People v. Jones

• Decision Date: 07 May 2012
• Docket Number: No. S076721.,S076721.
• Parties: The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. William Alfred JONES, Defendant and Appellant.
• Court: California Supreme Court

12 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 4966

140 Cal.Rptr.3d 383

2012 Daily Journal D.A.R. 5934

275 P.3d 496

54 Cal.4th 1

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.William Alfred JONES, Defendant and Appellant.

No. S076721.

Supreme Court of California

May 7, 2012.

Kimberly J. Grove, under appointment by the Supreme Court, for Defendant and Appellant.

Bill Lockyer and Kamala D. Harris, Attorneys General, Mary Jo Graves, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Gary W. Schons, Assistant Attorney General, Holly D. Wilkens and A. Natasha Cortina, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

CANTIL–SAKAUYE, C.J.

A Riverside County jury convicted defendant William Alfred Jones of the first degree murder of his elderly neighbor Ruth Eddings (Pen.Code, §§ 187, subd. (a), 189),¹ and further found true the three special circumstance allegations that the murder took place during the commission of rape, sodomy, and burglary ( § 190.2, subd. (a) (17)). The jury additionally convicted defendant of the arson of Eddings's home (§ 451, subd. (b)), and also found true various sentencing enhancement allegations—that defendant had two prior “strikes” (§§ 667, subds. (c) & (e), 1170.12, subd. (c)), had two prior serious felony convictions (§ 667, subd. (a)), and had served a prior prison term (§ 677.5, subd. (b)). Following the penalty phase of the trial, the jury returned a verdict of death. After conducting an automatic review and declining defendant's request to modify the jury's verdict (§ 190.4, subd. (e)), the trial court sentenced defendant to death for the first degree murder count, and also imposed an indeterminate term of 25 years to life, with an additional determinate term of five years, for the arson count. This appeal is automatic. (§ 1239, subd. (b).)

We affirm the judgment in its entirety, and order that the abstract of judgment be corrected to conform to the trial court's oral pronouncement as to the judgment on the arson count.

I. FACTS

A. The Guilt Phase

During the early morning hours of June 19, 1996, a fire was reported at the mobilehome residence of Ruth Eddings. After the fire was extinguished, her nude body was discovered lying facedown on the living room floor. An autopsy revealed that she had died before the fire started as the result of injuries consistent with blunt force trauma and strangulation.

Defendant, who lived with his parents in a mobilehome next door to Eddings, became the focus of the police investigation almost immediately. He was interviewed at home that morning and afternoon, and then interviewed at the police station later that evening and the following day. During the course of the questioning, defendant admitted responsibility for the fire and for Eddings's death. He also admitted to having sexual intercourse with Eddings and to ejaculating between her legs, although he was unsure if actual penetration occurred.

Because defendant admitted that he killed Eddings and set her residence on fire to conceal the death, the central issue for the jury to resolve at trial related to intent. The prosecution's theory of the case was that defendant committed burglary by entering the residence with the intent to sexually assault Eddings, and that he killed Eddings during the commission of rape and sodomy, or during an attempt to commit these crimes. The defense's theory was that defendant went to Eddings's home simply “to make sure she was not hurt, or anything,” that he was intoxicated at the time, and that her death resulted from defendant accidentally falling on Eddings. The defense maintained that defendant had no intention of killing or having sexual contact with Eddings when he went to her home, and that if any sexual assault occurred, it occurred postmortem.

1. The prosecution's case-in-chief

(a) The murder and arson

At the time of her death, Ruth Eddings stood four feet 11 inches tall, weighed 90 pounds, and was 81 years of age. She lived in Riverside County in a mobilehome next to defendant's parents, Mina and Bill Jones, with whom she had had a friendly relationship for almost 20 years. By defendant's own account, Eddings was “a nice person” who had treated defendant well, including paying him to do small jobs around her house.

At the time of the murder, defendant stood almost six feet tall, weighed approximately 200 pounds, and was 39 years of age. He had been living with his parents for a year and a half following his release on parole after serving more than four years in prison for two felony convictions for sexual assault on a minor. On the day of Eddings's death, defendant was home alone, as his parents recently had left on their first vacation since defendant moved in with them.

Riverside County Sheriff's Deputy Philip Matheny testified that he was on duty as a patrol officer in the early morning hours of June 19 when, at approximately 4:40 a.m., he was instructed to assist fire department personnel responding to a structure fire with possible people inside. After the fire was extinguished, investigators inspected the structure—a single-wide mobilehome trailer with attached outbuildings—and determined that the fire, which involved only the rear portion of the residence, had been started using accelerant in the living room and inside the front door. A Camel cigarettes book of matches was found in the driveway, and the label of a Blitz brand gasoline container was lying in defendant's parents' yard near the chain-link fence that ran between the two properties. Eddings's badly burned body was discovered inside the trailer. She was unclothed, lying facedown with her legs spread apart and her head pointing away from the front door.

(b) Defendant's statements to law enforcement officers

Deputy Matheny testified that he made contact with defendant on the morning of the fire. Defendant told Deputy Matheny that he was staying with his parents, although they were in the State of Washington at the time, and that defendant had been sleeping when a young lady pounded on the window of his mobilehome, telling him there was a fire next door and requesting that he call the fire department.

Later that afternoon, defendant was interviewed at his parents' mobilehome by Riverside County Sheriff's Detective Eric Spidle. Donald Jones, defendant's brother, and Deputy District Attorney Patricia Erickson ² were present during the interview, which lasted approximately two and one-half hours and took place while they sat at the kitchen table or walked around outside. Detective Spidle testified that when he asked defendant for matches, defendant handed him a matchbook with advertising for Camel cigarettes on the cover—the same advertising Detective Spidle had seen on the cover of the matches found earlier in Eddings's driveway. Another, similar book of matches later was found in defendant's bedroom closet. Also found on defendant's parents' property was a Blitz brand gasoline container—the same brand as the gasoline container label found earlier in their yard near the fence bordering Eddings's property. Detective Spidle also observed a “fresh” scratch on the side of defendant's face.

At the conclusion of the interview, Detective Spidle asked whether defendant would be willing to accompany him to the police station. Defendant agreed, and Detective Spidle drove him to the Riverside police station, arriving at approximately 4:00 p.m. Defendant waited in the reception area for half an hour until the deputy district attorney arrived, after which defendant was taken into a room with detectives and the deputy district attorney, and was advised of his rights to counsel and to remain silent. Defendant signed a written waiver of those rights, and Detective Spidle began to interview him. ³ Over the course of the session, the detectives offered defendant food, and gave him coffee, soda, and cigarettes. Defendant's demeanor varied from cooperative and inquisitive, to confused, nervous, and argumentative, and, in the detectives' opinion, he exhibited nonverbal signs of deception. Scratches on defendant's face, arms, hands, abdomen, hips, upper thigh, and legs were photographed, and the photographs were introduced as exhibits at trial.

At Detective Spidle's prompting, defendant detailed his activities prior to the fire. He explained that he had arrived home from work at approximately 6:00 p.m., and then went to a neighbor's house for about half an hour. Afterward, he drove to the store and purchased a 12–pack of beer and some groceries. When he returned home, he “cranked up the radio and just sat down and relaxed and drank a couple of beers.” At approximately 8:00 or 8:30 p.m., defendant went outside to wash his hands with gasoline in order to remove construction adhesive. He brought the gas can back to the house in case he needed it for his rototiller the following day.

Detective Spidle suggested defendant might have “drank too much” and “accidentally” started the fire, a claim defendant repeatedly denied, saying, “I would not hurt that woman.” He claimed he had “no problem” with Eddings, that he “liked that lady,” and that she had “always been sweet” to him. Defendant at first denied ever going over to Eddings's house the previous night, but when questioned regarding the gasoline, he suddenly “remembered” going over to “check on” Eddings at approximately 9:00 p.m., after noticing she had not taken the newspaper he had left for her on their common fence. Defendant said he knocked on Eddings's door and asked, “Are you alright?” and Eddings “yelled out ... that she was in the tub.” Defendant revised this story almost immediately, claiming instead that he walked over with a beer, jumped the fence, knocked on Eddings's door, said, “Ruth, it's me,” but failed to get a response, then tried to open the door and found it locked, so he returned home. He insisted, however, that he did not enter Eddings's residence, that he drank only four beers the entire evening, and that he drank only two before going over to check on...