Thomas Maniscalco v. A. M. Gonzales

ORDER and MEMORANDUM

As the California Court of Appeal decision sets, out in detail, Maniscalco murdered three people. An immunized accomplice testified that the murders arose from the methamphetamine dealings of a motorcycle gang. The facts and the witnesses were bizarre, contradictory, and confusing. The most troublesome issues, at this state of the case, are the extraordinary delays in the proceedings. ■ •

This is an appeal of a denial of a federal habeas corpus petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 , after final judgment affirming the convictions in the state court. The limitations of our authority under § 2254 control the outcome. Unfortunately,. the issues are obscured by the length of Maniscalco’s submissions, a 141 page brief shortened on our order to 117 pages but still more than twice the number of words permitted by the rules, and ten volumes (2,033 pages) of excerpts of record compounded by 179 volumes, 14 boxes, of district, court record. The failure of Maniscalco to state his case concisely increases the risk that we may miss something important and consequently err, but we have done our best to wade through all this material. We decide this case by memorandum…