D.A. Appeals Order Blocking Mannes’ Retrial

Federal judges should not interfere with the murder prosecution of a drunk driver who killed three young men more than two years ago, Ventura County prosecutors say in papers filed Tuesday.

The argument is one of several that Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury raises in a brief filed with the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. Bradbury wants the appeals court to let him retry Diane Mannes for second-degree murder.

In March, 1989, Mannes struck five young men as they walked from their disabled car on the Ventura Freeway’s Conejo Grade, killing three and injuring two. Investigators said her blood-alcohol content was twice the legal limit, and she had been arrested in Los Angeles only a day earlier on suspicion of drunk driving.

After a Ventura County Superior Court jury was unable to reach a verdict on the murder charge, Judge Robert J. Soares dismissed it. In a written ruling, he said prosecutors had not proved beyond a reasonable doubt that her conduct amounted to murder.

The jury at Mannes’ trial did agree that she was guilty of causing great bodily injury while driving under the influence. Mannes, 35, is serving a four-year prison term.

Bradbury refiled the murder charge, over the objections of Deputy Public Defender Robert Dahlstedt, who argued that Soares had, in effect, acquitted Mannes of murder.

Two state appeal courts rejected Dahlstedt’s attempts to prevent a retrial, but last February he won in federal court. U.S. District Judge A. Wallace Tashima in Los Angeles ruled that the Fifth Amendment’s double-jeopardy clause prevents prosecutors from retrying Mannes on the murder charge.

Dahlstedt said Mannes is willing to plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter, which carries a maximum term of four years in prison. Second-degree murder carries a maximum term of 15 years to life.

In their appeal of Tashima’s order, Bradbury and Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael D. Schwartz argue that it is premature for the federal courts to intervene. They say that Mannes’ double-jeopardy argument should not be raised now “because the issue may become moot . . . if petitioner is not convicted of murder at the pending trial.”

The appeal notes that California prosecutors routinely refile charges after a hung jury, and that the only difference in the Mannes case was that Soares issued a written ruling that has been construed to be an acquittal.

Bradbury and Schwartz maintain that Soares’ ruling was not a legal finding of insufficient evidence, but a set of gratuitous remarks. They also say that California judges do not have the right to make such a legal finding after a jury is unable to reach a verdict.

The public defender’s office has until July 15 to file its response.