People v. Adams

• Decision Date: 27 January 2004
• Docket Number: No. H024504.,H024504.
• Citation: 115 Cal.App.4th 243,9 Cal.Rptr.3d 170
• Parties: The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Michael ADAMS, Defendant and Appellant.
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

9 Cal.Rptr.3d 170

115 Cal.App.4th 243

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Michael ADAMS, Defendant and Appellant.

No. H024504.

Court of Appeal, Sixth District.

January 27, 2004.

As Modified February 5, 2004.

Review Denied April 14, 2004.^*

Certiorari Denied Oct. 4, 2004.

See 125 S.Ct. 279.

Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, Robert R. Anderson, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Gerald A. Engler, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Eric D. Share, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, Amy Haddix, Deputy Attorney General, Michael Chamberlain, Deputy Attorney General, for Plaintiff/Respondent, The People.

Sixth District Appellate Program, In association with Kyle Gee, Oakland, for Defendant/Appellant, Michael Adams.

PREMO, J.

Defendant Michael Adams was convicted at a 2001 jury trial of 20-year-old charges of first degree murder with rape and sodomy special circumstances. On appeal, he contends his constitutional rights were violated on a number of grounds including exclusion of third party culpability evidence.

FACTS

Around 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday, June 17, 1981, Sylvia Edgren was found dead in her yellow Pinto on Casanova Avenue in Monterey. The body was kneeling, barefoot, and facedown on the front seat. It was nude from the waist down, and there was dried fluid on the inner thighs. Blood was concentrated around the head and shoulders and was also found on the right rear side and back windows. A blouse, shorts, and underpants were crumpled up in the backseat of the car.

Identification found in the Pinto gave Edgren's name and address. At her apartment complex, a pool of still-wet blood was on the floor of her empty parking stall. There was a tire track through the blood and two or three footprints. The lightbulbs in the carport had been shattered and a floodlight outside the carport had been unscrewed. One neighbor reported hearing a woman scream either late at night or early in the morning and, when the neighbor left for work before 6:00 a.m., he saw wet blood in the carport but no tire tracks or footprints. Another neighbor reported seeing a young White man unscrewing the carport light bulbs at 10:00 or 10:30 p.m. the night before. There was a dusty Ford Mustang to the far right of Edgren's parking stall from which a palm print was recovered. A total of 45 latent prints were recovered from the carport and the Pinto. Of these, the print on the unscrewed floodlight was a building maintenance worker's. Twenty-two were Edgren's. All remaining prints were unidentified.

An autopsy revealed that Edgren had been struck two to five times on the back and top of the head with a hard, elongated blunt object causing loss of consciousness within seconds and death within minutes. The fluid on her legs was dried semen, and a post mortem rape kit and swabs were taken. Semen was present on the vaginal and rectal swabs.

Edgren's apartment was undisturbed and there were no signs of a struggle. There was an advertisement for a male roommate and numerous men's names and telephone numbers were found in a desk calendar for May and June. Defendant's name and telephone number were entered on six days. There was a notation next to defendant's name on the June 8 entry that said "TUES 10:00." On Tuesday, June 16, the night of the murder, Edgren left her ex-husband's home after 10:00 p.m., stating that she was going to meet a prospective tenant.

Police assembled a list of 11 possible suspects and eight possible motives. Defendant was not on the list. The number one suspect was Edgren's "off and on" boyfriend with mental problems, Frederick Kallerup. Edgren's ex-husband was third on the list because he and Edgren had arguments and fights on a regular basis and he might have owed her money at the time of the killing.

Police interviewed defendant on June 26, 1981. He stated he had talked to Edgren by phone several times in early May about her ad for a roommate, but it was not until the end of May that she called to say the room was available. Defendant told her he had found another place. He denied that he had ever seen Edgren in person.

In 1999, DNA-typing was done on the swabs. Kallerup was eliminated as the donor. On January 11, 2001, a criminalist ran the DNA profile taken from the vaginal swab against the criminal justice DNA database, and made a "cold hit" to defendant's DNA profile. Further tests of a blood sample taken from defendant confirmed the match. Based on the race of the donor, the estimates of the probability of a random match ranged from one in 320 billion to one in 5.5 trillion. Defendant's finger and palm prints were then compared to latents recovered from the crime scene. Defendant's palm print matched the print on the Mustang.

Defendant was re-interviewed on January 19, 2001. Defendant stated he had been staying with a girlfriend but was looking for an apartment. He saw Edgren's advertisement and went to her apartment and met her for two hours. She later called him at his workplace and said she had found someone to whom to rent the room. Defendant said that was fine with him because he could not afford what she had been asking.

Defendant stated he had been in Sacramento attending his girlfriend's mother's funeral on the weekend that Edgren had been killed. He read about the murder in the newspaper. Defendant denied having physical or sexual contact with Edgren. He recalled having his blood drawn but did not see any reason that his DNA could have been found on her body.

Detective Sonne testified that defendant had initially been open and friendly, but when DNA was mentioned, he started to tremble, his lips became dry, and his voice became louder and more highly pitched. He would make exaggerated gulps and swallow while speaking. Defendant had not attempted to elude or escape the officers.

Defendant testified at his trial. He had lived with "Lucky" McDonald, a woman nearly 40 years his senior, "off and on" from the late 1970's to the mid 90's, during which time they were dating. However, the relationship had become "unbearable," and defendant decided to move out. He responded to Edgren's newspaper ad for a room during the first week of May 1981. He spoke to her by phone and then went to meet her and see the room. Edgren told him that her renter was moving out on June 1. During the initial interview, she confided in him about problems she had with her family and ex-husband.

Around Sunday, May 20, Edgren called him and they met after work that evening. She was depressed and needed company. Defendant cooked a meal and stayed about four hours. Edgren talked to him about arguing with her ex-husband. When he left, she hugged him and "almost guaranteed" he could rent the room.

Two days later, defendant visited her again. She was depressed and they held each other and cried. She said her ex-husband owed her money. Defendant stayed about six hours. Although he was 24 and she was 45, they seemed to be becoming "a little bit more" than friends.

Around the first week in June when Edgren's current roommate had moved out, defendant and Edgren had sexual intercourse. Edgren was upset because the roommate had left her "in dire straights [sic] just like everybody" and her boyfriend Kallerup also owed her money.

Defendant and Edgren saw each other frequently after that. She called him approximately five times a day at work, upsetting his employer. He and Edgren spent another day together in Santa Cruz. They made love on the beach and again at Edgren's apartment.

Defendant described Edgren as a "recluse" who kept to herself and rarely went out. However, when she did, she was paranoid that someone was following her. She felt she had been "under someone's foot" for 20 years.

Defendant decided to reconcile with McDonald. When he told Edgren he had decided not to move into her apartment, she became "needy" and called him often at his workplace. Defendant continued to see her, but tried his best to "wean her off me."

The night of the murder, Edgren called defendant at work and asked him to come to her apartment. He went there at 10:00 p.m. after he got off work. Edgren was "real tense" and reported that she had had a "falling out" with her ex-husband and needed money and that Kallerup wanted to get back in her life and had been following her. Defendant stayed until 2:00 a.m. and had sex with her. She walked him to the door and that was the last time he saw her.

Defendant stated the Mustang had always been in the carport. He denied touching it. He had parked in the carport on several occasions, but not next to the Mustang. Defendant could not explain why his name did not appear in Edgren's calendar until May 21 if he contacted her in the first week of May. There was no evidence, other than defendant's testimony, of his intimate relationship with her. Defendant could not explain why Edgren referred to him in her calendar by his first and last name despite his claim of an intimate relationship.

Defendant admitted that his regular night off at work was Tuesday, however, he insisted that on the night of the murder, a Tuesday, he went to Edgren's apartment straight from work. He also admitted that he parked his car blocks away in a Safeway parking lot rather than in front of Edgren's residence.

Defendant explained that when he spoke to a detective in 1981, he had been frightened. He denied a sexual relationship with Edgren because Monterey County was "kind of small thinking" at the time and unprepared for an interracial relationship. In addition, he had legal problems on the east coast that he did not want surfacing, so he told the detective he had never seen Edgren in person.

When Detectives Sonne and Clark appeared in 2001, defendant did not admit he had sex with Edgren because he had not said anything about sex in 1981. During the 2001 interview, he became very nervous because one detective had a hand on his revolver. As an insulin-dependent diabetic, defendant normally experienced dehydration, which causes excessive...