Supreme Court of California

A conviction and death sentence are modified as to the sentence on a noncapital crime and otherwise affirmed on automatic appeal over claims of error regarding: 1) denial of a motion to dismiss the indictment; 2) excusing prospective jurors for cause over defense objections; 3) treating life- and death-leaning prospective jurors differently; 4) testimony regarding defendant's burglary adjudication; 5) restrictions on the cross-examination of a prosecution witness; 6) claims regarding defendant's statements to his grandmother; 7) instructional error; 8) a ruling against playing a videotape to the jury; 9) exclusion of other items of proposed mitigating evidence; 10) cumulative error; 11) prosecutorial misconduct; 12) the procedure for replacing an excused juror; 13) evidence and instructions regarding prior crimes; 14) a refusal to give a special age-related factor instruction; 15) a failure to instruct on the burden of proof; and 16) additional challenges to California's death penalty statute and other aspects of state law.

Appellate Information

• Decided 06/28/2007
• Published 06/28/2007

Judges

• CHIN, J.

Court

• Supreme Court of California

Counsel

• For Appellees:
  
• Paul J. Spiegelman, under appointment by the Supreme Court, San Diego, for Defendant and Appellant., Bill Lockyer and Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorneys General, Robert R. Anderson, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Pamela C. Hamanaka, Assistant Attorney General, Keith H. Borjon, Michael J. Wise, John R. Gorey and Sharlene A. Honnaka, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.