Opinion ID: 2599164
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: General Insufficiency

Text: Defendant argues that Lonnie's testimony, even if admissible, was insufficient to support any of the convictions. We disagree for reasons similar to those we stated in rejecting similar arguments in People v. Riel, supra, 22 Cal.4th at page 1182, 96 Cal.Rptr.2d 1, 998 P.2d 969. Lonnie's credibility was for the jury to determine, not an appellate court. His testimony, if believed, as the jury clearly did at least in large measure, provided solid evidence of defendant's involvement in these crimes. Moreover, the jury did not have to believe every detail of that testimony to find defendant guilty of the charges or even to return a verdict of death; indeed, it could have suspected that Lonnie down-played his own role while still reasonably finding defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Lonnie's testimony was not all that incriminated defendant. Although Lonnie alone provided the details of exactly who did what that night after the truck stopped, other evidence connected defendant with the crime. Independent evidence showed that Schultz was with defendant in the truck when last seen alive by someone other than the Hillhouse brothers; crime scene evidence supported Lonnie's testimony that the body had been dragged; Dodge saw defendant wiping fingerprints off the truck alone in the middle of the night; defendant had access to the knife missing from Dodge's kitchen that may have been the murder weapon; defendant wanted to sell Schultz's truck and then hid it; he attempted to sell and, with Lonnie's help, pawned some of the victim's tools; he also acted suspiciously and made suspicious comments to various persons after the crime, showing a consciousness of guilt. Defendant's actions, shown by independent witnesses, strongly suggest that he, not Lonnie, was the leader of the two brothers and that he took the leadership role in the crime. Accordingly, `we cannot conclude that [Lonnie's] testimony rendered either the capital conviction or the death sentence unreliable.' ( People v. Riel, supra, 22 Cal.4th at p. 1182, 96 Cal. Rptr.2d 1, 998 P.2d 969.)