Justice’s Wheels Barely Turn in 3 Capital Cases : Court: A mistrial, defense motions and bizarre twists are keeping the multiple-defendant death-penalty trials from reaching a conclusion.

Jurors in the Norman Dewitt-Robert Taylor murder trial were milling about in the court hallway, awaiting the start of the death-penalty phase, when a bailiff approached them. “It might be a few more minutes,” he cautioned them.

That was in early March. They’re still waiting.

The jury is now scheduled to return in about six months to determine the fate of Dewitt, 35, and Taylor, 39, who were convicted of killing an Anaheim woman to steal a $20,000 Corvette that belonged to her and her husband.

The Anaheim case is just one of three multiple-defendant death-penalty cases that were expected to be long over by now. But unless the wheels of justice dramatically pick up steam, none of the cases is likely to reach a jury vote before 1992.

A mistrial, defense motions and bizarre twists are preventing the cases from reaching a conclusion, prosecutors say.

In the death-penalty case of defendants Gregory Marlow and Cynthia Coffman, the public defender’s office warned in January, 1990, that it might not be ready until Christmas to begin the trial. That Christmas has come and gone. Now Christmas, 1991, will probably be history before the former lovers, accused of kidnaping and killing a Huntington Beach dry-cleaning clerk, go to trial.

Then there is Westminster’s biker triple-slaying case, in which the two defendants, Thomas Maniscalco and Daniel Duffy, were arrested in 1984.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard M. King has declared it “the Twilight Zone” case because after seven years of legal proceedings, no one has any idea when either defendant will be brought to justice.

“What has been allowed to happen to this case is unconscionable,” King said.

Maniscalco’s yearlong trial ended in a mistrial last November when the jury deadlocked 10 to 2 in favor of a conviction.

King, who had already accused Maniscalco’s court-appointed lawyers of dragging out the case so they could remain longer on the public payroll, wanted to start the retrial immediately.

But Superior Court Judge Kathleen E. O’Leary said it was unrealistic to expect Maniscalco’s lawyers to be ready that soon. She expected that it would take the defense at least two more months.

Six months later, King was still frustrated that the defense wasn’t even ready to begin with pretrial motions.

“Maniscalco doesn’t even have a trial date, and Duffy’s trial date depends on Maniscalco,” King said recently.

Little did the prosecutor know what lay ahead.

King had asked the court to dismiss the lead defense counsel, Joanne Harrold, because her health problems had already caused several weeks’ delay in the case, and she couldn’t guarantee that she was over a pinched-nerve problem in her neck.

When her co-counsel, Andrew Roth, said he would not go on without her, Judge O’Leary fired them both last Monday. Now the Maniscalco case must start all over again with a new defense team. The defense may not be ready for trial until the end of 1992. And what happens to the Duffy trial because of that has not yet been decided.

Harrold, angry at her dismissal, said her opinion of King “is unprintable.”

“King has been talking out of both sides of his mouth,” she said. “He wants to speed up the case, but he also wants me off (it).”

“It had to be done,” King said. “It may take longer to get to trial now, but at least we will have some certainty that we’ll get a defense lawyer who can finish the trial.”

A hearing is scheduled Wednesday before Superior Court Judge James L. Smith for appointment of new lawyers to represent Maniscalco. All defendants facing a death penalty are entitled to two attorneys under California law.

Maniscalco, 46, is accused of masterminding the murder of his former best friend in the Hessians motorcycle gang, plus two others who happened to be in the victim’s house on Memorial Day weekend, 1980. Maniscalco and Duffy, 47, were arrested four years later after an exhaustive police investigation. Prosecutors say the actual killer, working at Maniscalco’s behest, was someone who has since been killed in a confrontation with police in Oklahoma.

Duffy, known as Maniscalco’s bodyguard, does not want to go to trial until he learns Maniscalco’s fate. In the meantime, the two have set records for the longest stays in Orange County Jail.

King is not the only prosecutor unhappy with the turn of events. Assistant Dist. Atty. Bryan F. Brown has had two multiple-defendant death-penalty trials bogged down this year. But Brown, who is often critical of trial delays caused by defense attorneys, said that in these cases, no one is to blame.

“It’s one of those situations nobody could do anything about,” he said.

Defense attorney George A. Peters Jr. thought he had his schedule worked out perfectly. He represents Marlow, 35, accused of the Nov. 2, 1986, slaying of Lynell Murray, 19. Prosecutors say she was abducted by Marlow and Coffman, 28, at a Huntington Beach dry cleaners where she worked, then taken to a nearby hotel, where she was raped and strangled.

But Peters also represents Dewitt in the Corvette trial. Dewitt was convicted along with Taylor in February for the 1989 murder of Ryoko Hanano, 60, of Anaheim. Her husband, left paralyzed in the shooting, thought he was selling his $20,000 Corvette to Dewitt and Taylor, but instead, prosecutors say, the defendants planned to steal the car and leave the couple dead.

The Dewitt-Taylor trial was supposed to be over by now. Then, Peters could start the trial for Marlow and his co-defendant, Coffman. Both are already under a death sentence for a separate murder in San Bernardino County.

But a snag came up that Peters did not expect. Taylor’s attorneys, after the guilt phase, were forced to declare a conflict and leave the case in the middle of the trial. They had invested more than two years of time at county expense, and most of their efforts were concentrated on the upcoming penalty phase, in an attempt to spare Taylor a death sentence.

Although none of the lawyers involved are permitted, by court order, to discuss the conflict, prosecutor Brown has said: “It is a legitimate conflict, and something they could not have foreseen earlier.”

Neither Taylor nor Dewitt wanted the penalty phase to be tried separately.

“It’s in my client’s best interest not to sever this case,” Peters said. That’s because Peters’ defense strategy for Dewitt is expected to be blaming Taylor for the worst elements of the crime.

Taylor’s new attorney, Michael A. Horan, said he could be ready by late summer to go to trial. But a new problem has come up: The jurors, not expecting the trial to go past April, made summer vacation plans.

So now the Taylor-Dewitt case is scheduled for early November.

But defense attorney Peters cannot go to trial on the Marlow-Coffman case until the Taylor-Dewitt case is completed.

Since the delay, prosecutor Brown has been promoted within the district attorney’s office. He will continue the Taylor-Dewitt case but has handed off the Marlow-Coffman case to Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert C. Gannon Jr., a well-respected homicide specialist in the office.

Taylor’s new attorney, Horan, does have some concern about the effect of the lengthy postponement on the jurors.

“If they have any negative experiences between now and when the trial resumes, it could have a negative effect on my client,” Horan said. “But if they have any positive experiences . . . who knows, really. We won’t know anything until they return a verdict.”