People v. Cox

• Decision Date: 02 May 1991
• Docket Number: No. S004711,S004711
• Citation: 809 P.2d 351,53 Cal.3d 618,280 Cal.Rptr. 692
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 809 P.2d 351 The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Tiequon Aundray COX, Defendant and Appellant. Crim. 25425.

Page 692

280 Cal.Rptr. 692

53 Cal.3d 618, 809 P.2d 351

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Tiequon Aundray COX, Defendant and Appellant.

No. S004711.

Crim. 25425.

Supreme Court of California In Bank.

May 2, 1991.

Rehearing Denied July 26, 1991.

Colleen E. Butler, under appointment by the Supreme Court, Portland, Or., for defendant and appellant.

John K. Van de Kamp and Daniel E. Lungren, Attys. Gen., Richard B. Iglehart, Chief Asst. Atty. Gen., Edward T. Fogel, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Robert F. Katz and Carol Wendelin Pollack, Los Angeles, Deputy Attys. Gen., for plaintiff and respondent.

ARABIAN, Justice.

A jury adjudged defendant Tiequon Aundray Cox guilty of the first degree murders of Ebora Alexander, Dietria Alexander, Damon Bonner, and Damani Garner (Pen.Code, § 187), and found a true special circumstance allegation that he committed multiple murders (Pen.Code, § 190.2, subd. (a)(3)). ¹ The jury further determined he should be sentenced to death. The trial court denied defendant's motion for a new trial and refused to modify the verdict (§ 190.4, subd. (e)). This appeal is automatic (§ 1239, subd. (b)).

I. FACTS

A. Guilt Phase Evidence

The murders occurred August 31, 1984, in the home of Ebora Alexander, preceded by the following events: About 5:30 or 6:00 that morning, Darren Williams and Horace Burns arrived at the residence of Ida Moore, where Lisa Brown was also present. Williams, an acquaintance of both women, used the telephone. He then asked Moore for a ride, which she agreed to furnish, and told Burns to go pick up someone; Burns returned five or ten minutes later with defendant.

The group left in Moore's van, with Moore driving, Brown in the passenger seat, and the three men in the back. After stopping for some gasoline, which Moore had to pay for, Williams directed them to 59th Street in Los Angeles and began looking for an address he had written on a piece of paper. When he had located the house in question, he told Moore to park down the street and leave the engine running. After they parked, Brown heard one of the men say they were going "to kill everybody in the house." Williams told Burns to stay behind while he and defendant got out and walked toward the Alexander residence.

Brown did not see any weapons at that time. However, Moore had seen "a big gun" in the back of the van when they stopped for gas; and defendant carried something wrapped in a jacket as he left. She also saw that Williams had a handgun in his waistband. After Williams and defendant entered the house, the two women heard the sound of gunfire. Two or three minutes later, Williams came running back to the van holding the handgun and telling Moore to leave. Defendant followed in a minute or two with a rifle in his hands. As he entered the van, he said, "I just blew the bitch's head off. So drive." Moore then drove quickly away.

Several other persons witnessed relevant events. Lashawn Driver lived one or two doors away on the opposite side of the street. About 7:30 a.m., she was returning home when she saw two men enter the Alexander home and then heard approximately five gunshots. After one of the men came out, she heard another series of shots. The second individual, whom she identified as defendant, then left the house carrying a rifle. Both men went down the street.

Venus Webb also lived across the street. On the morning of the murders, she heard shooting and went to investigate. When she looked out her front window, she saw defendant leaving the Alexander house and walking rapidly toward a van, which pulled around the corner at a fast pace and disappeared. Webb later identified defendant at a live lineup.

Ebora Alexander's 14-year-old son Neal and her grandson Ivan Scott were in the house when Williams and defendant entered. Neal awoke when he heard a scream and the sound of a shot. He saw a man standing in his sister Dietria's room holding a rifle. The man was facing the opposite direction toward his sister's bed; Neal jumped on his back and started fighting with him. When the man hit him on the face, Neal ran through the back door. Other than family members, he saw no one else in the house. Ivan also awoke to gunshots and ran into a closet. From that vantage, he saw his uncle Neal run down the hallway and heard an ensuing struggle. He also glimpsed a man he could not identify, who was carrying a rifle.

Upon returning to the van, Williams and defendant told Moore to drive away and eventually had her stop at Vermont Avenue and Gage Street, where all three men got out and entered a building known as the Vermont Club. One or two hours later, Moore saw Williams at the home of James Kennedy, where Williams gave her $50 to purchase some personal items for him and to pay her for the gas. Later in the day, she saw him again and observed he was wearing new clothes and jewelry. About 9:00 a.m., Brown received a telephone call from Williams, who directed her to bring his car to the Vermont Club. When she arrived, defendant was also there; she saw someone hand him a rifle over a fence, which he put in the trunk of the car. Brown drove defendant to an apartment building where he took the rifle after wrapping it in a jacket. Williams later gave Brown $20. That afternoon, defendant purchased a 1975 Cadillac, paying $3,000 in cash for it. ²

James Kennedy was a personal friend of defendant, Williams, and Burns through gang association. On the morning of August 31, defendant brought him a semiautomatic .30-caliber carbine wrapped in a jacket and told him to destroy it. He also asked Kennedy to have his sister wash the jacket because it had gunpowder on it. Kennedy took the jacket to his sister but did not destroy the rifle, instead putting it in some bushes near his residence. On September 27, Kennedy was the subject of a narcotics investigation during which he revealed the location of the weapon to law enforcement officers. After defendant's arrest, an acquaintance, Cassandra Haynes, spoke with him in jail. Defendant asked her if the police had found the gun he gave to Kennedy, but she did not know for certain.

Shortly after the shootings, the police were summoned to a scene of horror at the Alexander house, where they found the bullet-riddled bodies of 57-year-old Ebora, her 23-year-old daughter Dietria, and two of her grandsons, 8-year-old Damon Bonner and 10-year-old Damani Garner. Ebora had been sitting at her kitchen table drinking coffee when she was killed; Dietria, Damon, and Damani were in a bedroom, still in their beds. The coroner determined they had died of gunshot wounds to the head or body; Ebora suffered one wound that caused part of her brain tissue to be blown away. In the course of their investigation, police retrieved empty shell casings and spent bullets from the vicinity of each body. Ballistics testing established they all came from the same semiautomatic .30-caliber carbine defendant gave James Kennedy.

The police investigators also lifted a latent palm print from a trunk located in the bedroom where the younger victims had been sleeping. After comparing it with an exemplar, two experts concluded only defendant could have made the print. Ebora's son Kermit Alexander and two of her daughters, Geraldine Alexander (Damani's mother) and Daphine Bonner (Damon's mother), testified they had never seen defendant in their mother's house. Daphine Bonner also indicated Dietria had purchased the trunk for her bedroom approximately two and a half weeks before the shootings.

B. Penalty Phase Evidence

At the penalty phase, the prosecution presented evidence of two robberies defendant was involved in as a juvenile. In May 1981, Rosalyn Lebby was rousted from her car by defendant and another teenager as she waited for her young son after school. Impliedly threatening Lebby with a gun, defendant took her vehicle and led police on a high-speed chase for half an hour through city streets, stopping only when he hit a telephone pole. The police recovered a .32-caliber revolver from the driver's side of the car.

One month earlier, defendant and a companion accosted three junior high school students. He hit two of them with his fist and a piece of mop handle and demanded money from all three.

The defense offered evidence of defendant's upbringing and school environment. He had been virtually abandoned at an early age by his mother, who had a drinking problem and had gone to prison for bank robbery. He and his younger brother and sister had been raised by his 65-year-old great-grandmother, who he felt was somewhat strict. For that reason he ran away from her house at the age of 14 and went to live with his grandmother. He had very little contact with his father.

One of defendant's junior high school teachers described him as skilled in athletics and capable of achieving good grades. However, peer pressure from the neighborhood gangs was a serious distraction to male students, particularly those who did not have strong role models. One of the junior high school administrators also felt defendant had been a good student until it appeared he had joined a local gang. He then began having behavior problems, which led to his expulsion.

Defendant's great-grandmother, grandmother, sister, brother, and teacher all testified they cared for him and wished to see him live. He had been good to his brother and sister and warned them to stay away from gangs. His great-grandmother stated she did not believe defendant was guilty because he had told her he did not hurt anyone.

Joey Upland, formerly a nurse at San Quentin Prison, described the living conditions of those sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of parole. They are subject to frequent lock downs during which they are confined to the small cells they must share with another prisoner. Life in prison is very violent and without many amenities such as regular showers and laundry exchange.

II. JURY SELECTION

A. Witherspoon/Witt Error

The...