Maniscalco Attorney Is Denied Reinstatement : * Courts: Appellate justices call Joanne Harrold’s defense tactics in the 11-year-old murder case ‘unconscionable.’

The 4th District Court of Appeals refused this week to reinstate defense attorney Joanne Harrold, who has been lead counsel representing Thomas F. Maniscalco in an 11-year-old Westminster triple-murder case.

In making the decision, the appellate court also took some sharp jabs at the way Harrold, a former judge, has performed in representing Maniscalco, who is also an attorney.

The justices, in an opinion issued Thursday, called some of Harrold’s defense tactics “astonishing” and “unconscionable.” The justices also noted efforts by the prosecutors to “complete (the case) before all the participants die of old age.”

Maniscalco, 48, and a co-defendant, Daniel Duffy, 49, were arrested in 1984, accused of killing a fellow biker, his girlfriend and his bodyguard at a Westminster home in 1980.

After years of delays, Maniscalco’s trial ended with a hung jury last November.

The retrial was delayed further last February because of Harrold’s health problems, primarily a pinched nerve in her neck, which had caused weeks of delay in the first trial. The trial judge, Kathleen E. O’Leary, removed her from the case when Harrold could not guarantee that further health problems would not delay the second trial. She had represented Maniscalco for seven years.

A fight over Harrold’s removal has moved slowly through various courts. But prosecutors believe the 4th District’s decision Thursday ends Harrold’s many years of involvement in the case.

Harrold says prosecutors sought her removal because she had come too close to getting Maniscalco acquitted. Maniscalco, who was a close friend of Harrold’s before his arrest, argues that he has a right to her as the counsel of his choice.

But prosecutors disagreed.

“We were being held hostage by Joanne Harrold’s health problems,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard M. King, who is prosecuting both Maniscalco and Duffy.

Justice Thomas F. Crosby, who wrote the unanimous appellate opinion, said O’Leary had no choice but to remove Harrold.

“There was no assurance she would follow her physician’s advice--she had failed once before, apparently,” Crosby wrote.

He noted that Maniscalco’s co-defendant, Duffy, has yet to make it to trial, since his attorneys want to await the outcome of Maniscalco’s trial. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against both.

But Crosby’s strongest attack came because Harrold had apparently controlled the case too closely, preventing her co-counsel, Andrew Roth, from proceeding in her absence.

“That a defense attorney in a capital case would confide her client’s life to her own imperfect and mortal memory is truly astonishing,” Crosby wrote. “Harrold appears to have unconscionably risked Maniscalco’s defense and the public’s investment in her efforts.”

Roth, also removed from the case by O’Leary, is not seeking reinstatement. Another attorney, Kurt Livesay, who will soon leave the Los Angeles district attorney’s office, has been appointed to represent Maniscalco. The issue is whether Harrold could remain as Livesay’s co-counsel.

Of special interest to prosecutors is Harrold’s own criminal case. She faces a misdemeanor charge of lying about her residency when she campaigned to retain her Municipal Court judgeship in 1982. As a result, the courts removed her from the bench and the district attorney’s office filed felony and misdemeanor charges against her. The felony charge was later dismissed.