Stanley Williams v. Jeanne Woodford, Warden, California State Prison, San Quentin

Stanley Williams, a prisoner on California’s death row, appeals the district court’s denial of his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 habeas corpus petition challenging his 1981 conviction of multiple counts of first-degree murder and armed robbery and his sentence of death. Williams also appeals the district court’s denial of his motion, made under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b), for relief from the court’s judgment denying his habeas corpus petition. For the rea sons set forth below, we affirm the district court’s denial of Williams’s habeas corpus petition, and we vacate the district court’s order denying Williams’s Rule 60(b) motion because the district court lacked jurisdiction to consider the motion.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY I. The Trial.

On May 3, 1979, the state of California charged Williams with four counts of first-degree murder, three counts of robbery with the use of a firearm, one count of kidnapping, and eight special circumstances of robbery-murder and multiple murder. Williams’s trial commenced on February 10, 1981. We respectfully take the following account of the trial, in large part, from the California Supreme Court decision in People v. Williams, 44 Cal.3d 1127 ,…