In Re Bell

Petitioner Ronald Lee Bell is under sentence of death for the 1978 murder of Raymond Murphy during a robbery of Wolff’s Jewelry Store in Richmond. This court affirmed petitioner’s convictions and death sentence on automatic appeal (People v. Bell (1989) 49 Cal.3d 502 [ 262 Cal.Rptr. 1 , 778 P.2d 129 ]) and denied previous petitions for writs of habeas corpus in 1990 and 1995.

The present petition was filed on April 2, 2002. On February 19, 2003, we issued an order to show cause on claim B of the petition, which asserted that petitioner is actually innocent of the robbery murder and that petitioner’s brother, Larry Bell, was the actual perpetrator, and on claim C, which asserted that the prosecution introduced at trial false identification testimony from eyewitnesses Ernestine Jackson, Ruby Judge, and Dorothy Dorton. After we directed the Presiding Judge of the Contra Costa County Superior Court to select a judge to serve as a referee at an evidentiary hearing, we appointed the Honorable Thomas M. Maddock as our referee to take evidence and make findings of fact onspecified allegations.

On December 11, 2006, the referee’s report was filed in this court. The referee…