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Ninth Circuit:
Suit by Man Wrongfully Convicted of Slaying Is Reinstated
Panel Says Triable Issue of Facts Exist As to Claim That Evidence Was Planted, Resulting in Conviction of the Defendant for First-Degree Murder of His Wife; Spent 18 Years in Prison Before Habeas Relief Granted
By a MetNews Staff Writer
The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday reinstated an action by a man who was convicted of the first-degree murder of his wife and spent 18 years in prison before being freed on orders of the California Supreme Court, with a three-judge panel declaring that a District Court judge erroneously granted summary judgment in favor of a Sheriff’s Department criminologist who, the plaintiff contends, planted false evidence against him.
Claims against the County of San Bernardino were also revived.
The plaintiff is William J. Richards. He was convicted by a jury on July 8, 1997, of slaying his wife on Aug. 10, 1993.
That conviction came at his fourth trial. The first two trials ended with hung juries and at the third trial, the judge recused herself shortly after proceedings commenced and declared a mistrial.
At the first two trials, evidence was introduced that threads from Richards’s blue shirt were found by the criminologist, Daniel Gregonis, under the victim’s fingernails. At the fourth trial, bitemark evidence was additionally introduced.
It was the unreliability of the bitemark evidence that prompted the California Supreme Court on May 26, 2016—applying a new statutory definition of “false evidence”—to grant Richards’s second petition for a writ of hakeas corpus, in an opinion by Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye. (It was the denial of his first petition by the state high court in 2012 that triggered the legislative redefinition.)
He was released on June 21, 2016.
Richards was subsequently adjudged by San Bernardino Superior Court Judge Brian McCarville to be factually innocent, leading to an award by the state in 2021 of $1.2 million for the “8,328 days of erroneous incarceration,” including jail time prior to his conviction. In granting summary judgment in favor of Gregonis, District Court Judge James Otero of the Central District of California said: “Plaintiff does not carry his burden to show that the planting of blue fibers on the victim’s body resulted in his conviction.”
Noting that two juries, lacking this evidence, did not convict Richards, he said:
“The logical inference from this is that the bite mark evidence, not the blue fiber evidence, was necessary to convict Plaintiff.”
He quoted California Supreme Court Justice Carol Corrigan as saying in her opinion in which she concurred with the granting of habeas relief:
“[T]he fact that two prior juries hung without the bite mark evidence further suggests that admission of this evidence at the third trial was prejudicial, and I join the court in holding that Richards’s conviction must be reversed.” Otero also observed that Richards “is unable to point to facts that show that Mr. Gregonis had a motive to deliberately manipulate the evidence to convict Plaintiff.”
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WILLIAM RICHARDS plaintiff |
Ninth Circuit Opinion
The Ninth Circuit, in Friday’s opinion by Senior Judge Richard C. Tallman, acknowledged that “a showing of but-for causation regarding the blue fiber evidence cannot easily be made here” and that “it could more readily be said that the false bitemark evidence, and not the blue fiber evidence, was the but-for cause of Richards’s conviction.”
But the appropriate standard to apply—in order “to vindicate Richards’s fundamental right to a fair trial”— is whether the allegedly false evidence was “material” evidence.
“We therefore hold that Richards can establish factual causation if he can show a reasonable likelihood that the allegedly fabricated blue fiber evidence could have affected the judgment of the jury,” Tallman wrote, adding:
“The district court did not apply this standard. Instead, the court’s causation ruling made an improper leap from its conclusion that the false bitemark testimony was a necessary cause of Richards’s conviction to it being the sole cause. Because Richards has shown a triable issue as to whether Gregonis deliberately planted the blue fibers on Pamela’s body, … we reverse and remand to the district court to reassess, in light of this opinion, whether a triable issue also exists as to causation.”
That showing was based on evidence that autopsy photos did not reveal the existence of blue fibers under the victim’s fingernails, and that Gregonis’s alleged discovery of them came after he had sole possession of Richards’s shirt and of two fingers that had been severed from the body by the medical examiner.
“[W]e conclude that Richards has shown a triable issue as to whether Gregonis deliberately fabricated the blue fiber evidence,” Tallman said. “A jury will have to resolve it.”
Reference to ‘Motive’
Tallman found fault with Otero’s reference to a lack of showing that the criminologist had a motive to fabricate evidence, setting forth:
“While motive is recognized as potentially strong circumstantial evidence in support of a claim of fabrication…, motive evidence is never required….Stated differently, motive is merely one type of circumstantial evidence that may be used to support a claim of deliberate fabrication.”
Claims against the county were also reinstated. In light of reversal of summary judgment in favor of Gregonis, Tallman said, the county could have derivative liability, as well as possibly being liable under Richards’s claims that its policy against medical examiners entering a crime scene until cleared by law enforcement officers can result in loss of exculpatory evidence and the county fails to provide training in the preservation of such evidence.
Separate Opinion
In a separate memorandum opinion—signed by Tallman, Ninth Circuit Judge Kenneth K. Lee, and First Circuit Judge Kermit V. Lipez, sitting by designation—other claims were rejected.
These concluded the allegation that Gregonis had also fabricated bloodspatter evidence. Facts were not there to back it up, the opinion says.
The opinions come in Richards v. County of San Bernardino, 19-56205.
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