People v. Lopez

• Decision Date: 31 July 2013
• Docket Number: No. S073597.,S073597.
• Citation: 301 P.3d 1177,157 Cal.Rptr.3d 570,56 Cal.4th 1028
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Juan Manuel LOPEZ, Defendant and Appellant.

56 Cal.4th 1028

301 P.3d 1177

157 Cal.Rptr.3d 570

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.Juan Manuel LOPEZ, Defendant and Appellant.

No. S073597.

Supreme Court of California

June 13, 2013.

Rehearing Denied July 31, 2013.

See 3 Witkin & Epstein, Cal. Criminal Law (4th ed. 2012) Punishment, § 540.

Michael J. Hersek, State Public Defender, under appointment by the Supreme Court, and Arnold Erickson, Deputy State Public Defender, for Defendant and Appellant.

Bill Lockyer and Kamala D. Harris, Attorneys General, Robert R. Anderson, Chief Assistant Attorney, Pamela C. Hamanaka, Assistant Attorney General, John R. Gorey and Theresa A. Patterson, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

CANTIL–SAKAUYE, C.J.

An information filed in February 1997 charged defendant Juan Manuel Lopez and his brother Ricardo Lopez with the April 1996 murder of Melinda Carmody (Pen.Code, § 187) ¹ and four other counts: kidnapping (§ 207, subd. (a)), assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury and/or with a deadly weapon (§ 245, subd. (a)(1)), first degree residential burglary (§ 459), and second degree burglary of a vehicle (§ 459). The information also alleged a special circumstance that the murder was committed for the purpose of preventing the victim's testimony in a criminal proceeding and that a principal was armed with a firearm in the commission of the offense. ( §§ 190.2, subd. (a)(10), former 12022, subd. (a)(1), as amended by Stats.1995, ch. 377, § 8, p. 1948.) ²

A jury convicted defendant of murder and found true the special circumstance and weapon allegations. The jury also convicted defendant of all charged crimes except the vehicle burglary count, as to which it was unable to reach a decision. The jury then returned a verdict of death, which the trial court declined to modify. This appeal is automatic. (§ 1239, subd. (b).) We affirm the judgment.

I. FACTS

A. Guilt Phase

1. Prosecution evidence

In 1995, defendant was the leader of the Parthenia Street gang. In March 1995, when she was 14 years old, Melinda “Mindy” Carmody was “jumped into” the Baby Locas—the female adjunct of defendant's gang.³ One of the girls who initiated her into the gang was the leader of the Baby Locas, Sandra Ramirez, who became Mindy's friend. Mindy's gang moniker was “Crazy” and Ramirez's was “Shy Girl.” Shortly after she joined the gang, Mindy began a relationship with defendant. She eventually ran away from home and moved in with defendant's family. In September 1995, Mindy returned home but continued her relationship with defendant.

Mindy broke up with defendant in February 1996. According to Mindy's preliminary hearing testimony, defendant called her at her mother's home on the morning of March 13, 1996, and asked if he could come by to pick up some papers. Mindy said no, because she was afraid of defendant. While they were still dating, defendant had told her that if she ever broke up with him, he would kill her.

About an hour after he called, defendant entered Mindy's house through the garage. He asked her if she wanted to leave with him. When she said no, defendant approachedher with a knife. He stabbed her with the knife in the back of the neck and she fell onto the couch. Defendant started choking her. While he was choking her, he told her that if he “can't have [her], no one can.” She fell off the couch and he released her, then he pulled her to her feet by her hair and forced her upstairs to her bedroom. Defendant put Mindy in her closet and grabbed a bag and told her to get some clothes because they were leaving. After packing the bag he pulled her downstairs. Outside of the house, he placed her into the backseat of a waiting car. Another man Mindy had never seen before was in the driver's seat. Before they left, defendant told her to change her shirt because there was blood on it.

At the preliminary hearing Mindy testified further that they drove first to defendant's house where Mindy waited in the car while defendant went inside to retrieve a bag. They then went to the house of defendant's aunt, Maria Hernandez, and defendant left her there. Hernandez helped clean the back of Mindy's neck, which was bleeding, and she changed her shirt again. Mindy remained at Hernandez's house for four hours but was unable to communicate with her because Hernandez spoke Spanish and Mindy did not. Eventually, Hernandez drove Mindy home.

Later that same day, about 5:00 p.m., Los Angeles Police Officer Robert Denton responded to a call to Mindy's home. According to the officer, Mindy was upset and nervous and started crying while he was talking to her. He took her to the police station. Photographs taken at the station showed fingerprint bruising and scratch marks around Mindy's throat and a wound to the back of her neck that had been oozing blood since Officer Denton first saw it.

Police arrested defendant on the night of the incident when, responding to a report of a car break-in at a condominium complex near where Mindy lived, they found him in a dirt area beneath a balcony. Defendant told the arresting officers that he “didn't do anything,” but “was in the area to see his girlfriend.” He kept repeating that he “loved her too much.”

Detective Morritt interrogated defendant. After waiving his Miranda rights ( Miranda v. Arizona (1966) 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694),defendant told Morritt that Mindy had given him permission to come to her house to pick up some papers. Defendant said he took a bus to Mindy's house and, once there, they argued and he hit and choked her. Nonetheless, according to defendant, Mindy voluntarily went with him to his house. From there, a friend drove them to the home of defendant's aunt.

Sometime after his arrest, defendant telephoned Sandra Ramirez, the leader of the Baby Locas, telling her that he had stabbed Mindy in the neck and kidnapped her. He also told her that he wanted to take Mindy to Mexico to marry her.

Mindy testified against defendant at the preliminary hearing on the kidnapping and assault charges on March 28, 1996. According to Detective Morritt, Mindy appeared frightened and upset, and cried at times during her testimony. At one point during Mindy's testimony, defendant sat forward in his chair and said, “I don't have to sit here and listen to this shit.”

Defendant called Ramirez on March 26 and March 27, 1996, from the cell area at the court where his preliminary hearing was held. In the first call, he again admitted to Ramirez that he had stabbed and kidnapped Mindy. He told Ramirez to tell Mindy not to go to court. In the second call, he asked Ramirez to come to court and pick up a letter that he had written to Mindy and deliver it to her.

Defendant was held to answer on the kidnapping and assault charges on March 28, 1996. Defendant's sister, Patricia (Patty), told police that defendant called her during the first week of April and asked her to set up a three-way call with their brother, Ricardo, also known by his gang name “Diablo,” and Jorge Uribe, a gang member who was known as “Pelon.” Patty set up the call but did not listen to the conversation.⁴

On April 11, defendant again called Ramirez while she was talking to Alma Cruz, another member of the Baby Locas. Ramirez, Cruz, and defendant all spoke together on a three-way call. Defendant told them they had to go to a gang meeting that was scheduled for the following night to discuss paying dues to the Mexican Mafia. They also talked about the girls' plan to jump in a new member, a girl called “Happy,” who was Mindy's friend. The plan was to jump Happyin at a park outside the gang's territory. Defendant insisted, however, that the girls jump her in at an alley claimed by the gang. Defendant explained that if Happy was jumped in at the park she would not be from the gang-controlled neighborhood. Ramirez did not believe it mattered where the new gang member was jumped in, but because defendant was the gang leader she agreed. According to Cruz, defendant asked her “if [she] could kill one of [her] homegirls.” Cruz replied that it depended on whether “[the homegirl] would do something to me.” Defendant said, “I already have someone doing it for me.”

Records showed that on April 10, the day before defendant's conversation with Ramirez and Cruz, there were a number of phone calls from defendant's cellblock in the jail to the Lopez residence where his brother Ricardo lived with their parents. On April 11, the same day defendant spoke to Ramirez and Cruz, calls were made from the superior court cell area at Van Nuys, where defendant was arraigned, again to the Lopez residence. Three calls were also made the following day, April 12, the day Mindy was killed, from where defendant was being held in custody, to the Lopez residence.

On Friday, April 12, 1996, Baby Locas leader Ramirez drove various members of the gang, including Mindy, to an alley off Schoenborn Street to attend the gang meeting and to initiate Happy into the Baby Locas. When they arrived, the sole male gang members present were Ricardo and Uribe. According to Ramirez, Mindy seemed frightened by Ricardo's presence, but Ramirez told her not to worry because he “wasn't going to do nothing.” Ricardo was drinking beer, as were other gang members including Mindy and Ramirez. Ricardo, Uribe, and other male gang members were on one side of the street and the females were on the opposite side.

At some point, Ramirez went to talk to Ricardo, who was standing with Uribe. Ricardo asked, “Why did you bring them?” and told her “[Y]ou know what's going to happen.” According to Ramirez, she did not know what he meant by that, nor what he meant when he also told her that, “if anything happened, to say it was a drive by.” Ricardo then took a gun out of his waistband, pointed it at Ramirez and said he was going to shoot her. Ricardo put the gun away and Ramirez walked away.

Uribe crossed the street and told Mindy that Ricardo wanted to talk to her. Mindy...