Supreme Court of California

A conviction and death sentence for first-degree murder are affirmed on automatic appeal over claims of error regarding: 1) a standard instruction covering use of a defendant's flight as evidence of guilt; 2) a consciousness of guilt instruction; 3) the lying-in-wait special circumstance; 4) prosecutorial misconduct; 5) a circumstantial evidence instruction; 6) a failure to strike jurors for cause; 7) Wheeler/Batson motions; 8) a failure to inquire into and discharge a juror for sleeping; 9) admission of victim photographs; 10) admission of hearsay evidence of another plot; 11) refusal of a lingering doubt instruction; 12) the constitutionality of California's death penalty; and 13) cumulative prejudice from the errors.

Appellate Information

• Decided 06/18/2007
• Published 06/18/2007

Judges

• WERDEGAR, J.

Court

• Supreme Court of California

Counsel

• For Appellees:
  
• David A. Nickerson, San Rafael, under appointment by the Supreme Court, for Defendant and Appellant., Bill Lockyer and Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorneys General, Robert R. Anderson, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Gerald A. Engler, Assistant Attorney General, Ronald S. Matthias and Bruce Ortega, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.