People v. Casares

Citation62 Cal.4th 808,198 Cal.Rptr.3d 167,364 P.3d 1093
Decision Date04 February 2016
Docket NumberNo. S025748.,S025748.
CourtCalifornia Supreme Court
Parties The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Jose Lupercio CASARES, Defendant and Appellant.

Michael J. Hersek, State Public Defender, under appointment by the Supreme Court, Kathleen M. Scheidel, Assistant State Public Defender, and Elias Batchelder, Deputy State Public Defender, for Defendant and Appellant.

Kamala D. Harris, Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Michael P. Farrell, Assistant Attorney General, Ward A. Campbell, Michael A. Canzoneri and David A. Lowe, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

WERDEGAR, J.

A Tulare County jury convicted defendant Jose Lupercio Casares of the attempted premeditated murder of Alvaro Lopez and the murder of Guadalupe Sanchez. (Pen.Code, §§ 664, 187.)1 With respect to the murder, the jury found true a lying-in-wait special-circumstance allegation. (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(15).) As to both offenses the jury found defendant personally used a firearm (§§ 1203.06, subd. (a)(1), 1192.7, subd. (c)(8); former § 12022.5); it found not true an allegation he personally inflicted great bodily injury on Lopez (former § 12022.7). The jury also convicted defendant of carrying a concealed firearm (former § 12025, subd. (b)) and possessing cocaine (Health & Saf.Code, § 11350 ). After a penalty phase, the same jury returned a death verdict. The trial court sentenced defendant to death and stayed imposition of sentence on the noncapital counts. This appeal is automatic. (§ 1239, subd. (b).) We affirm the judgment.

I. FACTS
A. Guilt Phase
1. Prosecution's case-in-chief
a. Witness testimony
1. Alvaro Lopez

In March 1989, Alvaro Lopez lived in Farmersville with his sister, Hidalia, and her boyfriend, Guadalupe Sanchez. Lopez had become acquainted with defendant while they were in jail. On the afternoon of March 30, 1989, Lopez and Sanchez went to defendant's house on Sweet Street in Visalia, where defendant asked Lopez to obtain three ounces of cocaine for resale. Lopez relied on Sanchez to procure the drug; after he had done so, between 6:00 and 7:00 p.m., the two men returned to defendant's house. Sanchez was driving and Lopez was in the front passenger seat; defendant got in the back seat behind Sanchez and Ruben Contreras sat next to defendant. Neither Sanchez nor Lopez was armed.

The group set off for the purported buyer's house, stopping at a store on Highway 63 next to the Patterson Tract house in Visalia where defendant said the buyer lived. Lopez and Sanchez entered the store and bought two beers while defendant went to the house. When defendant returned to the car, he said the buyer had visitors and they would wait for him up the road. Sanchez continued down the road for a short distance, then pulled over and put the car in park with the motor running. Defendant immediately put a pistol to Sanchez's head, told Contreras to "secure" Lopez, and ordered Sanchez to give him the cocaine. Contreras put a knife to the side of Lopez's neck. Sanchez complied with defendant's demand, handing the drug back over his right shoulder. Defendant then shot Sanchez.2 Lopez grabbed Contreras's hand and, feeling Sanchez's head roll onto his shoulder, tried to open the car door. Lopez heard a second shot which struck him in the left arm. With Contreras stabbing him, Lopez pushed the car door open with his leg, got out of the car, and fell. Defendant shot at Lopez, who got up and ran across the road. A man saw him there and Lopez was taken to the hospital for treatment.

He had sustained 17 knife and gunshot wounds

, several of them life threatening, and remained hospitalized for two weeks.

Lopez did not immediately identify defendant as the perpetrator, instead telling detectives two Mexican hitchhikers committed the crimes, because he wanted to exact his own revenge. His girlfriend Evangelina Avalos visited Lopez at the hospital and told him to tell the truth. Lopez then asked to speak with detectives and identified defendant from a photo lineup. For a long time, however, including at the preliminary hearing, he denied drugs were involved in the incident, only disclosing that fact a few months before trial.

2. Gilbert Galaviz3

In March 1989, Gilbert Galaviz was living on Sweet Street in Visalia with Maria Lupercio Contreras and Alicia Lupercio, Ruben Contreras's sisters. On the 30th of that month, Galaviz testified, defendant, who was staying at the house, and Ruben Contreras came to the house. In the late afternoon, he saw them get into a small beige four-door car. Two other men whom Galaviz did not know were also in the car. The men left and returned about an hour later. Just before dark, about 7:00 or 7:30, Galaviz saw defendant and Contreras leave again in the same car. Contreras was carrying a knife and defendant a gun that Galaviz had seen him cleaning earlier that day. Galaviz recalled defendant was wearing black pants and a hat with a Harley Davidson symbol on it. About 8:30 that evening, defendant and Contreras returned to the Sweet Street house with blood on their clothes. They went to the restroom and began washing up; defendant changed clothes and cleaned a gun. They said they had killed a pig and almost killed another one, but it got away. Defendant offered Galaviz some cocaine.

b. Physical evidence

The body of Guadalupe Sanchez was found lying supine in a residential area, on the south side of Avenue 328 in Visalia; nearby were a bloody knife and two shell casings. Around the palm of his left hand was his watch. The cause of death was a single gunshot wound

to the head. The bullet entered the back of the head just to the left of the midline and traveled left to right and slightly downward, exiting under the right eye. Powder tattooing around the entry wound and thermal burning of the tissue under the wound indicated that the muzzle of the gun when fired was either touching the skin or within an inch of it.

The car Sanchez had been driving was found the day after the murder, about three blocks from the Sweet Street house where defendant was staying. Blood was on the seats, in the trunk, on the floorboard, side panels, and glove box, and on the exterior on the passenger side and hood. A bullet hole in the windshield originated from inside the car, the shot having been fired from the left side of the driver's headrest.

Detective Eric Grant of the Tulare County Sheriff's Office crime lab processed the car and collected many fingerprints, which were first analyzed by Detective Brian Johnson, who had spent most of his 18–year career in the crime lab. Johnson testified his lab used a standard of eight to 10 points of comparison when calling a match between a latent print and a known set of prints; he personally liked to see 10 to 12 matching points, but acknowledged that some labs consider fewer than eight points to be sufficient. Johnson determined that none of the fingerprints submitted to him matched those of Maria Lopez [sic; possibly Maria Contreras, a resident of the Sweet Street house, or Maria Vasquez, a girlfriend of Alvaro Lopez], Lopez's sister Hidalia, Evangelina Avalos, or Gilbert Galaviz, but three of the prints matched Ruben Contreras's. Johnson and his supervisor were unable to make a comparison of two prints, one made in blood and taken from the driver's side rear seat and one left on the passenger's side trunk.

All of the prints Grant obtained were eventually sent to the state Department of Justice's Fresno Regional Laboratory for further analysis. Richard Kinney, a latent print analyst at the Fresno lab, confirmed the matches Johnson and his supervisor had made, as well as the exclusions. In addition, Kinney found the bloody print on the rear seat had the same ridge characteristics and placement as defendant's known print, based on more than 10 matching characteristics. He also determined that the print lifted from the trunk matched defendant's palm print, based on at least 10 matching characteristics.

c. Defendant's arrest; murder weapon

Defendant was arrested on April 8, 1989, outside a residence in the 100 block of Strawberry Street. After an officer forced him to the ground, a handgun later determined to be the murder weapon was found underneath him. The gun did not possess a "hair trigger"; it required from nine to 15 pounds of pressure to fire. Two small packages of cocaine were found in a pocket of the jacket defendant was wearing at the time of his arrest.

d. Additional evidence of Lopez's drug dealings

In 1989, Gracie Mendez was living with cocaine dealer Abundio Burciaga and knew Alvaro Lopez and Guadalupe Sanchez, who was Burciaga's cousin. Lopez worked for Burciaga for at least two years before Sanchez's murder, and continued to sell drugs for a year thereafter. Burciaga would go to Los Angeles weekly to buy four to five thousand dollars' worth of cocaine, and Lopez often went with him. Lopez would also buy drugs in Los Angeles for Burciaga and bring them back. Burciaga ultimately fired Lopez for stealing from him. On March 30, 1989, Mendez testified, Lopez and Sanchez came to Burciaga's house and Burciaga gave them a brown bag with about five thousand dollars in it.

After hearing that Sanchez had been killed, Burciaga had two conversations with Mendez concerning the killing. In one, he told her he had intended for Lopez to be killed; in the other, he said "they" had meant for Lopez to be killed, referring to a man called "El Capitan."

2. Defense case
a. Alibi evidence

The defense sought to show that defendant was at an apartment on Strawberry Street at the time the murder was committed.

Defendant's cousin Antonio Navarro Lupercio testified that, on March 30, 1989, he went to the Strawberry Street apartment and saw defendant and Contreras playing cards about 2:00 p.m. Antonio saw defendant drink a beer and heard him mention he had a court date on the 31st. Defendant was still there when Antonio left about 6:00 p.m. On cross-examination, Antonio...

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  • People v. Casares, S025748.
    • United States
    • California Supreme Court
    • February 4, 2016
    ...62 Cal.4th 808364 P.3d 1093198 Cal.Rptr.3d 167The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent,v.Jose Lupercio CASARES, Defendant and Appellant.No. S025748.Supreme Court of CaliforniaFeb. 4, 2016.198 Cal.Rptr.3d 176Michael J. Hersek, State Public Defender, under appointment by the Supreme Court, Kathle......

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