Supreme Court of California

A conviction and death sentence for the attempted forcible rape and first degree murders of two women is affirmed on automatic appeal over claims of error regarding: 1) the sufficiency of the appellate record; 2) a denial of a pretrial motion to exclude defendant's confessions; 3) various evidentiary rulings; 4) the sufficiency of the evidence; 5) jury instructions; 6) a special circumstance finding based on attempted rape; 7) prosecutorial misconduct; 8) juror misconduct; 9) a denial of his right to counsel based on a conflict of interest; 10) an inadequate investigation by the trial court of the conflict of interest and juror misconduct; 11) defendant's absence from certain meetings between defense counsel and the trial court; 12) defendant's competency to proceed with the penalty phase; 13) evidentiary rulings at the penalty phase; 14) penalty phase jury instructions; 15) penalty phase prosecutorial misconduct; 16) the constitutionality of California's death penalty statute; and 17) cumulative error.

Appellate Information

• Decided 04/03/2008
• Published 04/03/2008

Judges

• GEORGE, C.J.

Court

• Supreme Court of California

Counsel

• For Appellees:
  
• Lynn S. Coffin and Michael J. Hersek, State Public Defenders, under appointments by the Supreme Court, and Denise Anton, Deputy State Public Defender, for Defendant and Appellant., Bill Lockyer and Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorneys General, Robert R. Anderson, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Mary Jo Graves and Michael P. Farrell, Assistant Attorneys General, and Patrick J. Whalen, Deputy Attorney General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.