In Re Peter Sakarias On Habeas Corpus

35 Cal.4th 140 (2005)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

Peter Sakarias (P) and Tauno Waidla (P) were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. The prosecutor presented factual theories inconsistent with those presented at the codefendant's trial. Evidence showed they both participated in the fatal attack on Viivi Piirisild, which was perpetrated with a hatchet and a knife. Ps were both born in Estonia and met as conscripts in the Soviet Army. They defected together, coming in 1987 to Los Angeles. Avo and Viivi Piirisild offered to help them obtain jobs and education. Wailda lived at their home and did work in exchange for room and board. Relations soon soured, and Waidla demanded the Piirisilds give him money or a sports car for his work and threatened, otherwise, to report them for doing construction without a permit. Waidla threatened to hurt or kill Avo. They also received a postcard with a rattlesnake on it from Ps, who were traveling together. In July 1988, Ps broke into the Piirisilds' unoccupied cabin in Crestline. They left after the food ran out and also took a hatchet. On July 12, out of money and hungry, they went to the Piirisilds' home and broke in through the back door. They ate food from the kitchen and took some jewelry while waiting for Viivi to return home. Sakarias later told the police he and Waidla were planning to get money for food and to confront Viivi and frighten her into giving them the sports car; he also said that having contemplated killing themselves because of their poor situation, they decided to kill Viivi first so ' 'she is not gonna see my funeral' ' or, with her husband, ' 'laugh on us for the rest of their lives.' ' Ps immediately attacked her, using a knife and the hatchet. They bludgeoned her with the blunt end of the hatchet, stabbed her with the knife, and chopped at her with the hatchet blade. The medical examiner attributed Viivi's death to the combination of wounds, several of which could have been fatal individually. Sakarias told police that during the initial attack he wielded the knife while Waidla used the hatchet. Waidla gave a statement admitting only a single bludgeoning blow, with the back of the hatchet at the outset of the attack, and denying any memory of how the rest of the attack proceeded. He recanted even that confession at his trial, testifying he had left Los Angeles three days before Viivi Piirisild was killed. Ps sold the jewelry they took and used Viivi's credit cards for airline tickets, telephone calls, and other purchases. Their cases were severed after Sakarias was found incompetent to stand trial. The evidence strongly suggests Waidla (who first wielded the hatchet, according to both petitioners' statements) struck the first, antemortem blow with the hatchet blade in the entryway, while Sakarias (who admitted doing so) inflicted the two post- or perimortem chopping wounds in the bedroom. (There was no evidence in either trial to suggest the perpetrators switched weapons during the initial attack.) The prosecutor did not argue at either trial the version of the attack best supported by all the evidence. Instead, at each defendant's trial, he maintained the defendant on trial had inflicted all the chopping wounds. In Waidla's trial, Ipsen introduced Waidla's admission that he, rather than Sakarias, had initially used the hatchet against Viivi Piirisild. Waidla only admitted hitting Viivi with the back of the hatchet, Ipsen argued the jury should find Waidla actually used the hatchet throughout. Having elicited, in the Waidla trial, the opinion of Dr. James Ribe, the medical examiner, that the abrasion on Viivi's lower back was incurred postmortem, Ipsen emphasized that the initial attack in the living room was fatal. In Sakarias's trial, the prosecutor asked the medical examiner, Dr. Ribe, about each stabbing, chopping, or blunt force injury shown in the autopsy photographs, in many instances asking whether the wounds were ante- or postmortem, but he did not examine Dr. Ribe about the lower back abrasion at all. He thus avoided eliciting Dr. Ribe's opinion, expressed in Waidla's earlier trial that the abrasion had occurred after death and could have been caused by dragging Viivi's body along the carpeted hallway to the bedroom. Due to this omission, no evidence was before Sakarias's jury that Viivi Piirisild was dead by the time Sakarias, as he admitted, struck her with the hatchet in the bedroom. The prosecutor then argued that Sakarias had, in the bedroom, inflicted all three chopping injuries, including the first, antemortem one. In the penalty phase argument at Sakarias's trial, the prosecutor again portrayed Sakarias as having inflicted the antemortem hatchet-blade wound. At Waidla's trial, Ipsen argued Waidla 'is not one who is dominated by another, but instead the facts indicate that he was the dominate [sic] person between himself and Mr. Sakarias, that he was the planner, he was the one who knew of the Piirisild home and knew of the facts surrounding the burglary, the robbery of Mrs. Piirisild.' At Sakarias's trial, in contrast, Ipsen argued Sakarias was 'in no way' dominated by Waidla: 'They were separate individuals joined by a common plan, a common hatred, common goals.' Petitioners' actions in killing Viivi and escaping were those of 'a partnership like a right hand and a left hand,' with 'absolutely no evidence of domination.' Ds were both convicted and sentenced to death. Ps petitioned in Habeas Corpus.