Release of Inmate in Drunk-Driving Deaths Opposed : Courts: The D.A. wants Diane Mannes held pending a ruling on a possible murder trial. But her attorney says that could take a year.

Diane Mannes, who struck and killed three young men while driving drunk on the Conejo Grade 2 1/2 years ago, is scheduled to be released from prison Oct. 29.

But the Ventura County district attorney’s office on Tuesday asked a Superior Court judge to keep Mannes in custody until a federal appeals court decides whether she can be retried for murder.

“We want her in custody,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Donald C. Glynn, the prosecutor at Mannes’ first trial in November, 1989. Deputy Public Defender Neil B. Quinn said he will oppose the move, and Superior Court Judge James M. McNally scheduled a hearing for Friday.

The effort to keep Mannes in custody is the latest round in a long-running crusade aimed at convicting Mannes of murder in the deaths of Scott Mullins, 20, of Mansfield, Ohio, and Jacob Boyd, 14, and Joshua Oxenreider, 29, both of Camarillo.

According to testimony at her first trial, Mannes had a blood alcohol level of 0.20%, twice the legal limit at the time, when she careened into five youths who were walking from their disabled car on March 31, 1989. The night before, she had been arrested on drunk-driving charges in Los Angeles.

The jury at Mannes’ first trial deadlocked on whether Mannes’ conduct warranted a second-degree murder conviction. But the jurors agreed that Mannes was guilty of causing great bodily injury to the two youths who survived. Judge Robert J. Soares, who has since retired, sentenced her to four years in prison.

But rather than set a new trial on the murder charge, Soares dismissed it, saying he did not believe that there was sufficient evidence of malice to sustain a murder conviction. When Glynn refiled the murder charge, Quinn and Deputy Public Defender Robert Dahlstedt argued that Soares had, in effect, acquitted Mannes, and insisted that she could not be retried for murder.

The defense attorneys lost in Superior Court, the state Court of Appeal and the state Supreme Court, but in February they prevailed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. Judge A. Wallace Tashima granted a writ of habeas corpus “forever prohibiting the retrial” of Mannes for murder in the three deaths.

Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury has taken the case to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and has vowed to go to the U.S. Supreme Court, if necessary, for the right to retry Mannes for murder.

Meanwhile, Mannes, 33, is due to be released in less than two weeks from the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla, which is near Fresno. Her four-year prison term was shortened with time off for good behavior.

Under the order requested by prosecutor Glynn, she would be transferred immediately to Ventura County Jail with bail set at $250,000, the standard amount in a murder case.

But Quinn argued that it is not fair to hold Mannes in custody while the courts decide whether she can be retried for murder--especially since she prevailed in the federal District Court. If both sides use all their appeal rights, it could be a year or more before the retrial issue is finally resolved, Quinn said.

“They want to act as if the District Court’s judgment does not exist,” he said. Although the court ruling is being appealed, he said, a federal court rule holds that Mannes should be released pending resolution of the case.

He added that Mannes, a former bookkeeper from Somis who had no prior criminal record, would normally be released on her promise to appear in court. Quinn also argued that Mannes will be reporting to a parole officer and will be monitored for alcohol use, and that she presents no danger to the public.

If Mannes is retried and convicted of murder or a lesser homicide charge, the sentencing judge will decide how much additional time, if any, she should serve. The maximum penalty for second-degree murder is 15 years to life, while vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated carries a maximum term of four years.

After the accident, Mannes was willing to plead guilty to vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, her attorneys said. Quinn said the offer was renewed most recently in March, before the district attorney’s office decided to appeal the federal judge’s ruling.

Now, Quinn said, “all bets are off. We believe that by their actions, they have forfeited the right to prosecute her for any other offense arising out of that accident.”