Several witnesses testified that they had seen Diggs in the bar that night and that he had left sometime after 11:30. A waitress at Neptune’s Table testified that she left work around 11:30 on the night in question and stood under a bright streetlight outside waiting for her husband to pick her up. She had been standing there for about 15 minutes when appellant passed her, walking toward the bar, looking angry and upset. Ten or fifteen minutes later, she saw him again on the wharf, this time walking quickly and then breaking into a run.
Diggs offered an alibi defense, claiming that he left Neptune’s Table at 10:45 and denying that he attacked Susan. The defense was based on the testimony of several witnesses, including Diggs, his girl friend Cassie Reed, their friend Samantha Ryan, the bartender at Angelo’s, another local bar, and two customers at Neptune’s Table with whom Diggs had been conversing. The defense version of the evening’s events went something like this: Diggs left Neptune’s Table at 10:45 to meet Reed at Angelo’s. He arrived there sometime before 11 and left shortly thereafter in the company of Reed. He and Reed went for a short walk on the wharf, then drove in Reed’s car to Flora’s, another bar, where they were to meet Ryan. Instead of going inside, however, Diggs and Reed remained in the car, talking for about half an hour. Finally, around midnight, Diggs asked Reed to take him back to the wharf. She did so. When she returned to Flora’s and met Ryan at approximately 12:10, she mentioned that she had just dropped him off.
Diggs walked a short distance up the beach and went to sleep in a grove of eucalyptus trees. He decided not to return to his motel in Seaside (although when first arrested he told police that was what he’d done) because he had to be at work on a fishing boat docked in Monterey in a few hours.
Defense witnesses testified that they had never known Diggs to wear tennis shoes. Diggs and Reed testified that he was wearing boots that night. Reed stated that Diggs smelled strongly of fish much of the time and that he does not wear aftershave or similar preparations. Susan had mentioned that her assailant smelled of something “sweet,” and denied that he smelled of fish.
Early in the morning on the last day of trial, Diggs’ jury retired to deliberate. At the end of the day, the jury members returned to inform the court that they were unable to reach a verdict.