, San Quentin State Prison, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of California |
DEATH PENALTY CASE
A jury convicted petitioner, Charles Stevens, in 1981 of, inter alia, four counts of murder and six counts of attempted murder (Cal. Penal Code 187(a)), accompanied by a lying-in-wait special circumstance (Section 190.2 (a)(15)) as to one murder and a multiple-murder special circumstance (Section 190.2(a)(3)). Through counsel, petitioner filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus under Section 2254 raising twenty-eight claims for relief. He subsequently dismissed eight of those claims. An additional round of claims, four of the subclaims within Claim 5 and all of Claim 23, were dismissed on procedural default grounds. The parties have now briefed twelve of the nineteen claims remaining in the petition. Petitioner seeks permission to file oversized opening and reply briefs for both rounds of briefing. The motions to file oversized opening and reply briefs are GRANTED. Claims 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 18 are DENIED for the following reasons. Claim 6 is DISMISSED as procedurally defaulted. Claims 1 and 12 will be addressed by subsequent order.
Petitioner is a condemned inmate at San Quentin State Prison. Between April 3 and July 27, 1989, petitioner shot at victims on or near Interstate 580 in Oakland. All of them, save for one, were inside a car at the time of the attack. Petitioner killed four people: Leslie Ann Noyer, Lori Anne Rochon, Laquann Sloan, and Raymond August. He attempted to murder an additional six people: Karen Alice Anderson, Janell Lee, Julia Peters, Paul Fenn, Upendra de Silva, and Rodney Stokes. Prosecutors charged petitioner as to all the offenses and charged a codefendant, Richard Clark, as to Noyer's murder. Clark testified in his own defense. The jury deadlocked on the murder charge against Clark and the trial court declared a mistrial. It convicted petitioner of all charges and sentenced him to death. The facts adduced at trial follow.
Ballistics evidence connected petitioner's Desert Eagle firearm as either a direct match or consistent with the weapon used in all of the shootings except for the attempted murder of Stokes.
In the early morning of April 3, 1989, police responded to a call regarding gunshots and found Leslie Noyer lying on the ground in front of a Mazda RX7 with its doors open and the engines running. Noyer had been shot in the head. Police found shell casings and an unexpended copper-jacket bullet near the vehicle. A palm print retrieved from the door below the passenger side window matched petitioner and two other prints matched codefendant Clark. The found casings matched petitioner's gun, when it was eventually recovered.
On June 7, a little after 2:00 a.m., Karen Anderson drove herself and her friend Janelle Lee home. As Anderson turned a corner on the way home, Lee saw a man with his arms raised and pointing at them, though she did not see anything in his hands. The man shot at them, shattering the passenger window. He did not hit either of them. When Anderson had the window repaired, the repair person found shell casings, which he gave to her. Those casings also eventually matched petitioner's Desert Eagle.
Laquann Sloan was shot in the head around 11:45 p.m. on June 8. Police found three shell casings that matched petitioner's gun.
On July 6, Highway Patrol officers found Lori Rochon slumped over her seat on the side of Interstate 580 near the Grand Avenue exit in Oakland. She had been shot one time. A police search of the area did not yield any casings. The police criminalist who examined the casings from all of the crimes said that the one found inside Rochon was consistent with a Desert Eagle. He noted that the slug contained polygonal rifling, which the other casings from the other crimes did as well. No other casings the Oakland Police Department had found in the past five years had such rifling.
Around 3:00 a.m. on July 16, Paul Fenn drove his friends Julie Peters and John Cutler eastbound on Interstate 580 near the Harrison Street exit. He intended to move into the right-hand lane and had noticed the headlights of another car there. When he looked to see if he was clear to move over, the headlights had disappeared and he could not see them anywhere. A pop sounded immediately to the right of the car and the right panel of the front windshield exploded. Other windows then shattered. The other car, a small, white sedan, waited about three seconds and then took off at high speed. Ten months later, Fenn found slugs and a copper bullet jacket in the van. They were consistent with a .38 or .357 Desert Eagle.
Later on July 16, Dr. Upendra De Silva was driving on Oakland Avenue after having exited Interstate 580. As he approached the top of the hill, he heard and felt the glass in his car shattering. He ducked down after recognizing the sound of gunfire. When he resurfaced several seconds later, he saw the taillights of a car in the right lane about 25-50 yards ahead. He got out, walked to a nearby apartment building, and asked someone to call the police. De Silva sustained injuries from the shattered glass and was shot in his right elbow. Police did not recover any casings there. The next day, however, police investigated a similar shooting one block away from where De Silva had been shot and one mile away from the Rochon murder. A casing found there matched petitioner's gun, when it was eventually recovered.
Police apprehended petitioner across the highway from the scene of the final murder. On July 27, at 1:15 a.m., petitioner, driving a white Mazda, pulled alongside Rodney Stokes, who was driving home from work on Interstate 580. Petitioner drove at approximately forty-five miles per hour. Both vehicles slowed. Stokes tried to discern if he knew the otherdriver. Coworkers often motioned to Stokes on the freeway and chatted with him. Petitioner motioned to get Stokes' attention and then smiled at him. Stokes realized he did not know petitioner but tried to see if petitioner might have a passenger that Stokes did know. Petitioner then shot at him.
Stokes tried to avoid petitioner's attention by turning off his headlights, laying down on the seat, and slowing to about thirty miles per hour. He lost control of the car, but regained control shortly thereafter. When he looked up, he saw petitioner coasting in front of him, seemingly waiting. Petitioner fired two more shots. Petitioner then pulled away from Stokes, who began flashing his headlights to attract police attention. He sped up to try to stay with petitioner. They were approximately three-quarters of a mile away from the 35th Avenue overpass in Oakland.
Stokes saw petitioner slow down and pull alongside another car, one driven by Raymond August. Petitioner got August's attention and both sets of brake lights came on. As the cars rounded a bend, Stokes lost sight of the cars briefly. When he again spotted them, he heard at least two gunshots. Petitioner exited the freeway at the 35th Avenue off-ramp, drove over the freeway, and then took the onramp heading the opposite direction on Interstate 580. Petitioner parked on the shoulder.
August's car crashed into a pillar under the 35th Avenue overpass. Stokes pulled up behind August's car. He checked on August, who was covered in "[a]n awful lot of blood," and then saw petitioner's Mazda parked on the other side of the freeway. Stokes called 911. The police arrived and Stokes pointed out where petitioner was still parked. An officer drove over and ordered petitioner out of the car. Petitioner initially appeared startled and began to drive away. He got out of the car with his hands in the air, walked backwards, then fled on foot toward a retaining wall. The officer grabbed petitioner at the wall and heard a heavy metallic object hit the ground. The officer then retrieved petitioner's loaded .357 magnum Desert Eagle semiautomatic pistol, which petitioner later told police he'd obtained three or four months earlier in "[a]bout . . . March. A search of petitioner yielded a loaded magazine and a loose bullet. This seizure allowed the police to connect the firearm to the prior murders.
Stokes identified petitioner at the scene. The ammunition fragment recovered from Stokes' car was insufficient to make any comparison.
Police searched petitioner's room and found "an operator's manual for the weapon, a canvas gun case, gun cleaning equipment, a .357 magnum cartridge and magazine, trays of bullets, and practice targets." Additionally, they found a collection of articles about the shootings and "an envelope with handwritten references to what appeared to be various Penal and Vehicle Code sections including those regarding murder, assault, vehicle theft, and weapons offenses." Petitioner's palm print was found on Noyer's car.
The police interviewed petitioner. They asked him how a person who committed the crimes would get caught and petitioner replied, "The guy would get caught if somebody told on him or if he pulled over like I did."
During the guilt phase of trial, petitioner only presented evidence as to the Sloan murder. The victim, a 16-year-old, had been shot in the head. The three witnesses who testified did not see the actual shooting, though they had been present either right before or right after. Codefendant Clark testified as to the Noyer and Rochon murders. Clark had made multiple statements to the police regarding the Noyer murder. His story changed with each version. In his last statement, he said that he had shot Noyer because petitioner had threatened to shoot him if he did not. At trial, Clark once again changed his story, this time saying he was not present at the Noyer murder scene. Clark explained the variances in his accounts by saying he...
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