Opinion ID: 1199719
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Prosecution's case-in-aggravation.

Text: Through the testimony of two retired police officers, the prosecution presented evidence of the prior murder committed by defendant. On December 27, 1956, defendant and an accomplice drove to a Safeway store in Los Angeles intending to commit a robbery. Wearing a mask and holding a .22-caliber revolver, defendant was removing money from the cash registers when a man struck defendant's head with a can. Defendant staggered, turned, and shot the man nearest him in the head, killing him. Defendant and his companion then fled. Following his arrest, defendant stated to the authorities that his gun had fired accidentally after someone hit him in the face. The prosecution also presented evidence of a 1979 unadjudicated robbery of a Cameron Park restaurant. Fred Sanchez, the general manager of the restaurant at the time of the robbery, testified that a man holding a clipboard in his left hand entered his office and shoved a Luger-style firearm into his stomach, stating, You have a wife and two kids.... If you want to see them alive, I want your money and right now. After ordering Sanchez to the vault room (indicating the robber's familiarity with the restaurant), the robber encountered a female employee and forced her to accompany them. At the vault, the robber ordered Sanchez to open a safe, remove the money, and place it in a laundry bag. When Sanchez attempted to look at the robber more closely, he was ordered not to turn around. The robber then handcuffed Sanchez and the employee to the safe and fled with the money, leaving behind the clipboard. Following the robbery, the authorities obtained impressions of latent prints from a SMUD (local utility company) notice attached to the clipboard. In March 1982, an exemplar of defendant's left thumb print was found to match the prints lifted from the SMUD notice. Defendant's prints were not found on the clipboard or the handcuffs. Sanchez furnished the authorities with a description of the robber as having blond hair and a bushy mustache, and being between five feet, seven inches, and five feet, ten inches, in height, and between thirty and thirty-five years of age. A composite drawing of the suspect, prepared on the basis of the description provided by Sanchez, was admitted into evidence. At trial, Sanchez testified the composite drawing resembled the robber, but he was not asked to, and did not, identify defendant as the perpetrator of the robbery. At the conclusion of the prosecution's case in aggravation, defense counsel moved to strike the evidence of the restaurant robbery on the ground the evidence was insufficient to establish that defendant was involved in the robbery. The motion was denied.