Opinion ID: 2590211
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Admission of evidence of John Doe Oregon homicide; related modus operandi instructions

Text: Defendant contends the jury could not properly consider the John Doe Oregon homicide in its assessment of penalty because the evidence was insufficient to support the conclusion that defendant murdered this victim. Defendant further contends the modus operandi theory was not properly available because the evidence was insufficiently distinctive, and the related instructions therefore should not have been given. Finally, because the jury could not properly consider this evidence, defendant contends he is entitled to a reversal and retrial of penalty. We disagree. We conclude the evidence presented in the penalty phase sufficed to show that defendant murdered John Doe Oregon. Placing the facts in context, one will recall the strong evidence demonstrating that defendant murdered Michael O'Fallon: The nude body of O'Fallon, who had hitchhiked from suburban Denver, Colorado, was found off Interstate 5 about 10 miles south of Salem, Oregon, on July 17, 1980. He had asphyxiated due to ligature strangulation; his ankles and wrists were bound with shoelaces. O'Fallon's blood contained alcohol (0.04 percent) and diazepam. O'Fallon's camera was seized from defendant's garage. Defendant was visiting Oregon on business with the Peerless Division of Lear-Siegler between July 16 and July 18, 1980; during that period he drove a rental car a distance of 993 miles although Peerless's place of business was only 25 miles from the Portland airport. The list found in defendant's car contained the entry PORTLAND DENVER. The day after O'Fallon's body was discovered, authorities discovered the body of John Doe Oregon, also near the side of Interstate 5, one mile south of Woodburn, Oregon, fairly close to the location where O'Fallon's body was found. The victim was a White male, 35 to 40 years old, who had asphyxiated due to ligature strangulation. The victim's blood contained alcohol (0.06 percent) and diazepam. The victim's bootlaces and belt were missing; the victim was never identified. Defendant's list contained the entry PORTLAND ELK; the prosecutor argued, evidently by process of elimination from the remaining PORTLAND entries, that this entry referred to John Doe Oregon. Defendant's presence in the general area at the time John Doe Oregon was killed, as well as a method of killing (ligature strangulation following the victim's ingestion of alcohol and diazepam, and the absence of the victim's belt and bootlaces) so similar to that involved in a number of defendant's other murders, strongly support an inference that defendant murdered John Doe Oregon. It follows that the trial court did not err in submitting the facts of this offense to the jury under a modus operandi instruction essentially identical to that given in the guilt phase, which we held above ( ante, 99 Cal.Rptr.2d at pp. 56-61, 5 P.3d at pp. 119-122) to be a correct statement of the law.