Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Dansby Appeal Denied

William McLean, the attorney for Joe Louis Dansby, took extreme measures for his client by filing a writ of error coram nobis in the Nevada County Circuit Court.

However, the court denied the petition and Dansby remains on death row, awaiting execution after being convicted of killing Jeff Lewis and Malissa Clark on May 16, 1992.

Coram nobis is Latin for "our court, in our presence or before us" and is known more for being denied than being accepted.

The writ of coram nobis addressed the court where the injustice has allegedly been done, instead of an appellate or other court. The writ, under Black's Law Dictionary, is allowed only under compelling circumstances to achieve justice and address errors of the most fundamental nature.

In Pitt v. State, it was found the writ of coram nobis as available to address certain errors found in one of four categories: insanity at the time of trial; a coerced guilty plea; material evidence withheld by the prosecutor; or a third-party confession to the crime during the time between conviction and appeal.

The petitioner, Dansby in this case, is entitled to relief as a result of evidence being withheld by the prosecutor if they can demonstrate there is a reasonable probability the guilty conviction wouldn't have been rendered or would have been prevented had the evidence been disclosed during the trial.

The claim of newly discovered evidence, such as was made by McLean, is not a basis for relief under coram nobis, as such cases are attended by the presumption the judgment of conviction is valid.

According to court records, after reviewing the petition, it didn't find the petitioner was diligent in advancing the issue raised in the petition or there was any good cause to grant a writ of error coram nobis in this court.

Dansby claimed entitlement to relief on the ground two people, Wayne Mills and Larry Byers, have provided by affidavit exculpatory information not available to trial counsel even had his attorneys sought the information with due diligence.

The background information, begins with the murder of Clark and Lewis. The two left Clark's home on May 16, 1992, to ride Lewis's all-terrain vehicle.

The next morning her parents learned she hadn't been home all night. Law enforcement authorities were notified and a search for the two began.

By noon several pieces of possible evidence had been found, including a pair of pink panties, blood-stained gym shorts, weight-lifting gloves, part of a gun rack and several expended .22 caliber shell casings. These items were found in a rural area of Nevada County, designated as crime scene 1.

The bodies were found later in the day several miles away at what was designated crime scene 2.

Both had died from multiple gunshot wounds from a .22 rifle.

Once Dansby became a suspect, he consented to a search of his property for .22 casings, but none was found during the first search. A later search turned up four .22 casings, matching those found at both crime scenes. One was found on Dansby's back porch, with the other three being found in the yard.

A DNA test was done by the FBI and a private testing lab. The results indicated semen taken from Clark matched Dansby's DNA.

Danbsy's wife, Betty, and a prisoner in jail with him at the time, claimed he admitted to killing the two.

Mills, in his affidavit, claimed when the crimes occurred he was living on a gravel road, presumably, according to the records, in the area where the victims lived or the bodies were found.

At 10:30 a.m., May 17, 1992, the affidavit states, he saw a pickup go down the road with Harley Hillary in the passenger's seat. Hillary was Clark's stepfather and the criminal investigator with the Nevada County Sheriff's Office at the time.

Mills said the truck went up the road and 10 minutes later returned. Shortly thereafter Mills left for work on his bicycle. About a mile from his house he found a paper bag he assumed had been thrown from the truck as there was no other traffic on the road and the bag was dry, in spite of an early morning rain shower and dew being on the ground.The bag, Mills wrote in his affidavit, contained a pair of gray jogging shorts, a pair of white panties, several candy bar wrappers and cigarette butts, a torn picture of Clark and Lewis with a girl Mills didn't recognize, a new testament, a diary and metal key.

Mills took the Bible and diary from the bag, hiding them across the road under a tree so he could look at them later.

When he was headed home around 5:30 p.m., Mills saw a man he didn't know with the bag. Mills went home, going back around 6 o'clock to the tree where the diary and Bible had been hidden, taking them to his house.

The diary, he swore in the affidavit, had been cut with a knife and contained allegations about relations between Clark and Hillary, with several pages having been removed. He also said he misplaced the diary.

Mills said he didn't come forward with the evidence sooner because he feared for his life, but didn't say who he was afraid of or why he should be afraid.

Dansby's contention is if Mills is telling the truth about the bag's contents it would have been crucial to his defense in the pretrial investigation and would have impeached the state's investigation.

However, Dansby's motion does not say the state knew about Mills or the evidence, only that it was valuable to his defense and couldn't have been discovered by his attorneys at the time of the trial no matter what they did.

In Byers's affidavit, he states before the victims were found, he (Byers) went to Hillary's house to join in the search.

While there, he said, a neighbor came by with the the aforementioned items, telling Hillary they had been found on an old logging road.

Byers and Hillary went to the area later called crime scene 1, where Byers saw about seven .22 shell casings lying together in a small group. He claimed Hillary picked a casing up and put it back down.

Near the casings, the two found a checkbook belonging to Lewis, along with a pair of sunglasses and an item of blood-soaked material in the grass.

According to Byers's affidavit, he pointed a footprint out to Hillary, but Hillary wasn't "well focused."

Byers claimed crime scene 1 wasn't properly sealed off so a proper investigation could be done.

Byers also saw a pair of women's panties, claiming Hillary picked up the bloody item and placed it in a sack, which was put in his car.

The affidavit, the court states, didn't say exactly what was placed in the bag other than the bloody item, even though there were references to more than one thing being put in the sack.

Byers claimed Hillary told him the information he had about the items collected and what he'd seen at crime scene 1 wasn't needed.

Dansby alleges the information Byers had about what happened at the first crime scene was withheld from the defense by agents of the state, and testimony at the trial, with information provided by the state, indicated fewer shells were found than Byers described, and in a different location and configuration.

The petition asserts had the casings been found as Byers said, the perpetrator had used a pistol instead of a rifle as the state claimed, and dumped the shells on the ground from a cylinder chamber.

The court states there is a distinction between fundamental error and newly discovered evidence.

Before a writ of coram nobis may be issued, it must appear the facts as alleged as grounds for issuance are such that there is a reasonable probability the judgment wouldn't have been rendered, had the evidence been presented at the trial.

But, the court states, the information in the affidavits is not of such a fundamental nature that is can be said there is a reasonable probability Dansby would have been found guilty anyway, especially in the view of the forensic evidence, including the DNA testing, along with Dansby reportedly telling two people he did it.

Because of this, the court denied the coram nobis petition, with Dansby remaining on death row.