Opinion ID: 2551468
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 17

Heading: Delay in Presenting Evidence of Casas Killing

Text: As stated ante, 96 Cal.Rptr.2d at page 725, 1 P.3d at page 42, John Casas was killed in 1980. Defendant claims that failing to try him at the time and presenting evidence of the killing eight years later violated his rights under the Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, and article I, section 15 of the California Constitution. He asserts that because an exculpatory witness was lost in the interim and he suffered other disadvantages through the passage of time, the law invalidly required him to defend against stale acts. ( People v. Stanley (1995) 10 Cal.4th 764, 822, 42 Cal.Rptr.2d 543, 897 P.2d 481.) At oral argument, his counsel emphasized the evidence's probable severe impact: the prosecution was presenting the jury with evidence suggesting that, as someone who had already murdered while in prison, he was highly unsuitable for life imprisonment. Nevertheless, we have repeatedly rejected this claim. (Ibid.) We decline to reconsider our prior decisions.