Woman’s Murder Conviction Reinstated

The state Supreme Court on Thursday reinstated the murder conviction of Nanette Scheid, reversing a 1996 appellate court ruling that said jurors were unfairly influenced by a gruesome photograph of the crime scene when they voted to convict her.

Scheid, 34, was a Newport Beach resident in 1988 when she was an accomplice in the shooting death of Ryoko Hanano, 60, and the wounding of Hanano’s husband, Kazumi, in their Anaheim home. Kazumi Hanano was left paralyzed by the shooting.

Scheid’s co-defendants, Robert C. Taylor of Sunset Beach and Norman J. Dewitt of Cypress, were convicted of murder, attempted murder, robbery and burglary. Taylor, 45, was sentenced to death, and Dewitt, 35, received life in prison without parole.

Scheid was initially convicted in 1992 of one count of first-degree murder, two counts of robbery and a single count of burglary. She was sentenced to prison for 26 years to life, but the conviction was overturned on appeal in 1993 on grounds that she should have been tried separately from Taylor and Dewitt.

In a 1994 retrial, she was again convicted on the same counts, but the conviction was overturned by the 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana on grounds that the trial judge improperly allowed jurors to view a bloody photograph of the crime scene.

That appellate ruling was reversed Thursday, and Scheid’s 1994 conviction stands.