Baca v. Super. Ct. 8/31/10 CA3

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State: California

Court: 1st District Court of Appeal 1st District Court of Appeal

Docket No: C062609

Case Date: 11/24/2010

Preview:Filed 8/31/10

CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA THIRD APPELLATE DISTRICT (San Joaquin)

LOUIS BACA, Petitioner, v. SUPERIOR COURT OF SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY, Respondent; THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, Real Party in Interest.

C062609 (Super. Ct. No. SC061757C)

ORIGINAL PROCEEDING; Petition for Writ of Mandate. Louis Baca, in pro per, for Petitioner. No appearance for Respondent.

Denied.

Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Michael P. Farrell, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Ward A. Campbell, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, for Real Party in Interest.

1

Penal Code section 1054.9 allows a convicted defendant who has been sentenced to death or life in prison without the possibility of parole to obtain discovery materials "[u]pon the prosecution of a postconviction writ of habeas corpus or a motion to vacate a judgment[.]"1 Petitioner Louis Baca, who is serving a life term, previously brought unsuccessful petitions for writ of habeas corpus in both state and federal court. He now seeks discovery

materials in an attempt to file a third successive habeas petition on issues decided in the previous writ proceedings. Petitioner intends to file a third writ petition on the ground he had no intent to kill his victim, an issue that was established at trial by inference from his actions and the circumstances surrounding his actions. He seeks evidence for

the ultimate purpose of showing he had no intent to kill his victim. He seeks all of the discovery ordered at trial, as well He hopes to

as the out of court statements of all witnesses.

show some discrepancy in the witness accounts that would prove irrefutably that he had no intent to kill. This issue was

litigated at trial and was the objective of the ineffective assistance of counsel claims made and denied in his earlier writ petitions. We shall conclude that a section 1054.9 discovery motion may be denied on the ground that the purpose of the section is

1

Further section references to an unspecified code are to the Penal Code. 2

to permit discovery of matters relevant to the prosecution of a writ on grounds not previously litigated and decided against the petitioner in prior habeas proceedings. Successive petitions for writ of habeas corpus relief are summarily denied absent justification. Cal.4th 750, 797.) (In re Clark (1993) 5

The possible exceptions to this rule -- the

trial was so fundamentally unfair that no reasonable judge or jury would have convicted petitioner, or the petitioner is actually innocent of the crime -- do not apply here. (Ibid.)

Fundamental unfairness is not shown unless new evidence points unerringly to innocence or reduced culpability, and evidence is not new evidence if it merely conflicts with evidence presented at trial on an issue in dispute. (Id. at p. 798, fn. 33.)

Actual innocence cannot be shown with evidence that a reasonable jury could have rejected. (Ibid.) We shall conclude that such evidence is not new evidence and that it is not the sort of evidence that a reasonable jury could not have rejected. As such, Baca has no legitimate Having already filed two

grounds for a third habeas petition.

unsuccessful petitions for writ of habeas corpus, his discovery motion is not "upon the prosecution of a postconviction writ of habeas corpus." We shall deny the writ.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND The following summary of facts is from the magistrates findings in Bacas federal writ petition.

3

"On March 13, Baca drove to Tracy to retrieve his gun from his cousin [Paulette Villa]. Another cousin Villa had never met Villa was angry Baca Baca was angry

had accompanied Baca from the Bay Area.

had endangered her children, but said nothing.

the gun was scratched and he clearly expressed his displeasure. He was also upset because the gun seemed to be jammed. her to take him to the store to buy beer. She obtained He asked

permission from her mother, with whom she and her three daughters were living. "On the way to the store, Villa saw two young women, who were later identified as Marie Sturdivant and Celina Martinez, walking on the sidewalk with Celina's brother, David, whom they called ,,Pelon. Villa thought they said something as she drove Villa pulled up alongside

by so she made a U-turn to inquire.

Celina, Marie and Pelon, at which time Baca jumped out of the car. He asked Pelon whom he was ,,dogging. One of the young

women asked who he was. their heads.

Baca pulled out a gun and pointed it at Baca

Pelon said he did not want any trouble.

yelled something like ,,Decoto or ,,Decoto Norte X4 and returned to the car. . . . " . . . Diane Gaarde, although accustomed to noise and violence in her neighborhood, was awakened by loud and angry male and female voices through her closed windows. She lay in

her bed listening but could not understand any of the words spoken. She described the area as a no-man's land for gangs and

confrontations.

4

"Meanwhile, Marie, Celina and Pelon walked on to the market. Although Pelon mentioned he did not like guns, the trio They mentioned it to As they

was rather nonchalant about the assault.

the store clerk but they did not call the police. walked back, they saw the same car again. . . .

"As Villa passed the group a second time, Baca told her to turn around. She complied. Baca leaned out the window of the

car and fired a shot at the three, who by then were running across a field. Pelon grabbed his side. He yelled at his

sister and Marie to get down. grass.

They all dropped into the tall The

Villa circled around and Baca fired two more shots.

ever-vigilant Mrs. Gaarde heard a female voice from the driver's seat, a male voice from the passenger seat and another male voice from the rear seat. She heard one of the males say, ,,I

got him I got him in a voice as jubilant as if he had just won the World Series. the chest." Baca was convicted of first degree murder in 1998 and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. We affirmed the judgment on June 6, 2000, and the Supreme Court denied review in October 2000. A. State Habeas Proceedings Pelon died as a result of a gunshot wound to

Baca petitioned the superior court for a writ of habeas corpus and argued he had received ineffective assistance of counsel. In pertinent part, Baca argued that his trial counsel

failed to present expert testimony regarding his lack of intent to kill and failed to offer evidence regarding his chronic acute 5

methamphetamine psychosis. petition.

The superior court rejected the

This court denied the petition in April 2002, and the

Supreme Court summarily denied the petition on review. In May 2001, during the time Baca was pursuing his state habeas petition, his habeas counsel wrote to his trial counsel asking for trial counsels file. sending only the "Howells report." Trial counsel responded by Habeas counsel "then

conducted and completed [his] habeas corpus investigation[.]" B. Federal Habeas Petition In July 2003, Baca filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in federal court. The petition asserted ineffective

assistance of trial and appellate counsel, violation of Miranda2 rights, and juror bias and misconduct. in March 2006. The petition was denied

Baca appealed to the Ninth Circuit, which The United States Supreme Court denied

affirmed the judgment.

his petition for writ of certiorari in January 2009. C. Section 1054.9 Proceedings In May 2009, Baca began for the first time to seek discovery materials under section 1054.9. He filed a motion for His petition

discovery in the trial court, which was denied.

for writ of mandate to this court was also denied. Baca filed a second motion for discovery materials in July 2009, which the trial court summarily denied. Baca requested:

(1) the discovery order and all discovery ordered in his case,

2

Miranda v. Arizona (1966) 384 U.S. 436 [16 L.Ed.2d 694]. 6

(2) all statements of witness Diane Gaarde, who testified at trial, (3) all statements of Margarite Gaarde, who did not testify at trial, (4) all statements of six other witnesses who testified at trial, (5) the attorney visit log book of the San Joaquin County Jail for Baca from 1997 to 1998 for the purpose of developing an ineffective assistance of counsel argument, and (6) the "investigation reports and findings of the law enforcement authorities listed in the original discovery order requested at trial."3 followed. Baca states that he is preparing a post-conviction writ of habeas corpus alleging ineffective assistance of counsel due to failure to investigate, to prepare and present a meaningful defense, to subject the prosecutions case to meaningful adversarial testing, and to effectively cross-examine. He also This petition for writ of mandate

claims actual innocence of the first degree murder conviction. He claims the discovery he seeks will assist him in showing that his trial counsel should have consulted with an expert in methamphetamine psychosis. Baca claims that if his trial

counsel had consulted an expert in methamphetamine psychosis, such expert testimony might have prompted counsel to encourage Baca to testify in his own defense in order to explain that he harbored no intent to kill. Thus, Bacas ineffective assistance

3

We deny the writ on the procedural ground that the motion for discovery was not for the prosecution of a postconviction writ of habeas corpus. We therefore have no occasion to consider the particular merits of Bacas requests. 7

of counsel claim is tied to his claim that he had no intent to kill the victim. He also claims that the statements of witnesses, which he has never examined, will allow him to compare his own knowledge of the events to the observations of the other witnesses, specific to his intent. He hopes to discover some evidence that

he had no intent to kill the victim by comparing his "own knowledge and insight of the events to the evidence that was available before trial, i.e., other witnesses who claimed to have observed and/or heard specific events of this case." Section 1054.9 contains a requirement that the petitioner show that good faith efforts have been made to obtain discovery from trial counsel. In this regard, petitioner presented a

declaration from his habeas counsel to his trial counsel requesting trial counsel provide his entire file. trial counsel produced only one report. In response,

Petitioner also

produced three letters he had sent to two different trial counsel requesting his file. these requests. lost to him. DISCUSSION Baca has the burden of showing that the trial court abused its discretion because it could have had no reasonable basis for its ruling. 359, 369.) a showing. The pertinent portions of section 1054.9 read as follows: 8 (Kennedy v. Superior Court (2006) 145 Cal.App.4th We will affirm the trial courts ruling absent such He received no response to any of

He declared that the materials were therefore

"(a) Upon the prosecution of a postconviction writ of habeas corpus or a motion to vacate a judgment in a case in which a sentence of death or of life in prison without the possibility of parole has been imposed, and on a showing that good faith efforts to obtain discovery materials from trial counsel were made and were unsuccessful, the court shall [with exceptions not relevant] order that the defendant be provided reasonable access to any of the materials . . . ." The statute defines "discovery materials" as "materials in the possession of the prosecution and law enforcement authorities to which the same defendant would have been entitled at [the] time of trial." (

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