People v. Cudjo

• Decision Date: 13 December 1993
• Docket Number: No. S006014,S006014
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 863 P.2d 635 The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Armenia Levi CUDJO, Defendant and Appellant.

Page 390

25 Cal.Rptr.2d 390

6 Cal.4th 585, 863 P.2d 635

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Armenia Levi CUDJO, Defendant and Appellant.

No. S006014.

Supreme Court of California,

In Bank.

Dec. 13, 1993.

As Modified on Denial of Rehearing Feb. 9, 1994.

Michael A. Kahn and Wesley D. Hurst, under appointments by the Supreme Court, Katharine Livingston, Margaret E. Murray, Robert S. Siltanen, Katherine A. Wine, Robert E. Stenson and Folger & Levin, San Francisco, for defendant and appellant.

Daniel E. Lungren, Atty. Gen., George Williamson, Chief Asst. Atty. Gen., Carol Wendelin Pollack, Asst. Atty. Gen., William T. Harter, Donald deNicola, Roy C. Preminger, Susan Lee Frierson and Beverly K. Falk, Deputy Attys. Gen., for plaintiff and respondent.

THE COURT:

In this death penalty case, a jury convicted defendant Armenia Levi Cudjo of the first degree murder of Amelia P. (Pen.Code, § 187; all further statutory references are to this code unless otherwise indicated); it found that defendant used a deadly weapon to commit the murder (§ 12022, subd. (b)) and that defendant committed the murder while engaged in the commission of robbery (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(17)(i)) and burglary (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(17)(vii)). The jury also convicted defendant of one count each of robbery (§ 211) with the use of a deadly weapon (§ 12022, subd. (b)) and burglary of an inhabited dwelling (§§ 459, 462, subd. (a)).

The jury fixed the penalty for the murder at death. The trial court denied the automatic motion to modify this penalty verdict (§ 190.4, subd. (e)), stayed the pronouncement of sentence on the noncapital counts, and sentenced defendant to death. Defendant's appeal from the judgment is automatic. (§ 1239, subd. (b).)

We conclude that the judgment should be affirmed in its entirety.

I. FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS

A. Guilt Phase

1. Prosecution evidence

On March 21, 1986, Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies found the body of Amelia P. in the master bedroom of her home in the desert community of Littlerock, in the County of Los Angeles. The body was face down on the floor, with the hands tied together behind the victim's back, the ankles tied together, and the hands tied to the ankles. These bindings were made with neckties belonging to the victim's husband, Ubaldo P. A piece of cloth was found in the victim's mouth, secured by a necktie tied around the victim's head and upper neck.

The body was clothed only in a robe. On the floor near the body were the victim's underwear, socks, and running shoes, as well as a bloodstained hammer and the broken tip of a fireplace poker. The cause of death was multiple blows to the back and sides of the head, fracturing the skull and lacerating the brain. Semen was present on the victim's right inner thigh and genital area, but there were no indications of traumatic sexual assault. Based on the temperature of the liver when the body was found, death was estimated to have occurred between 8:10 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. that day. The victim's blood tested negative for alcohol and an array of illegal drugs, including cocaine.

Kevin P., the youngest of the victim's sons, was five years old on the day of his mother's death, and seven years old when he testified at trial. According to that testimony, a Black man Kevin had never seen before entered the house with a knife in his hand. The man had no facial hair and no tattoos on his arms. It was before lunch, and Kevin was under a table in the living room watching television. The man, who was wearing a sleeveless blue top and dark blue cut-off pants, put the knife to the victim's neck and demanded money. As Kevin described it, the knife was black with a "little round silver ball around it, and it was a survival knife." At the man's direction, Kevin retrieved the keys to the family van from the kitchen and gave them to the man. The man tried to start the van but was unable to do so. The man then took the victim to the master bedroom, where the man tied up the victim. From the closet in the master bedroom, the man removed two guns belonging to Kevin's father. Kevin went into his own bedroom and stayed there for a long time. Some days later, Kevin attended a lineup but did not identify anyone.

Ubaldo P. testified that he had left the house that morning between midnight and 1 a.m. to go to work 77 miles away in the City of Commerce. When he returned at 5 p.m., the sheriff's deputies were already there. Missing from the house were an M-1 carbine, a 30.06 rifle, and an army duffel bag. The victim's jewelry case, usually kept in the bedroom, was in the family van. The hammer found on the bedroom floor was normally kept in a toolbox in the garage. The fireplace poker was in its usual place, but there were bloodstains on the shaft and the tip had been broken off. The victim was very neat and normally did not leave her clothing on the floor. He had no reason to suspect that she was abusing drugs or alcohol.

Investigating officers found the keys to the van outside the victim's house, about 30 feet from the rear garage door. Nearby, the officers found a single set of shoe prints leading away from the house. It had rained the previous day, making a crusty surface. The officers followed the tracks for about a third of a mile, at intervals observing marks consistent with an object such as a rifle dragging on the ground. The tracks led to a camper, from which the victim's house was easily visible. ¹ The officers ordered the occupants to leave the camper. Defendant and his brother Gregory emerged from the camper and were taken into custody.

Inside the camper, the officers found a pair of MacGregor athletic shoes that could have made the shoe prints. The officers found an identical pair of athletic shoes behind the front seat of an automobile belonging to defendant's mother, Maxine Cudjo. Unlike the shoes found in the camper, the shoes found in the automobile were "very wet."

In addition to the shoes, the officers found a black survival knife and a pair of cut-off blue jeans in the Cudjo camper. When shown these articles at trial, Kevin testified that the knife was different from the knife wielded by the man who had assaulted his mother, and that the cut-off pants the assailant had worn were similar to, but shorter than, the ones found in the Cudjo camper. No firearms were found in the camper or in Maxine Cudjo's automobile.

Maxine Cudjo testified that on the day of the murder she was living in the camper. Defendant and Gregory had slept in the camper the previous night, as they occasionally did. She spent most of that morning in the house next door, doing housework for the man who owned the land under the camper. Returning to the camper at 11 a.m., she found defendant and Gregory, both wearing their MacGregor athletic shoes. The three of them went in Maxine's car to the post office and then to the residence of Julia Watson, one of Maxine Cudjo's daughters. Maxine returned to the camper; a little while later, at about 1:30 p.m., she departed again in her car to visit friends, leaving defendant and Gregory in the camper. On her next return to the camper, at approximately 4 p.m., sheriff's deputies had taken her sons into custody.

Julia Watson testified that her mother had visited her house that day with defendant and Gregory at approximately 1 or 2 p.m. Defendant was wearing cut-off jeans and work boots; Gregory wore shorts and tennis shoes.

Gregory Cudjo did not testify at trial, but the prosecution introduced evidence of the testimony he had given at defendant's preliminary hearing and statements he had made to investigating officers during a tape-recorded interview the morning of the day after the murder of Amelia P. In these prior statements, Gregory maintained that he had remained in the camper throughout the morning of the murder until his mother returned at approximately 11 a.m. During this time, he alternately slept and listened to a professional baseball game on the radio. He said defendant was gone from the camper for about two hours, leaving at about the time the baseball game started and returning at the same time as Maxine. During the taped interview, Gregory said that later that afternoon defendant had washed off his MacGregor athletic shoes when they were at Julia Watson's house.

Analysis of semen found on the victim's external genital area and right inner thigh revealed that it could have come from defendant but could not have come from Gregory Cudjo or from Ubaldo P. ²

2. Defense evidence

Defendant testified in his own behalf. He admitted that he knew Amelia P., that he had been in her house on the morning of her death, and that he had had sexual relations with her, but he denied that he had killed her. He said he had seen Amelia P. on three occasions before the day of her death.

Defendant explained that he and a woman named Iris Thomas had worked together selling cocaine, and that he had derived most of his income from this illicit trade. On two occasions, he had seen Amelia P. purchase cocaine. One of these transactions had occurred in the parking lot of an apartment complex in Quartz Hill. The other transaction had occurred on March 4 or 5, 1986, at a house belonging to Thomas's mother. According to defendant, Amelia P. had announced at the door that she had come "to see Miss Thomas about some coke." Defendant had invited Amelia inside. Amelia had asked Thomas's mother to "front her an eight track of cocaine." (Defendant testified that an "eight track" is one-eighth of an ounce.) After some discussion of arrangements for payment, Thomas's mother had given cocaine to Amelia. On a later date, defendant had seen Amelia P. at a market and they had waved to each other but had not conversed.

On the morning of March 21, defendant was driving his mother's car to a friend's house when he noticed Amelia P. standing in the front yard of her residence. She was wearing a housecoat or robe. It was about 9 a.m. When he blew the horn, she...