Opinion ID: 1122547
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: sufficiency of the evidence

Text: At the close of the prosecution's case-in-chief, the defense moved for a judgment of acquittal pursuant to section 1118.1, alleging that the prosecution's evidence was legally insufficient to sustain a conviction. The defense argued that the prosecution's key witnesses  Larry Tom Whittington, Susan Rambo, Patricia Shepard, Harlyn Codd and Wayne James  were accomplices as a matter of law in a drug conspiracy that resulted in the deaths of Maureen and Telesforo Bautista. Based upon the premise that a person cannot be convicted on the uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice (§ 1111), and upon the further premise that one accomplice cannot corroborate another ( People v. Clapp (1944) 24 Cal.2d 835, 837 [151 P.2d 237]), the defense argued that without the testimony of the accomplices, there would be no evidence supporting defendant's conviction. The trial court rejected these arguments and denied defendant's motion for a judgment of acquittal. In denying this motion, the trial court found that Wayne James was not an accomplice and reasoned that, even if it were to accept defendant's arguments regarding the accomplice status of other prosecution witnesses, James's testimony would provide sufficient evidence of corroboration. (21a) On appeal, defendant reiterates his contention that his conviction rests upon the uncorroborated testimony of accomplices. As we shall explain, this contention is without merit. (22) In order for any one of the foregoing witnesses to have been an accomplice as a matter of law, the record must establish, as a matter of law, either that the witness aided and abetted defendant in committing the killings (§ 31; People v. Gordon (1973) 10 Cal.3d 460, 468 [110 Cal. Rptr. 906, 516 P.2d 298]) or was involved in a conspiracy in which that person harbored the intent to commit the offense that was the object of the conspiracy. ( People v. Marks (1988) 45 Cal.3d 1335, 1345 [248 Cal. Rptr. 874, 756 P.2d 260].) Neither theory was established as a matter of law by the evidence at trial. (21b) Patricia Shepard obtained cleaning supplies after learning of the killings and helped Larry Tom Whittington scrub the apartment where the killings had been committed. Whittington also helped conceal the victims' bodies. Susan Rambo provided aid in arranging for the victims' grave to be dug in her backyard. Although it is true that a person's post-offense acts are relevant to the issue whether he or she shared the requisite intent prior to the commission of the offense ( People v. Brady (1987) 190 Cal. App.3d 124, 136 [235 Cal. Rptr. 248]), the evidence relating to these witnesses suggests that, at most, they were accessories. (§ 32; People v. Perryman (1987) 188 Cal. App.3d 1546, 1549 [234 Cal. Rptr. 181].) No evidence connected these witnesses (or anyone else) to the actual killings. Nor did any evidence connect the other alleged accomplices, Harlyn Codd and Wayne James, to the killings or to defendant's subsequent coverup efforts. The aiding and abetting theory therefore fails for lack of evidence that any of the prosecution's witnesses assisted defendant in committing the killings. Defendant contends that because his drug cohorts were aware of his threats to kill snitches, they themselves also anticipated the victims' demise. Yet, the record clearly fails to establish, as a matter of law, that the killings were a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the methamphetamine manufacturing operation conducted on the Rambos' property. It is undisputed that the key prosecution witnesses were part of a drug conspiracy, but the evidence does not establish, as a matter of law, that the object of that conspiracy was the killing of Maureen and Telesforo Bautista. Rather, the record discloses only one instance prior to the killings  defendant's conversation with Harlyn Codd at Lake Isabella  in which defendant threatened, in the presence of any key witness, to kill snitches. [15] That single threat, overheard by Codd, does not demonstrate, as a matter of law, that Codd (or any other prosecution witness) was bound to defendant by a common plan to kill the Bautistas. (See People v. Rodriguez (1986) 42 Cal.3d 730, 760 [230 Cal. Rptr. 667, 726 P.2d 113] [rejecting notion that a defendant's expression of an intent to kill before a crime necessarily renders the cohort an accomplice to murder].) Defendant's other comments to the key prosecution witnesses regarding snitches occurred after the killings. Thus, accomplice status cannot properly be accorded the prosecution's witnesses, as a matter of law, on a theory of derivative liability. (See People v. Croy (1985) 41 Cal.3d 1, 11-12, fn. 5 [221 Cal. Rptr. 592, 710 P.2d 392].) [16] Accordingly, we find no error in the trial court's denial of defendant's motion for a judgment of acquittal.