People v. Davis, S012945.

• Decision Date: 21 July 2005
• Docket Number: No. S012945.,S012945.
• Citation: 31 Cal.Rptr.3d 96,36 Cal.4th 510,115 P.3d 417
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Stanley Bernard DAVIS, Defendant and Appellant.

31 Cal.Rptr.3d 96

36 Cal.4th 510

115 P.3d 417

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Stanley Bernard DAVIS, Defendant and Appellant.

No. S012945.

Supreme Court of California.

July 21, 2005.

Lynne S. Coffin and Michael J. Hersek, State Public Defenders, Jay Colangelo, Assistant State Public Defender, and Ellen J. Eggers, Deputy State Public Defender, for Defendant and Appellant.

Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, Robert R. Anderson, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Pamela C. Hamanaka, Assistant Attorney General, Sharlene A. Honnaka and Lisa J. Brault, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

KENNARD, J.

A jury convicted defendant Stanley Bernard Davis of the first degree murders of Michelle Boyd and Brian Harris. (Pen. Code § 187; further undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code.) As to each murder, the jury found true the special circumstance allegations of murder during the commission of a robbery and murder during the commission of kidnapping for robbery. (§ 190.2, former subd. (a)(17)(i) & (ii), as added by initiative, Prop. 7, § 4 at the Nov. 7, 1978 Gen. Elec.) The jury also found true a special circumstance allegation of multiple murder. (§ 190.2, former subd. (a)(3).) The jury further found defendant guilty of the robbery (§ 211) and kidnapping for robbery (§ 209, subd. (b)) of Boyd and Harris grand theft auto (§ 487, subd. (3))¹ and arson of Harris's automobile (§ 451, subd. (d)) all committed in 1985, and the 1984 robbery (§ 211) and kidnapping for robbery (§ 209, subd. (b)) of David Kingsmill. As to the murders, robberies, and kidnappings of Boyd and Harris, and the theft of Harris's car, the jury found for each offense that defendant was armed with a firearm (§ 12022, subd. (a)) and that he personally used a firearm (§ 12022.5, subd. (a)). With respect to the robbery and kidnapping of Kingsmill, the jury found for each offense that a principal was armed with a firearm. (§ 12022, subd. (a).)

At the penalty phase, the jury returned verdicts of death for the Boyd and Harris murders. The trial court denied defendant's automatic motion to modify the verdict (§ 190.4, subd. (e)) and imposed death sentences for those counts. The court imposed terms of imprisonment for the other counts, but it stayed them pending imposition of the death penalty.

This appeal is automatic. (§ 1239, subd. (b).) We vacate the conviction for the robbery of Boyd, but otherwise affirm the judgment.

I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

A jury convicted defendant of the 1985 kidnapping, robbery, and first degree murders of college students Michelle Boyd and Brian Harris. Three other men — DeAndre Brown, Damon Redmond and Donald Bennett — were involved in the crimes. Brown was the prosecution's primary witness; he admitted being present at the murder scene and purchasing the murder weapon, an Uzi semi-automatic pistol. Brown testified that he, defendant, Redmond, and Bennett drove from South Central Los Angeles to Westwood, where they commandeered Harris's car, with students Boyd and Harris inside, because they needed a car to carry out a planned robbery. Brown testified that after driving to an isolated location, defendant took Boyd and Harris out into a field and shot them. The prosecution also introduced incriminating statements defendant made, which the police tape-recorded while defendant was in jail with Redmond and Bennett. A year before the Boyd and Harris murders, defendant kidnapped and robbed David Kingsmill, also in Westwood.

A. Guilt Phase

1. Prosecution's case

a. Kingsmill kidnapping and robbery

In 1984, David Kingsmill was a student at the University of California at Los Angeles, in Westwood. On May 27, about 11:00 p.m., as Kingsmill was getting out of his new black Volkswagen Rabbit, he felt a gun at his neck and heard someone tell him to turn around and get back in the car. Kingsmill did so. Defendant and two other African-American men got in after him. One of the men told Kingsmill to drive where he was told. Ultimately, Kingsmill stopped somewhere on Sepulveda Boulevard and gave the three men his wallet, money, and credit cards. He then complied with their demand to get out of the car and take off his pants and underwear. The three men left, taking Kingsmill's clothes. Four days later, deputy sheriffs stopped defendant in South Central Los Angeles while he was driving with DeAndre Brown in a new black Volkswagen Rabbit. With respect to this incident, defendant pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of unlawfully taking a vehicle (Veh. Code, § 10851) for which he served a two-month jail sentence.

b. Boyd and Harris murders

Testifying under a grant of immunity, DeAndre Brown gave the following account of the murders. In September 1985, defendant was living with his friend Brian Wright at the house of Wright's grandmother in South Central Los Angeles. On September 26, defendant and Wright were arrested. Defendant was able to post bail but Wright was not. A few days later, defendant told Brown about a plan to drive to Barstow, San Bernardino County, and rob a liquor store to get money to post Wright's bail. Brown agreed to take part in the planned robbery.

A few days later, on September 30, around 7:00 p.m., Brown and Damon Redmond met up with defendant and Donald Bennett, who was driving a truck. The four discussed the planned Barstow robbery. They decided to drive to Westwood to get a car because Bennett did not want to use his truck in the robbery. The group had with them a nine-millimeter Uzi semi-automatic pistol and a .38-caliber handgun. The four arrived in Westwood around 9:00 p.m. They split up and went looking for a car to steal. Brown and Redmond saw a man and a woman in a beige or rust-colored Honda and told defendant about the car. Defendant and Redmond went to investigate. When they returned to Bennett's truck, Redmond was driving the Honda, with defendant in the back seat. At Bennett's instruction, Brown grabbed the Uzi, which was loaded, from the back of the truck. When Brown approached the Honda, he saw victim Michelle Boyd in the back seat next to defendant, with her head in his lap. Brown also got in the back seat. Bennett took the front passenger seat.

Redmond drove a short distance, then stopped to let Bennett drive. Bennett drove near a high school. It was around midnight and the area was "pitch black," with no lights or houses around. Defendant signaled Bennett to stop the car. Defendant, Redmond, and Brown got out, taking Boyd with them. Brown handed defendant the Uzi. Brown saw defendant take Boyd out into a field but then lost sight of them. Brown then heard thumping from inside the Honda's trunk and a voice yelling "let me out." When defendant returned to the car, Redmond opened the trunk hood and Brian Harris emerged holding his hands over his eyes. Harris said he could not see and would not look. Defendant, still holding the Uzi, told Harris, "I'm going to take you to your girl." He and Redmond then walked Harris out into the field. Brown saw Redmond walking back toward the car and then saw a flash of light in the field. A second flash followed, after which defendant returned to the car. When Brown asked defendant what he had done, defendant said he had "killed `em" because he did not want any witnesses.

Defendant, Brown, Bennett, and Redmond then drove away, with Bennett at the wheel, planning to drive northeast from Los Angeles to Barstow to rob the liquor store. Brown fell asleep. He awoke to defendant's yelling at Bennett because they had ended up in Bakersfield, in Kern County, north of Los Angeles, about 130 miles from Barstow. Eventually the group drove to Barstow and arrived at the liquor store they planned to rob. Brown went in to check out the store, but came back and reported that there were people inside and it "wasn't cool." The four then headed back to Los Angeles, arriving about 6:00 or 7:00 a.m. on October 1.

Brown got out at a bus stop a few miles from his home. He took the Uzi with him, hidden in a brown briefcase he had found in victim Harris's car. He stored the gun and the briefcase in his bedroom.

Later that morning, Brown saw defendant, Redmond, and Bennett near their homes in South Central Los Angeles. Redmond had burns on his face and hands, received when he had poured gasoline on victim Harris's Honda and lit it. Either Bennett or defendant handed Brown the .38-caliber handgun which he left in Redmond's house. Either Redmond or defendant gave Brown a wire ring. Redmond kept another ring, which looked like a high school class ring with a stone. Brown still had the wire ring in his bedroom when he was arrested; later he gave it to his girlfriend. (Victim Boyd always wore a small gold twisted wire ring and a high school senior class ring; after the murders, there were no rings on her body.)

c. The arrests and interrogations

On October 1, 1985, about 8:30 a.m., James Shubsda arrived at the auto store where he worked in South Central Los Angeles. He noticed a brownish-colored Honda parked in the alley behind the store. About 15 minutes later, Shubsda heard an explosion. He ran into the alley, saw the Honda on fire, and called the fire department. Arson Investigator Derek Chew of the City of Los Angeles Fire Department examined the Honda and determined that someone had poured gasoline inside it and set it on fire. Victim Harris's wallet was in the trunk of the car. The police found only one fingerprint on the car; it belonged to Redmond.

The police looked up Redmond's known associates and found, among others, Brown and defendant, whom they discovered had been involved in the 1984 kidnapping and robbery of college student David Kingsmill. They determined that Kingsmill's car had been taken only a few blocks from where college students Boyd and Harris were last seen in Westwood, and that Brown, Redmond, and defendant all lived within 12 blocks of where Harris's Honda had been abandoned in South Central Los Angeles. Brown,...