Opinion ID: 2545831
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Attempted Murder of Donna Smith

Text: Over defense objection, the prosecution introduced this evidence at the penalty phase of defendant's trial: Donna Smith, a drug dealer and manufacturer, became friends with defendant in 1983. Early in their relationship, Smith and defendant were wrestling on a lawn when defendant said he wanted to fuck [Smith] just before [her] body turned cold while it was still bleeding. In early 1986, Smith was living with Carolyn Clark and Brian Magidson at Lake Tahoe. Magidson gave Smith $48,000 to keep for him while he served a prison term. Defendant knew about the money but did not know where Smith had hidden it. While Smith and defendant were away, federal Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) agents raided Smith's house. When Smith and defendant returned, Magidson's money was missing. Defendant suggested the DEA agents had taken the money. Smith told Clark she thought defendant had taken the money. Magidson blamed Smith for the loss. On March 21, 1986, defendant telephoned Smith telling her he had heard she had accused him of stealing Magidson's money. Defendant said he was going to have to whack somebody, and that she had better get the money situation straightened out so he did not have to come up [to Lake Tahoe] and put holes in people. Defendant also said he didn't want to have to come up there and shut [Smith's] mouth permanently. Shortly thereafter, Smith was arrested. Defendant wrote to her in jail, accusing her of trying to set [him] up, and stating that people [they] knew wanted Smith dead and had asked defendant to whack her. In April 1986, Smith was living at her father's house trailer in Grass Valley, near Nevada City in Nevada County. Smith arranged with the Nevada County Sheriffs Department to set defendant up. Smith telephoned defendant and asked him to drive her to New Mexico. Initially, he put[][her] off but ultimately he agreed. On April 22, defendant called Smith and said, I am coming to your Dad's, [so] make sure there is nobody around. Defendant arrived at the house trailer around 11:00 a.m., and was promptly arrested on the outstanding Butte County warrant for being a felon in possession of a concealable firearm. In defendant's car, Sheriffs deputies found several firearms, including a .22 caliber Ruger pistol equipped with a homemade silencer. When questioned after his arrest, defendant told Butte County District Attorney investigator Koester that he had gone to Grass Valley intending to use the Ruger pistol to kill Smith. He also told Colusa County Deputy Sheriff Steven McCulloch that he planned to kill Smith and bury her body in the desert. The trial court instructed the jury: Evidence has been introduced for the purpose of showing that the defendant has committed the following criminal acts or activity. The court then mentioned the criminal acts on which evidence was presented including The attempted murder of Donna Smith. At defense counsel's request, the trial court did not instruct the jury on the elements of attempted murder. (See CALJIC Nos. 6.00, 6.01 (5th ed.1988).) Defendant contends the evidence was legally insufficient to establish attempted murder, and it failed to satisfy the requirements of the corpus delicti rule. He further contends that counsel was ineffective in expressly waiving a jury instruction on the elements of attempted murder. According to defendant, juror reliance in this case on the evidence described above rendered the death verdict unreliable in violation of the federal Constitution's Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments because the prosecutor in argument to the jury substantially relied on the incident involving Smith, stressing to the jury that were it not for good police work, Donna Smith would be dead today and we would have another body. We reject these contentions. The evidence of the alleged attempted murder of Donna Smith was admitted under section 190.3, factor (b), which provides for the admission at the penalty phase of [t]he presence or absence of criminal activity by the defendant which involved the use of force or violence or the express or implied threat to use force or violence. Defendant contends the evidence that he threatened Smith and later went to pick her up at her father's house established at most preparation for the crime of attempted murder, not attempted murder. In support, defendant cites the discussion of sufficiency of evidence for attempted robbery in People v. Kipp (1998) 18 Cal.4th 349, 75 Cal.Rptr.2d 716, 956 P.2d 1169. It states that an attempted robbery has been committed at the point at which, [i]f the transaction is interrupted ..., no one would doubt that the defendant is guilty of an attempted robbery, because the actual or attempted use of force is sufficient to move the transaction beyond the sphere of mere preparation and into the zone of actual commission of the crime of robbery. ( Id. at p. 377, 75 Cal.Rptr.2d 716, 956 P.2d 1169.) Defendant contrasts the situation described in Kipp with the evidence that he came to Smith's father's house at her request to drive her to New Mexico, and that he had with him firearms, including a .22-caliber pistol fitted with a silencer. Defendant suggests that notwithstanding his threats a month or so earlier to whack Smith or put holes in her or shut [her] mouth permanently, the evidence did not show that the transaction [had progressed] beyond the sphere of mere preparation and into the zone of actual commission of the crime of murder. Assuming this is so, defendant cannot complain of any impropriety in the admission of the evidence of his threats to Smith and his arrival at her father's Grass Valley house trailer with firearms, because that evidence, whether or not sufficient to establish attempted murder, was independently admissible under section 190.3, factor (b) as showing, at least, the express or implied threat to use force or violence. (See People v. Jackson, supra, 13 Cal.4th at pp. 1235-1236, 56 Cal.Rptr.2d 49, 920 P.2d 1254; People v. Roberts (1992) 2 Cal.4th 271, 332, 6 Cal. Rptr.2d 276, 826 P.2d 274.) In a related contention, defendant asserts that the admission during the penalty phase trial of his statements to Butte County and Colusa County authorities of his intent to kill Smith and bury her body in the desert violated the corpus delicti rule. That rule generally requires the prosecution to prove the body of the crime itself independent of a defendant's extrajudicial statements. ( People v. Alvarez, supra, 27 Cal.4th at pp. 1168-1169,119 Cal.Rptr.2d 903, 46 P.3d 372 ( Alvarez ).) Assuming that the corpus delicti rule applies to unadjudicated crimes admitted as aggravating evidence (ง 190.3, factor (b)) at the penalty phase of a capital trial, defendant's contention must fail based on our recent decision in Alvarez. In Alvarez, supra, 27 Cal.4th 1161, 119 Cal.Rptr.2d 903, 46 P.3d 372, we considered the corpus delicti rule in light of the adoption by the California voters on June 8, 1982 of Proposition 8, adding section 28, subdivision (d) (section 28(d)), the Truth-in-Evidence provision, to article I of the California Constitution. We held: [Insofar as the corpus delicti rule restricts the admissibility of incriminatory extrajudicial statements by the accused, section 28(d) abrogates it for crimes committed after June 8, 1982. ( Alvarez, supra, at p. 1174, 119 Cal.Rptr.2d 903, 46 P.3d 372.) Here, the prosecution's evidence supporting the unadjudicated attempted murder of Donna Smith took place between 1983 and 1987, after the voters adopted the Truth-in-Evidence provision. Accordingly, evidence of defendant's statements to authorities that he met Smith at her father's house trailer in Grass Valley on April 22, 1986, intending to kill her and bury her body in the desert, were properly admitted in evidence, regardless of whether the prosecution presented evidence of the crime of the attempted murder of Smith independent of defendant's incriminating statements. ( Alvarez, supra, at p. 1174, 119 Cal.Rptr.2d 903, 46 P.3d 372.) As we acknowledged in Alvarez, supra, 27 Cal.4th 1161, 119 Cal.Rptr.2d 903, 46 P.3d 372, section 28(d) did not abrogate the corpus delicti rule insofar as it provides that every conviction must be supported by some proof of the corpus delicti aside from or in addition to [a defendant's incriminating] statements, and that the jury must be so instructed. ( Id. at p. 1165, 119 Cal.Rptr.2d 903, 46 P.3d 372, italics omitted.) But we stressed: the modicum of necessary independent evidence of the corpus delicti ... is not great. The independent evidence may be circumstantial, and need only be `a slight or prima facie showing' permitting an inference of injury, loss, or harm from a criminal agency, after which the defendant's statements may be considered to strengthen the case on all issues. ( Id. at p. 1181, 119 Cal.Rptr.2d 903, 46 P.3d 372.) Here, evidence of defendant's repeated threats to Smith, and his possession of firearms and a silencer when he arrived at Smith's father's Grass Valley house trailer after telling her to wait for him there alone was sufficient to permit an inference of injury, loss, or harm from a criminal agency. We therefore reject defendant's contention that the prosecution presented insufficient evidence of the corpus delicti of the attempted murder of Smith. In any event, the jury already knew from the guilt phase that defendant had committed the murders of his fellow drug dealer Weber, his former girlfriend Duarte, and his high school friend Abono, and from the penalty phase the jury learned that he had killed his mother and had attempted to murder Al Redenius. Thus, defendant suffered no possible prejudice from the introduction of his own statements that he intended to kill Smith and bury her body in the desert. (See People v. Jackson, supra, 13 Cal.4th at p. 1232, 56 Cal.Rptr.2d 49, 920 P.2d 1254.) For the same reason, absence of any possible prejudice, defendant's claim of ineffective assistance of counsel must fail. ( Strickland v. Washington, supra, 466 U.S. at p. 669, 104 S.Ct. 2052.)