Defendant was convicted of the burglary, robbery, and hatchet murder of a friend by the Superior Court County of Los Angeles (California) and sentenced to death. He was entitled to an automatic appeal.
Defendant was sentenced to death for the hatchet murder of a woman who took him into her home but later became afraid and asked him to leave. He returned to the home, murdering her under the special circumstances of felony murder-robbery and felony murder-burglary. Both sides relied on guilt phase evidence in the penalty phase. The evidence included a confession and testimony employment attorney riverside of the woman's husband and daughter about her fear. In his automatic appeal, he challenged denial of his request to conduct death penalty voir dire in sequestration and failure to instruct the jury on lesser-included offenses. He challenged testimony about his wanting riches without working and about the victim's fears, as irrelevant and prejudicial. He claimed ineffective assistance of counsel on several counts. The court affirmed, holding defendant had not been prejudiced at trial and the trial court had not erred or abused its discretion.
The court affirmed defendant's convictions and death sentence.
The Sacramento County Superior Court, California, found defendant guilty of first degree murder and found true the special circumstance that the murder occurred during the commission of a robbery. Defendant was sentenced to death. His appeal was automatic.
Defendant raised several issues on review. The supreme court found the trial court did not err in denying defendant's challenges of four prospective jurors for cause as they did not sit on defendant's jury; thus he could not show prejudice. Although defendant exhausted his peremptory challenges to exclude these jurors, no reversible error occurred. Denial of defendant's motion for mistrial was proper as he failed to demonstrate a prima facie case of group bias as to the jurors the State peremptorily challenged. Defendant could not show the trial court's failure to allow additional peremptory challenges caused him to receive an unfair trial because he did not challenge any sitting juror for cause. Contrary to defendant's assertion, California law did not force capital defendants to mention their criminal history during voir dire; to do so was a tactical decision left to counsel. By refusing to empanel separate guilt and penalty phase juries, the trial court did not deny defendant due process. The trial court properly exercised its discretion to admit defendant's conduct against another victim in a prior incident in order to show his intent to rob the victim in the instant case.
The judgment was affirmed.
