People v. Leon

• Decision Date: 23 January 2020
• Docket Number: S143531
• Citation: 8 Cal.5th 831,257 Cal.Rptr.3d 592,456 P.3d 416
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Jose Luis LEON, Defendant and Appellant.

8 Cal.5th 831

456 P.3d 416

257 Cal.Rptr.3d 592

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.Jose Luis LEON, Defendant and Appellant.

S143531

Supreme Court of California.

January 23, 2020

Michael J. Hersek, State Public Defender, under appointment by the Supreme Court, and Andrea G. Asaro, Deputy State Public Defender, for Defendant and Appellant.

Kamala D. Harris and Xavier Becerra, Attorneys General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Julie L. Garland, Assistant Attorney General, Holly D. Wilkens and Kristen Kinnaird Chenelia, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

Opinion of the Court by Corrigan, J.

While his estranged girlfriend was studying abroad, defendant Jose Luis Leon went to her home and fatally stabbed her grandmother and 13-year-old brother. He also attacked her grandfather with a hatchet. Although admitting the crimes, he claimed he acted in imperfect self-defense. He was convicted of two counts of murder and one count of attempted murder, with a multiple-murder special circumstance and enhancements for personal use of a deadly weapon and infliction of great bodily injury.¹ The jury fixed the penalty at death for one murder and life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for the other. The court imposed an additional sentence of life without possibility of parole plus four years for the attempted murder. We affirm the judgment.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Guilt Phase

1. Defendant’s Relationship with the Ragland Family

Veronica Haft and her younger brother, Austin Perez, lived with their grandparents, Hope and Marion Ragland. Hope was a nurse, and Marion was retired.² They had raised Veronica since childhood. Austin came to live with them around age seven. Veronica was particularly close to Hope, whom she called "my best friend."

Veronica began dating defendant when she was 16. He said he was 19 but was actually 21. He had moved to the country from Mexico two years earlier and spoke only limited English. Veronica and her grandmother were fluent in Spanish. Veronica’s brother and grandfather did not know Spanish and spoke with defendant in English.

The first year of their relationship was happy. Defendant spent time at the Ragland home and was included in their family activities. Hope initially welcomed defendant’s presence, cooking for him and joining the couple on outings. A few months into the relationship, Hope purchased a red Ford Mustang for defendant, who agreed to make monthly payments to her. He kept up with the payments initially but later began missing them.

After defendant’s parents moved back to Mexico, he rented an apartment from a woman Hope visited for tarot card readings. Defendant believed the two were involved in witchcraft. Around this time, defendant stopped working. He spent his days at the Ragland house and became increasingly possessive and jealous. Near the end of her senior year, Veronica suggested breaking up. Defendant responded by angrily punching his windshield and grabbing Veronica’s wrist as she tried to leave the car.

Hope argued with defendant frequently and warned Veronica that the relationship seemed abusive. Once, the family came out of church to find defendant waiting by their car. When Hope asked why defendant could not leave them alone, he insulted her in Spanish. Hope tried to slap him but missed. Defendant then ran around the parking lot laughing while Hope chased him.

Veronica attended the University of California, Riverside and secured a full scholarship to spend the spring term studying at Oxford. When told, defendant begged her not to go. This angered Hope, who told defendant to stop ruining Veronica’s life. During the argument, Hope followed the couple outside and, at one point, moved as if to pick up a brick from the walkway. Veronica told Austin to call the police. Hope did not pick up the brick, and no one was injured.

Veronica went to England in mid-February 2003. Although she tried to end the relationship before leaving, defendant called her often. When he began calling 20 to 25 times a day, she turned off her phone. Defendant called on April 29, begging her to return to him. She spent more than two hours explaining the relationship was over. Defendant blamed Hope, but Veronica assured him the decision was hers. By the end of the conversation, defendant’s tone had changed, and Veronica thought he had finally accepted the situation. Two days later, on May 1, Veronica answered a final call from defendant, who said, "No matter what happens ... I’ll always love you." Irritated, Veronica hung up. The attacks happened that night.

2. Testimony Regarding the Night of the Murders

The Raglands lived in a gated community near a small shopping center. Two video store employees who knew defendant saw him shortly before 6:00 p.m. on May 1, 2003. Monique Perez saw him driving a red Mustang slowly around the parking lot. Not long thereafter, he walked toward the Raglands’ house. Yvette Alvarez also saw him sometime after sundown, walking back at a faster pace.

Consistent with his usual routine, Marion left home around 6:20 p.m. to walk the family dog. Austin was at his friend Osvaldo Magdaleno’s house, directly across the street. At some point, Magdaleno noticed defendant standing outside the community’s gate. Pedestrian entrances to the property were kept locked, but defendant walked inside when a resident opened the gate to drive out. While playing outside, Magdaleno saw defendant inside the Ragland house, looking out the window. Austin went home but could not open the front door. No one answered his knock, so he jumped the back fence.

Marion returned home around 8:15 p.m., finding it odd that both the security screen and front door were locked. The moment he stepped inside, he was hit in the head. The noise of the impact was so loud Marion thought he had been shot. Fearing he had interrupted a robbery, he backed out and went to the shopping center for help. He managed to enter the video store with his head bleeding and asked the employees to check on his wife. Alvarez called 911. Marion sustained a severe concussion

and skull fracture. Seventeen staples were required to close the wound.

Crime scene investigators found two bodies in the house. Hope had been killed while sitting in a lounge chair, but her body was stuffed into a kitchen closet. She had been stabbed eight times in the throat, chest, and abdomen. The neck wound

pierced her larynx and jugular vein. Her lungs, pulmonary artery, and aorta were also perforated. Austin lay in the kitchen, facedown in a pool of blood. Blood spatter evidence indicated he had been stabbed near a door leading to the garage then dragged into the kitchen. He had been stabbed 12 times. The wounds severed

the jugular vein and carotid artery and perforated the liver, stomach, and aorta.

The contents of Hope’s purse had been dumped on the floor, and "Austin is a bad student" was written on the living room mirror in Hope’s lipstick. The upstairs rooms had been ransacked. In the backyard, investigators found a hatchet and a knife with a bent and bloody blade. A ski mask and vinyl gloves were later found in defendant’s car, and his keys bore remnants of blood.

3. Defendant’s Police Interviews and Walkthrough

After the murders, defendant arrived on time for his 10:00 p.m. shift at a local dairy. The police brought him to the station for questioning the next morning. He waived his Miranda rights³ and spoke with the police.

During the initial interview, defendant adamantly denied committing the killings or even entering the Ragland house. In his first version, he said he went to the house to give Hope a car insurance payment but left because Marion was home. Marion did not like him and did not want him there while Veronica was away. Defendant claimed he had dinner then returned around 7:30 p.m. No one answered the door, so he sat on the porch but left when he saw Marion returning.

Questioned again the next morning, defendant said he was fearful and angry with Hope. He believed she put things in his food and practiced witchcraft to ruin his relationship with Veronica. The day before the murders, Hope told defendant Veronica was having fun in England and would go many places without him after her return. Defendant became angry and emotional, as if "the devil got inside of me."⁴ When he went to the house the next day, Hope taunted him with Veronica’s happiness at Oxford. Defendant said, "[T]hat pissed me off so much that we started to fight. ... a lot. She pulled out a knife ..., but she didn’t do anything to me." Hope tried to call the police, but he took the phone away. Defendant explained, "Then I remembered all the bad that she was doing to me, and I saw her with a look on her face that wasn’t hers. Like with the look of a witch. [¶] And it scared me so much. And in a moment of desperation and everything we started to fight. And that was when I grabbed the knife that was there. [¶] And I started stabbing, and stabbing her. And then her son came in with a skateboard and he threw the skateboard at me and we also started to fight. ... and I started to feel that everything got dark." He put Hope’s body in a closet afterward because he was afraid of her, and he ransacked the house because he was looking for Veronica’s new phone number. When Marion arrived, defendant hit him and fled.

Shortly after this interview, defendant provided additional details during a videotaped walkthrough at the crime scene. He and Hope argued. She stood and tried to slap him, but he grabbed her and took her phone. Hope retreated but came back at him holding a knife. They fell to the floor fighting. Hope threatened to kill him, but he rolled on top of her and grabbed the knife. Hope threw him off, then lunged at him and impaled herself on the knife, afterward exclaiming, "What did you do to me?" Defendant "lost [his] mind" when he saw the blood and stabbed Hope repeatedly. When Austin came in, defendant dropped the knife. Seeing Hope, Austin yelled...