The Recorder

By Dan Goodin

June 281996

For the first time in 2 1/​2 years, the California Supreme Court has reversed both the con­vic­tion and death sen­tence in a cap­i­tal murder case.

The state high court on Thursday over­turned a Fresno man’s 1982 death judg­ment in In re Jones on Habeas Corpus, S016628, rul­ing that Troy Lee Jones’ tri­al attor­ney failed to pro­vide effec­tive assis­tance of counsel.

Jones is the first death penal­ty case decid­ed by the court under Chief Justice Ronald George, who suc­ceed­ed Malcolm Lucas on May 1.

We con­clude that defense coun­sel’s per­for­mance before and dur­ing the guilt phase of the tri­al was marked by numer­ous defi­cien­cies,” George wrote for a unan­i­mous court, and that the cumu­la­tive impact of coun­sel’s short­com­ings at that phase of the pro­ceed­ings was prej­u­di­cial with regard to the judg­ment of guilt.”

The opin­ion is sig­nif­i­cant because the state Supreme Court grants so few rever­sals in cap­i­tal cas­es. Under for­mer Chief Justice Lucas, the court affirmed about 90 per­cent of the death sen­tences it reviewed, accord­ing to J. Clark Kelso, a pro­fes­sor at McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento.

But Kelso warned against draw­ing too many infer­ences from such a rare rever­sal short­ly after George has come on board, call­ing it coin­ci­den­tal timing.”

I don’t think you can read very much into this case,” Kelso said. The court did what it had to do under fed­er­al con­sti­tu­tion­al prin­ci­ples. [Defense] coun­sel in the case sim­ply was poor­ly pre­pared and did­n’t know the facts.”

The rul­ing enti­tles Jones, 45, to a new tri­al for the December 1981 killing of his girl­friend, Carolyn Grayson. Her body, with six bul­let wounds, was found in a field near the Merced County com­mu­ni­ty of Los Banos. There were no eye­wit­ness­es, and the mur­der weapon was never found.

Prosecutors claimed Jones killed Grayson to keep her from reveal­ing his role in a mur­der 11 months ear­li­er; he was nev­er charged for that mur­der. A neigh­bor tes­ti­fied she saw Jones beat Grayson with a tire iron a few weeks before her death and heard Grayson scream that she would­n’t say anything.

Although … there was evi­dence sug­gest­ing [Jones’] guilt, this evi­dence was not over­whelm­ing and there also was evi­dence that oth­er mem­bers of [Jones’] fam­i­ly had attempt­ed to kill Grayson,” George wrote. He cit­ed evi­dence that Jones’ moth­er and sis­ter had tried to poi­son Grayson and that Jones’ wife had also dis­cussed mur­der over Jones’ objections.

Pointing to such cir­cum­stances, George said, the fail­ings of Jones’ tri­al lawyer, Hugh Wesley Goodwin, were suf­fi­cient­ly sig­nif­i­cant to under­mine our con­fi­dence” in the verdict.

Attempts to locate Goodwin for com­ment were unsuccessful.

Goodwin, a vet­er­an crim­i­nal defense lawyer, was appoint­ed to a Fresno Municipal Court seat by Gov. Jerry Brown in 1976 and was defeat­ed in the 1978 elec­tion. In his brief judi­cial career, he attacked the con­sti­tu­tion­al sep­a­ra­tion of church and state, ordered defen­dants to attend church as a con­di­tion of pro­ba­tion, and called the Commission on Judicial Performance an instru­ment of Satan” after it criticized him.

Two Fresno County defen­dants rep­re­sent­ed by Goodwin, Wilbur Jennings and Douglas Stankewitz, were also sen­tenced to death in sep­a­rate cas­es and are appeal­ing in fed­er­al court. Stankewitz’s lawyer, Robert Bryan, said Goodwin’s per­for­mance is a cen­tral issue in the appeal.

In Jones’ case, the court said Goodwin did not hire an inves­ti­ga­tor and did lit­tle prepa­ra­tion apart from talk­ing with Jones for three or four hours. Goodwin then elicit­ed tes­ti­mo­ny from Grayson’s 8‑year-old daugh­ter that her moth­er had said Jones com­mit­ted the ear­li­er mur­der. He also put Jones’ moth­er ‑in-law on the stand, and she prompt­ly tes­ti­fied that Jones had once shot her.

Merced Superior Court Judge William Ivey, who con­duct­ed an evi­den­tiary hear­ing into the mat­ter on the Supreme Court’s behalf, described Jones as a hor­ri­bly tried case.”

The Supreme Court agreed. Taking into account the nature and extent of defense coun­sel’s inad­e­quate per­for­mance, and the evi­den­tiary weak­ness­es in the pros­e­cu­tion’s case … there exists a rea­son­able prob­a­bil­i­ty that the out­come of the guilt phase would have been dif­fer­ent but for the cumu­la­tive impact of defense coun­sel’s numer­ous fail­ings,” George wrote.

Law pro­fes­sor Kelso said of the court’s few rever­sals, most involved habeas claims. In habeas cas­es, Kelso said, the court does­n’t real­ly have any lee­way” because it is bound by fed­er­al constitutional principals.

Still, he said the rul­ing was unusu­al because this is not just a rever­sal at the penal­ty phase, but at the guilt phase as well.”

It will take sev­er­al years to deter­mine if the Supreme Court under George is tak­ing a more lib­er­al stance on cap­i­tal cas­es, Kelso said.