Opinion ID: 2595083
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Effect of Jury's Conspiracy Verdict

Text: As previously mentioned, defendant was charged not only with the murder of Esther Alvarado but also with conspiracy to commit murder. The prosecution alleged eight overt acts in furtherance of the conspiracy. The jury found only three of these acts true: that defendant met with Alfredo Padilla and Brenda Prado on the night of January 4-5, 1988, that at the meeting he agreed to kill Esther Alvarado in exchange for drugs, and that he killed Alvarado in furtherance of the conspiracy. The jury did not find true the other five alleged overt acts: that defendant told Padilla and Prado he had left Alvarado at Guzman's Bar, that Padilla and Prado told defendant Alvarado was a rat who should be killed, that Padilla and Prado offered defendant drugs to kill Alvarado, that Padilla and Prado gave defendant drugs at the meeting, and that Padilla offered defendant a shotgun to use to kill Alvarado. Defendant notes that prosecution witness Ybarra's testimony provided the only evidence of each overt act that the jury did not find true. Therefore, he infers, the jury must have rejected Ybarra's testimony. As a result, he argues, the financial gain special circumstance cannot stand, because Ybarra's testimony provided the only evidence to support it. We disagree. The jury's findings on the overt acts do not show that it rejected Ybarra's testimony. The jury may have decided not to find four of the alleged overt acts true because they involved conduct not by defendant but by Padilla and Prado, and the jury may have decided not to find true the fifth alleged overt act (that defendant told Padilla and Prado he had left Alvarado at the bar) because it preceded the conspiracy. Alternatively, the jury may have been unable to determine beyond a reasonable doubt that Ybarra correctly remembered every detail of the conspiracy to kill he overheard among defendant, Padilla, and Prado; but the jury credited the most significant part of Ybarra's testimony, namely, that defendant agreed to kill Alvarado in exchange for drugs. Another possibility is that the jury, which was instructed to convict defendant of conspiracy so long as it unanimously agreed that at least one overt act was true, decided that once it unanimously agreed on three overt acts, it did not have to decide whether the remaining five acts were true. If the jury relied on any of the theories described above, it did not reject Ybarra's testimony. Even if the jury's findings on the alleged overt acts were inconsistent with its finding on the financial gain special circumstance, that inconsistency would provide no ground for overturning the special circumstance finding. (See generally People v. Santamaria (1994) 8 Cal.4th 903, 911, 35 Cal.Rptr.2d 624, 884 P.2d 81 [It is ... settled that an inherently inconsistent verdict is allowed to stand ....].)