Death sentence reversed for mom who killed 4 children

A woman convicted of murdering her four children when she set fire to their Santa Clarita home more than 20 years ago had her death sentence reversed Monday but her first-degree murder convictions upheld by a unanimous California Supreme Court that ruled a pattern of judicial misconduct tilted the jury in the prosecution's favor.

The court's 146-page opinion by Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye concluded that Sandi Dawn Nieves deserves a new penalty determination because the late Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge L. Jeffrey Wiatt gave jurors the impression that he favored the prosecution when he routinely disparaged defense counsel and defense witnesses.

The high court held that Wiatt improperly sanctioned and cited Deputy Public Defender Howard Waco for contempt in an open court setting, doubted the credibility of one defense expert "who just doesn't know what he's talking about" and needlessly reprimanded and belittled another lay witness who testified for the defense. The court said the judge also told Waco he was wasting the court's time and asked "ridiculous" and "nonsensical" questions that inconvenienced the jury. People v. Nieves, 2021 DJDAR 4290 (Cal. May 3, 2021)).

"Ultimately, the trial judge's conspicuous disdain for defense counsel and witnesses, and his repeated references to their improper or untrustworthy conduct, lent credence to the prosecution's argument that defendant was manipulative and deceitful," Cantil-Sakauye wrote. "These were the very characteristics the prosecution highlighted to justify the death penalty."

Without Wiatt's remarks, "a juror might have viewed these circumstances with greater sympathy and concluded the crime was a tragedy lacking the moral culpability to warrant death," she wrote.

The chief justice concluded that Wiatt also committed several other errors in the guilt phase of the trial, including wrongly excluding a psychologist from testifying about Nieves' mental state and instructing the jury that Nieves concealed material related to defense experts and lay witnesses. But she said those errors did not rise to the level of warranting reversal of Nieves' convictions.

In a phone interview Monday, Amitai Schwartz, a sole practitioner in Emeryville who represented Nieves in challenging her conviction, said he is "pleased that the court recognized that regardless of what a defendant is accused of, they're entitled to a fair trial by a fair judge."

"I think what the court's doing here is sending a message, and the message has to do with how judges comport themselves in these kinds of cases," Schwartz said.

But he said he disagrees with the court's reasoning that Wiatt's misconduct only prejudiced the penalty phase of the trial.

"We argued that the judge was biased both at the guilt phase and in the penalty phase and that judicial misconduct occurred at both phases," Schwartz said. "So I think the court was, because death is different, I think the court was willing to find that you couldn't send somebody to die based on these kinds of facts. But with regard to guilt, I think the court weighed the underlying evidence and was reluctant and unwilling to reverse due to the same misconduct."

Prosecutors in Los Angeles County can seek a new death penalty trial or agree to re-sentence Nieves to life in prison without the possibility of parole. However, because District Attorney George Gascon opposes the death penalty and life without the possibility of parole, it's unclear how he will proceed. Gascon's representatives did not respond to a request for comment Monday.

Schwartz said a retrial would present significant challenges because of the age of the case.

"She'll need a new lawyer because the original trial lawyer is dead and the judge is dead," Schwartz said. "One of the prosecutors is retired. I don't know about the other one. The trial in this case occurred 21 years ago. It's going to be hard to find witnesses, and so whatever happens, it's going to be a long way off."

Nieves was convicted in 1998 of first-degree murder for killing her daughters Nikolet Amber Nieves, Rashel Hollie Nieves, Kristl Dawn Folden and Jaqlene Marie and attempting to murder her son, F.D.

Her daughters died from inhaling soot, smoke and carbon dioxide after Nieves set fires around the house with gasoline and told them to get in sleeping bags and lie on the kitchen floor for a slumber party, records show.

At trial, her son testified that when the children resisted, Nieves told them to breathe into their pillows and stay put because the fire could be coming from outside. The jury found true the special circumstance allegations that she committed the murders while lying in wait and while engaged in the crime of arson.

A former prosecutor, Wiatt committed suicide in 2005 after authorities contacted him about an allegation that he had molested a child. His name gained attention in the 1980s when he presided over the penalty case of Kenneth Earl Gay, whose death sentence for killing a Los Angeles police officer three decades ago has been twice overturned by the California Supreme Court due to his defense attorney's ineffective representation.

Gascon announced earlier this year that he would not seek the death penalty against Gay during a new trial, an indication that the death penalty will not be on the table for Nieves.

A representative of Attorney General Rob Bonta, whose office urged the high court to uphold Nieves' death sentence during oral argument in February, said he is reviewing the decision.