People v. Dunkle

• Decision Date: 04 August 2005
• Docket Number: No. S014200.,S014200.
• Citation: 36 Cal.4th 861,116 P.3d 494,32 Cal.Rptr.3d 23
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Jon Scott DUNKLE, Defendant and Appellant.

32 Cal.Rptr.3d 23

36 Cal.4th 861

116 P.3d 494

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Jon Scott DUNKLE, Defendant and Appellant.

No. S014200.

Supreme Court of California.

August 4, 2005.

S. Michelle May, San Francisco, and Conrad Petermann, under appointments by the Supreme Court, for Defendant and Appellant.

Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, Robert R. Anderson, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Gerald A. Engler, Assistant Attorney General, Ronald S. Matthias and René A. Chacon, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

KENNARD, J.

A jury convicted defendant Jon Scott Dunkle of the first degree murders of 15-year-old John Davies and 12-year-old Lance Turner, finding true a multiple-murder special-circumstance allegation and weapon-use enhancement allegations. (Pen.Code, §§ 187, 190.2, subd. (a)(3), 12022, subd. (b).)¹ After a penalty trial, the same jury returned a verdict of death. This appeal is automatic. (§ 1239, subd. (b).)

We affirm the judgment.

I. FACTS

A. Guilt Phase

1. Disappearance of John Davies

In November 1981, defendant, then 21 years old, was a close friend of the Davies family, who lived in Belmont. He often visited the Davies residence and spent time with 17-year-old Mark Davies and his 15-year-old brother John. On the morning of Sunday, November 8, 1981, James Davies called the police to report his son John missing. Davies and his wife, Joan, had returned home around 1:30 a.m. and had noticed nothing amiss. Joan had found John missing when she opened his bedroom door sometime after 8:30 a.m. John had laid out his church clothes and had left behind all his possessions, including his only pair of shoes. He usually informed his parents of his whereabouts and, according to them, was not the sort of child who would be expected to run away. James and Joan Davies unsuccessfully made extensive efforts to locate John for several years after he disappeared.

Soon after the disappearance, James Davies called defendant to come over and help post flyers describing John. Defendant came over on the Wednesday or Thursday after the Sunday John was reported missing, and left with some flyers. He never visited the Davies family again.

Mark Davies testified that before John disappeared, defendant would come by the Davies residence in his white Honda automobile. If he came to visit in the evening, he would throw rocks at Mark's window so Mark could sneak out of the house without his parents' knowledge. They would drive to the Hassler Hospital site off Woodside Road and Highway 280 to explore the partially abandoned grounds. Mark last saw his brother John on Saturday, November 7, about 10:30 p.m., when Mark went to bed. Mark never heard from defendant after John's disappearance.

Joan Davies testified that when defendant visited her sons, they would often sit in defendant's car listening to music.

Initially, police theorized John had run away. Belmont Police Detective Jerrold Whaley contacted defendant in mid-1982, and defendant told him where John liked to hang out. Because the Davies family reported that defendant was John's closest friend, Whaley contacted defendant often. By September 1984 the police were treating the disappearance as a possible kidnapping and had contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for assistance. On December 4, 1984, Whaley and FBI Agent Robert Deklinski twice interviewed defendant at his residence near Sacramento. In the first interview, defendant denied seeing John on Saturday, November 7, 1981, claiming he did not leave his parents' home that evening, and denied ever throwing rocks to summon Mark or John and sitting in his car listening to music with John. In the second interview, Whaley and Deklinski probed the discrepancies between the Davies family members' and defendant's accounts; defendant was emphatic that he had neither thrown rocks at the boys' bedroom windows nor listened to music with John in his car. Defendant also denied he had ever traveled with John to a hangout he called the "morgue," evidently the Hassler Hospital grounds.

2. Murder of Lance Turner

On October 2, 1984, about 7:00 p.m., Belmont resident Margaret Turner called the police to report her 12-year-old son, Lance, missing from soccer practice. That day, Timothy O'Brien had driven his two sons and Lance to soccer practice at the fields behind Ralston Intermediate School. O'Brien began coaching his team and did not see Lance again. Later, when the practice ended, O'Brien asked Lance's coach, Ray Williamson, where Lance was. Williamson told him Lance was not at practice that day. Several boys reported seeing Lance head toward Waterdog Lake, three-eighths of a mile from the soccer field. A search followed.

William Russell arrived at 6:00 p.m. to pick up his son from soccer practice and, after taking his son home, joined the search for Lance. About 8:20 p.m., Russell shined a flashlight onto some bushes in a gully off the path to Waterdog Lake and saw feet sticking out of the bushes. Lance's body was found under the overgrown brush.

Pathologist Peter Benson, M.D., testified Lance had died from blood loss due to multiple stab wounds. Two wounds to the heart were each fatal; two other wounds to the lungs were potentially life threatening. There were numerous defensive wounds to the arms and hands, as well as scratches, scrapes and bruises.

Stephanie Olson, Kendra Durham, and Nicole Guthrie, students at Ralston Intermediate School at the time of the Turner homicide, testified that about 3:00 p.m. on October 2, 1984, they left school, skipping volleyball practice, and went down to Waterdog Lake to smoke cigarettes. A man whom Stephanie described as having dirty blond hair, pimples, and dirty teeth with a retainer approached them and started a conversation. He told them his name was Jon and said he had graduated from Carlmont High School the year before. He was drinking beer from a tall Budweiser can, which he offered to the girls. The girls left after about 20 minutes. Another Ralston student saw a man with dirty blond hair near Waterdog Lake about 4:00 p.m. (None of these witnesses was asked to identify defendant in the courtroom. Olson, Durham and Guthrie gave the police a description of the man that was incorporated into a composite drawing used in the investigation of the Turner homicide. As discussed below (post, 32 Cal.Rptr.3d at p. 35, 116 P.3d at pp. 504-505), in his confession to FBI agents, defendant described talking with the three girls shortly before he killed Turner.)

3. Investigation of Davies and Turner murders

On December 27, 1984, Belmont Police Detective Sergeant James Goulart interviewed defendant concerning the Turner homicide. Defendant was by then the only suspect in the crime. Detective Goulart advised him of his constitutional rights, and he agreed to speak with Goulart. Defendant denied having been at Waterdog Lake on October 2, 1984, claiming he had been at home until noon and then had gone to stores in Redwood City to fill out employment applications, returning home by bus at 4:30 p.m. Later police contacts with those businesses turned up no such applications.

In January 1985, in an effort to gather information about the Turner homicide, Belmont Police Officer Lisa Thomas began working undercover at the Sacramento Carl's Jr. restaurant where defendant was employed. There she encountered defendant several days a week, regularly visited him at his sister's house, where he was residing, and sometimes went to a bar or movie with him. Defendant often spoke with Thomas about newspaper reports on the investigations, at one point showing her a collection of clippings. On February 9, 1985, defendant told her the police and the FBI had been in his home for five hours, confronting him, and that he had lied to them. To Thomas, he maintained his innocence, claiming that on the day Turner was killed he had gone to Redwood City to fill out job applications. Defendant seemed impressed with the attention he was getting from the FBI.

In May 1986, James and Joan Davies met with defendant for several hours seeking information about John. Defendant said he had none. Joan Davies met with defendant again in July 1986, and he continued to insist he had no information.

On September 16, 1986, Charles Rice told Michael Wiley, a law enforcement investigator for the State of California, that defendant had admitted to killing John Davies and Lance Turner. (During the penalty phase, the jury was informed that Rice was defendant's cellmate at the state prison in San Luis Obispo on that date. Defendant was then incarcerated on a burglary conviction arising out of an incident discussed post, 32 Cal.Rptr.3d at pages 72-74, 116 P.3d at pages 535-537, in connection with a related appellate contention.) Wiley testified that Rice voluntarily made a statement, asking nothing in return, and insisted on trying to obtain further information from defendant because he was appalled by the killings. On September 22, 1986, Rice gave investigators two maps, drawn by defendant, of the crime scenes. A week later, defendant met with Rice, who was wearing a wireless transmitter, and described the Davies and Turner murders in graphic detail. Defendant refused to report the crimes to the Belmont police because he did not trust them. He said he did trust the FBI, however, so Rice told defendant he had a friend who was an FBI agent and would help defendant if he confessed to him. Prison officials arranged to find an FBI agent to take the confession.

On October 3, 1986, FBI Special Agents Frank Hickey and Daniel Payne interviewed defendant at the state prison in San Luis Obispo. Rice was also present. Defendant was advised of his constitutional rights and signed a waiver.

Defendant stated that, before killing John Davies, he was at Half Moon Bay with three friends, drinking whisky and smoking marijuana. He then drove to the Davies residence, parked a few doors down the street, and entered...