Supreme Court of California

On automatic appeal for a sentence of death, the judgment is affirmed over claims of error regarding: 1) the prosecution's use of peremptory challenges to excuse any prospective juror who expressed reservations about the death penalty and religious affiliation; 2) the excusal of jurors for cause who stated that they could not impose the death penalty; 3) a denial to excuse a potential juror who revealed she would vote automatically for death; 4) an affidavit submitted for a warrant; 5) suppression of a post-arrest statement arising from an unnecessary delay in his arraignment; 6) whether the post-arrest statement should have been excluded because it was involuntary; 7) due process and right to counsel violations arising from relieving the public defender based on a conflict; 8) application of Proposition 115 to defendant's case; 9) admission and exclusion of certain evidence; 10) a prosecutorial decision involving a witness; 11) prosecutorial misconduct in presenting inconsistent theories; 12) sufficiency of evidence regarding lewd conduct; 13) erroneous instruction on sodomy as a basis for felony murder; 14) references to innocence in CALJIC Nos. 1.01, 2.01, 2.51 and 2.52; 15) cumulative effect of guilty phase errors; 16) double counting of special circumstances and consideration of sodomy special circumstance; 17) several evidentiary rulings; 18) denial of motion for modification of death verdict; 19) intercase proportionality; 20) instructional error; 21) challenges to the death penalty statute; 22) international law; 23) prosecution delay; 24) missing transcripts; 25) cumulative error; and 26) incorporation by reference of habeas corpus petition claims. However, the case is remanded on the issue of restitution as the issue should be considered in light of the currently applicable statute.

Appellate Information

• Decided 05/22/2008
• Published 05/22/2008

Judges

• MORENO, J.

Court

• Supreme Court of California

Counsel

• For Appellees:
  
• Richard Jay Moller and Karen Kelly, under appointments by the Supreme Court, for Defendant and Appellant., Bill Lockyer and Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorneys General, Robert R. Anderson, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Mary Jo Graves, Assistant Attorney General, Louis M. Vasquez, Eric L. Christoffersen, Lloyd G. Carter and Kathleen A. McKenna, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.