06 May 2021 :
Sandi Dawn Nieves' death sentence overturned.
The California Supreme Court Monday reversed Sandi Dawn Nieves' death sentence for murdering her 4 young daughters in an arson fire at the family's home more than 2 decades ago.
The court found the trial judge's behavior improper. Nieves, now 57, White, was sentenced to death in 2000 over the 1998 murders of her four young daughters and the attempted murder of her son. On Monday, California's highest court overturned the sentence, but not the verdict, citing 'misconduct' by the trial court.The court said that the trial judge openly doubted the credibility of one defense expert by remarking on the possibility that he 'just doesn't know what he's talking about'.
Nieves called firefighters July 1, 1998, to report that her house was on fire. The blaze was out by the time they arrived, and they found her sitting in the living room with her 14-year-old son, covered in soot. Her four daughters, Jaqlene Marie Folden, 5, Kristl Dawn Folden, 7, Rashel Hollie Nieves, 11, and Nikolet Amber Nieves, 12, were lying on sleeping bags in the kitchen, all dead of smoke inhalation. Gasoline had been poured and ignited in the hallway and bedrooms, and the oven was open with burned items inside. Her son and two oldest daughters were from her first marriage, the two younger girls from her second, and a third man had just broken up with her for the second time after learning she was pregnant. She had threatened suicide and had an abortion a week before the fire.
"Although we conclude that the court's misconduct could not have altered the jury's guilt determination, we are unable to reach that conclusion regarding the penalty trial, thus finding prejudicial misconduct that requires reversal of the penalty judgment," Chief Justice Tani Gorre Cantil-Sakauye wrote on behalf of the panel in its unanimous ruling. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge L. Jeffrey Wiatt made "inappropriately disparaging and sarcastic remarks to defense counsel, impugning his performance, chastising him for improper behavior, and sanctioning and citing him for contempt in front of the jury," according to the panel's 143-page ruling. Judge Wiatt killed himself in 2005 after he was questioned by detectives on an unrelated matter. "The trial judge also directed improper comments and questions to witnesses, openly doubting the credibility of one defense expert by asking argumentative and hostile questions and remarking on the possibility that another defense expert `just doesn't know what he's talking about.' ... In the penalty phase, the trial judge needlessly reprimanded and belittled a lay witness who testified for the defense," according to the ruling.
"The evidence that defendant deliberately set a fire to kill her family included testimony that she planned ahead to compel her children (to) sleep together on the kitchen floor, wrote letters indicating that she intended to kill herself and her children, drove to the post office to mail her letters, and intentionally poured and lit gasoline throughout the house," according to the California Supreme Court's ruling. Nieves was one of 23 women on California’s death row and is housed at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla. There are 682 men on the nation’s largest death row, though California has not executed anyone since 2006 and Gov. Gavin Newsom has imposed a moratorium.
