Supreme Court to Decide if Photo Tainted Case

The California Supreme Court has said it will review whether a Newport Beach woman’s murder conviction should be reversed over the prosecution’s use of a gruesome crime scene photo during her trial.

Nanette Scheid was one of three people convicted of first-degree murder in the 1988 shooting death of a 60-year-old Anaheim woman. The victim’s husband, who had allowed the three into his home in the belief they wanted to buy his Corvette, was paralyzed in the attack.

The Supreme Court review was announced earlier this week, nearly three months after the 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana overturned Scheid’s conviction--for a second time.

By a 2-1 vote, the appellate court said jurors should not have been shown a gruesome photo of the crime scene, since the shooting occurred after Scheid had left the house.

The court said the photo of the bloody crime scene, which is described as “ghastly,” was merely used to “prejudice the defense case.”

“The photograph had nothing to do with the issue in the case . . . whether Scheid was a co-conspirator in a burglary-robbery or a dupe,” the court wrote.

The state attorney general’s office sought the Supreme Court review, arguing that any error in using the photo was harmless and insufficient grounds for reversal.

Orange County Deputy Dist. Atty. Bryan Brown said the office is prepared to retry Scheid if necessary.

This is not the first time Scheid’s conviction has been overturned.

In 1993, the 4th District Court reversed Scheid’s original murder conviction, saying she should have received a trial separate from co-defendants Robert “T-Bone” Taylor and James Norman Dewitt.

Taylor, the triggerman, was convicted and sent to death row, while Dewitt received a sentence of life in prison without parole.

In 1994, a second jury again convicted Scheid of murder, and she was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.

During her trials, Scheid claimed she had no idea her boyfriend planned a robbery. Prosecutors alleged she was a willing participant in the robbery, and thus responsible for murder under California law.

Ryoko Hanano was found shot to death July 10, 1988, in the bedroom of her Nutwood Avenue home. She had been handcuffed to her husband, Kazumi Hanano, who had also been shot. The killers had covered the couple’s heads with a mattress to muffle the sound of the shots.

Kazumi Hanano, who was left paralyzed from the chest down, lay there unable to move until their son discovered the scene about six hours later.

The killers left in the couple’s $20,000 Corvette.

The husband had testified that Scheid had come to the house early in the evening to test-drive the Corvette. She returned with Taylor and Dewitt two hours later. He testified that the two men appeared so disheveled that he would not have let them into his house but that he did so because he trusted Scheid.