No Retrial in Drunk Driver Case : Courts: A federal judge rules against a second murder trial in the deaths of three Camarillo youths. Prosecutors say they plan to appeal.

In a significant setback for Ventura County Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury’s office, a federal judge has ruled that a 35-year-old Somis woman cannot be retried for murder in the deaths of three Camarillo youths she ran down while driving drunk almost two years ago.

Bradbury’s chief deputy, Vincent J. O’Neill Jr., said prosecutors will appeal the ruling.

Diane Mannes was convicted of felony drunk driving in November, 1989, but the jury deadlocked 7 to 5 on whether she was guilty of second-degree murder. Rather than set a new trial, Ventura County Superior Court Judge Robert Soares dismissed the charge, saying he doubted that another jury--or another 10 juries--would find the defendant guilty of murder. He said there was insufficient evidence of malice, as required for a murder conviction.

Normally, when a jury deadlocks, a mistrial is declared and prosecutors may file a new charge of murder. And in his ruling, Soares wrote: “Our laws provide that this dismissal does not prevent the refiling of these murder charges--and a new trial.”

But when prosecutors filed new murder charges, Deputy Public Defender Robert Dahlstedt argued that Soares, whether he intended to do so or not, had in effect acquitted Mannes when he ruled that there was insufficient evidence to support a murder charge.

Prosecutors countered that Soares did not mean to preclude a second trial and that state law does not give a judge, at the end of a trial, the option of ruling that the evidence was insufficient. The 2nd District Court of Appeal and the State Supreme Court upheld that position.

But last month, U.S. Magistrate Volney V. Brown Jr. in Los Angeles found that Soares “did determine that the evidence was insufficient as a matter of law” and that “the judge’s erroneous comments as to refiling of the murder charges does not affect his finding.” In a judgment signed Thursday and received Monday, U.S. District Judge A. Wallace Tashima agreed with Brown’s recommendation.

“The district attorney gets one chance. That’s what double jeopardy is all about,” Dahlstedt said Monday, referring to Fifth Amendment protection against being tried twice for the same offense.

“The D.A. chose to make this a political case,” he said, calling the effort to convict Mannes of murder “a waste of taxpayer money and courtroom time.”

“They’re so hypocritical,” he said, adding that prosecutors often bemoan the impact of lengthy cases on victims’ families but have had no qualms about dragging out the Mannes proceedings. “We have been willing since Day One to plead guilty to vehicular manslaughter.”

If found guilty of manslaughter, Mannes could receive up to 14 years in prison, but a second-degree murder conviction could result in a life sentence.

In announcing the decision to appeal Tashima’s ruling, O’Neill said it was unprofessional for a deputy public defender to question the district attorney’s motives. “When was the last time one of their clients was convicted of murder that they didn’t appeal?” he said. “The people have, in effect, been deprived of their right to a jury trial by comments made by one judge.”

The victims’ family members “are supportive of our efforts to prosecute this as murder,” he added. “They regret the delay but understand that these things take time.”

Linda Oxenreider, whose son, Joshua, was killed when Mannes’ Ford Bronco ran off the Conejo Grade and mowed down five young men, agreed. “What the defense attorney says is totally ridiculous,” she said. “It’s a horrendous crime, and it should be punished for the crime that it is.”

In addition to Joshua, 19, Mannes struck and killed Jacob Boyd, 14, and Scott Mullins, 20. Jacob’s brother, Jeremy, 19, and Jeffrey Botens, 15, were seriously injured. The five were walking on the Ventura Freeway after a tire on their car went flat.

Mannes had been charged in Los Angeles County with drunk driving for an incident just the night before the fatal Ventura County accident. A CHP officer stopped her near Tampa Avenue and the Ventura Freeway in Tarzana. She had a blood-alcohol level of 0.26% at the time, the CHP said.

Mannes also had been convicted in Van Nuys Superior Court of one misdemeanor count of drunk driving in 1983.

The night of the Ventura County crash, her blood alcohol level was 0.20%, police said.

O’Neill said prosecutors will seek a hearing before Tashima in an attempt to change his mind. If that fails, he said, the case will go to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

Dahlstedt estimated that the Court of Appeals might take two years to rule on the case, but Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael D. Schwartz estimated that it would be closer to six months.

Meanwhile, Mannes is serving a four-year term for felony drunk driving and causing bodily injury to two people. Dahlstedt said she was relieved to learn of the court’s ruling. “She just wants to get it over with.”