Opinion ID: 1374541
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Guilt Phase Defense

Text: Appellant testified in his own behalf. Though denying participation in the murders, he admitted most of the events of December 20 and 21 testified to by Klaess. Thus, he admitted the following: On December 20, he and Klaess, while hitchhiking from West Sacramento to Richmond, robbed the driver who picked them up in Davis of both his wallet and his pickup truck, which they abandoned in Richmond. Next day appellant obtained a temporary driver's license under a false name, and he and Klaess absconded with the two used cars in Vallejo. They drove in the stolen Camaro to San Francisco, where appellant robbed a resident at the latter's front door. They committed the robbery against the woman hitchhiker in San Rafael. Appellant testified, however, that the weapon he used in the robberies was a .38 caliber handgun belonging to Klaess, which she kept in her purse, and which he returned to her after each robbery. He denied owning a handgun at that time and denied recognizing exhibit 6, the .22 caliber revolver found at the crime scene. Appellant also described his visit, along with Klaess, to the home of Jeri Engel in Crockett late in the evening of December 21. The most important difference between his account of that visit and that of the prosecution witnesses was his testimony that he and Klaess departed Crockett for West Sacramento at 1:30 a.m. rather than at 2:30 a.m. To corroborate his version of the time, he called two witnesses who testified to seeing him and Engel at the bar in Crockett no later than midnight. He also called Wanda Hawthorne, who testified that she and a friend were driving from San Francisco to Sacramento that night and noticed a brown Camaro, with driver and one passenger, which followed the Hawthorne car between Vacaville and Davis. She stated she first noticed the Camaro about 2 a.m., but also testified that she left San Francisco at 1:30 a.m. and arrived at her friend's home in Sacramento about 3:45 a.m. Appellant testified that he and Klaess drove from Crockett to West Sacramento without incident, thus contradicting Klaess's testimony of their being stopped by the highway patrol. He further testified as follows: He parked the Camaro two or three blocks from the Bel Air Motel, intending to abandon it, with the keys left in the ignition switch. Klaess demanded that instead of returning to their motel room they find some more cocaine. Appellant refused, and Klaess drove off in the Camaro while he returned to the motel on foot. When he awoke next morning about 7:30, he saw Klaess in the motel room. There was mud and a pair of dirty pants in the bathroom. Klaess acted nervous and said that appellant would have to say she was with him all night. When asked why, she said she had been with some people, and added, I can't tell you, they'll kill me. Appellant admitted that the temporary driver's license found at the scene of the crime was the one he had obtained in Vallejo on December 21. He asserted, however, that because he had no wallet, the license was kept in Klaess's purse. He said that when he found Klaess in the motel room on awakening the next morning, that purse, as well as a coat and sweater she had worn the day before, were missing. Appellant denied wearing Lee brand pants on the trip from Crockett. He said he had one pair of such pants and had put them in the dirty clothes bag several days earlier. He could not explain the blood on them. He also denied wearing his Famolare shoes (consistent with footprints found at the crime scene) on that day. Appellant also denied making statements threatening the police or expressing hostility toward police. He denied the presence of any shotgun in the car during the Sacramento traffic stop at which a prosecution witness said he had reached for a shotgun in the back seat. He freely admitted other details of the stop. Militating against the credibility of Klaess was evidence that her testimony was being given under a plea bargain with the district attorney. In exchange for her testifying truthfully against appellant and pleading guilty to being an accessory after the fact to the murders (§ 32), thus exposing herself to a maximum prison sentence of three years (§§ 18, 33), she was given immunity from prosecution not only for the murders themselves but also for all crimes preceding the murders. Moreover, while in jail after her arrest and before deciding to give information against appellant to the authorities, she received a misdirected letter, written by appellant but addressed to another woman with whom appellant was romantically involved. She reacted with anger and jealousy and with a disinclination to stick up for him any further. Klaess admittedly hated police officers and had expressed those feelings to appellant, though he never heard her threaten to kill them. She was acquainted with one Robert Sanchez, who at the time of the killings had acquired a white Ford Galaxy. A number of motorists testified, both for the defense and in prosecution rebuttal, concerning their observations of a California Highway Patrol car parked alongside the freeway at the time and place of the killings. One such witness said that a light-colored car that could have been a Ford Galaxy was parked near the patrol car; two others said they had seen what might have been a light-colored Ford Fairlane; still another claimed to have seen a white Nova. Those four witnesses were outnumbered, however, by others who testified that the patrol car was accompanied by various vehicles of entirely different descriptions.