Supreme Court of California

Conviction and death sentence for sexually assaulting and murdering 78-year-old woman in her home, is affirmed in its entirety over claims that: 1) the trial court erroneously excused a prospective juror for cause based on her death penalty views in violation of the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the federal Constitution; 2) the prosecutor violated defendant's state and federal constitutional rights to equal protection and a jury drawn from a fair cross-section of the community by peremptorily excusing two African American prospective jurors; 3) the trial court erred in denying his severance motion; 4) the trial court erred in admitting evidence of the four burglaries committed after the homicide to show he entered the murder victim's home with the intent to steal, Evid. Code section 1101(b); 5) reversal is required because the trial court's instructions under CALJIC Nos. 2.01, 2.21.l, 2.21.2, 2.22, 2.27, 2.51, and 8.83 effectively reduced the prosecution's burden of proving his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt; 6) his death sentence violates the Eighth Amendment's proportionality requirement and international law because the prosecution was not required to prove he had a "culpable state of mind" with regard to the homicide; 7) photos were unduly prejudicial and beyond the scope of permissible victim impact evidence; 8) under Cunningham v. California (2007) 549 U.S. 270, imposition of this determinate sentence violated his Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial; 9) California’s death penalty law and its application to his case violate the Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments; 10) the cumulative effect of the asserted errors in his case requires reversal.

Appellate Information

• Decided 06/08/2015
• Published 06/08/2015

Judges

Court

• Supreme Court of California

Counsel