People v. Jones
| Decision Date | 02 October 2013 |
| Docket Number | No. S042346.,S042346. |
| Citation | 306 P.3d 1136,161 Cal.Rptr.3d 295,57 Cal.4th 899 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Bryan Maurice JONES, Defendant and Appellant. |
| Court | California Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Michael J. Hersek, State Public Defender, under appointment by the Supreme Court, Joseph E. Chabot and Nina Wilder, Deputy State Public Defenders, and Lisa Anne D'Orazio 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 Karl T. Terp, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
A jury in San Diego County Superior Court convicted defendant Bryan Maurice Jones in 1994 of the first degree murders of JoAnn Sweets and Sophia Glover (Pen.Code, §§ 187, 189; all further statutory references are to this code unless otherwise indicated), attempting to murder Maria R. and Karen M. (§§ 664/187), and committing forcible rape, sodomy and oral copulation against Karen M. (§§ 261, subd. (a)(2), 286, subd. (c), 288a, subd. (c)). The jury further sustained an allegation that defendant used a deadly weapon when attempting to murder Maria R. (§ 12022, subd. (b).) Finally, the jury sustained three special circumstance allegations rendering defendant eligible for the death penalty: that he murdered both Sweets and Glover during the commission or attempted commission of the crime of sodomy (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(17)), and that he committed multiple murders (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(3)). Although defendant was also charged with murdering two additional victims, one with special circumstances, the jury failed to return a verdict on those counts, and they were not retried. On April 6, 1994, following a penalty trial, the jury set the punishment at death under the 1978 death penalty law. (§ 190.1 et seq.) This appeal is automatic.
(§ 1239, subd. (b).) We affirm the judgment in all respects.
In 1985 and 1986, defendant lived with his mother, Ann Jones, in an apartment on 51st Street in San Diego. Ann Jones worked 24 hours a day, five days a week, as an in-home nurse tending to the needs of an elderly woman named Tillie Wilsie, who lived on Mississippi Street, also in San Diego. Defendant would often spend weekends at the Wilsie home, including time when his mother was not present. He had a key to the Wilsie home.
At the time of the crimes, defendant was six feet five inches tall, weighed approximately 300 pounds, and was familiar with the martial art of karate. He occasionally borrowed his sister's car, a 1980 Datsun “280Z” with faded blue two-tone paint.
Maria R. testified that on August 15, 1985, she was homeless and living on the street. She used heroin two or three times a week but was not high that day. She struck up a conversation with defendant, and he offered her $20 for sex. She did not usually engage in prostitution but would occasionally do so. She agreed, and they took the bus to defendant's apartment on 51st Street. Maria R. had sex with defendant in the apartment, he paid her, and she took a shower. When she emerged from the shower, defendant had a rope in his hand. He forcibly placed the rope around her neck, jumped on her back and started choking her with his hands and the rope. She blacked out; when she awoke, defendant attacked her again, and she again blacked out. When she awoke a second time, defendant told her she would have to orally copulate him if she wanted him to let her go. She complied because she “wanted [her] life” and had no choice. Defendant released her after first taking back his $20.
Although Maria R. had had problems with the police before, she reported the crime to them. She accompanied police to the apartment building where she had been assaulted and hid while they brought defendant outside. Defendant was taken into custody but after his release a few days later, she returned to the apartment with some people from a church, who apparently tried to dissuade defendant from attacking her again.
The jury found defendant guilty of attempting to murder Maria R. using a deadly weapon, i.e., a rope. (§§ 664/187, 12022, subd. (b).)
Two weeks later, on August 29, 1985, police and firefighters responded to a report of a fire in a dumpster in the alley behind defendant's apartment on 51st Street. The fire had been set intentionally using an accelerant. After dousing the fire, responders found in the dumpster the body of Tara Simpson, an 18–year old African–American prostitute, burned almost beyond recognition. Although the severity of the burning made forensic examination difficult, an autopsy revealed a traumatic injury to her nose that was not caused by the fire, an incised injury like a knife wound in her abdomen, and evidence of asphyxia (small petechial hemorrhages on the surface of the heart), but no trauma to her throat or airway. Swabs revealed the presence of acid phosphatase in her mouth, vagina and rectum, suggesting seminal fluid. There being no aspirated soot in her lungs, she had died before being burned, probably of alcohol and cocaine poisoning. Although defendant was charged with murdering Simpson, the jury hung eight to four in favor of guilt.
Five and one-half months later, on February 11, 1986, firefighters responded to another dumpster fire in the same alley, about one block away from where they found Simpson's body. It also was started with an accelerant. After dousing the fire, they found inside the dumpster the body of Trina Carpenter, a 22–year old African–American prostitute. Her body bore evidence of bruising and other injuries around her neck, and tests showed she had cocaine and/or cocaine metabolites in her body when she died. An autopsy concludedshe died from asphyxia caused by strangulation.
Carpenter's body had been placed in a duffel bag before being put in the dumpster and set alight. The bag contained two cotton balls, one in her hand and one inside the duffel bag. The cotton balls bore evidence of spermatozoa and epithelial cells. In addition, vaginal swabs indicated the presence of spermatozoa as well as a high concentration of acid phosphatase, indicating the presence of seminal fluid. Swabs from Carpenter's mouth and rectum were negative for evidence of sexual activity. Genetic testing of the cotton balls found sperm contributed by more than one man to be present, but the predominant contributor was someone of defendant's genotype. A population frequency analysis shows this genotype appears in approximately 15 percent of the African–American population.
On the evening Carpenter was killed, a witness heard a “very loud thunk” emanating from the alley where Carpenter's body was eventually found. The witness looked out her window and saw an older car with blue oxidized paint near the dumpster where Carpenter's body was later found. When firefighters arrived, the car was gone. Although defendant was charged with Carpenter's murder, the jury hung 11 to one in favor of guilt.
Two and one-half months later, on May 9, 1986, police found the body of JoAnn Sweets. She was in a dumpster behind defendant's apartment, just one block from where police had found Carpenter's body and steps from where Maria R. was assaulted. She was unclothed except for a bra and blouse. Sweets, a 34–year old African–American woman, had been killed by manual strangulation and had severe injuries to her face and neck. She also had a broken neck, clavicle and rib. Cocaine was detected in her body. Her body was wrapped in a bed sheet and a mattress pad and then placed in two plastic garbage bags sealed with tape. Everything in the dumpster was covered by an afghan blanket.
Defendant's sister, L.A., told police she was almost 100 percent sure her mother had crocheted the blanket, although she backtracked somewhat at trial. Carpet fibers found on Sweets's blouse, the mattress pad and the afghan blanket matched the carpet in defendant's apartment on 51st Street. Using a process called vacuum metal deposition, police also discovered defendant's fingerprints and one of his palm prints on the plastic garbage bags. They also found his fingerprint on the dumpster.
Oral and vaginal swabs of Sweets's body tested negative for spermatozoa. Some sperm was detected on rectal swabs, but not enough to test. The bed sheet in which Sweets was wrapped was stained with semen, and a genetic test determined that more than one man had produced the stains. Defendant's genotype was represented in the stains, and epithelial cells found on the unstained portion of the sheet were also consistent with defendant's genotype.
The jury convicted defendant of the first degree murder of Sweets and sustained a special circumstance allegation that he killed her while engaged in the commission or the attempted commission of a forcible sodomy. (§§ 187, 189, 190.2, subd. (a)(17).)
On August 15, 1986, about three months after police found JoAnn Sweets's body, police discovered the lifeless body of Sophia Glover rolled in a blanket and placed on the grassy area between the sidewalk and the street, about a block from the Wilsie home on Mississippi Street. Glover, a 37–year–old African–American woman, was living on the streets at the time she was killed and may have been a prostitute. Her body bore severe trauma to the head, neck and chest, and she had cocaine in her system when she died. An autopsy determined she died of asphyxia due to manual strangulation. One of Wilsie's neighbors found Glover's clothes neatly folded and stacked in a nearby alley.
A small amount of spermatozoa was found on a vaginal swab taken from Glover's body, and both spermatozoa and acid phosphatase, indicative of seminal fluid, were found on an anal swab. The amount of genetic material on the vaginal swab was deemed insufficient for testing, but the spermatozoa on...
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