People v. Morales

• Decision Date: 10 August 2020
• Docket Number: S136800
• Citation: 10 Cal.5th 76,470 P.3d 605,266 Cal.Rptr.3d 706
• Parties: The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Alfonso Ignacio MORALES, Defendant and Appellant.
• Court: California Supreme Court

10 Cal.5th 76

470 P.3d 605

266 Cal.Rptr.3d 706

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.Alfonso Ignacio MORALES, Defendant and Appellant.

S136800

Supreme Court of California.

August 10, 2020

Diane E. Berley, Woodland Hills, under appointment by the Supreme Court, for Defendant and Appellant.

Kamala Harris and Xavier Becerra, Attorneys General, Lance E. Winters, Assistant Attorney General, Keith H. Borjon, Joseph P. Lee and Nima Razfar, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

A jury convicted defendant Alfonso Ignacio Morales of four counts of first degree murder ( Pen. Code, § 187 ) and other crimes. For each murder, it found true the special circumstances that Morales committed multiple murders and murder in the commission of a burglary. (Id. , § 190.2, subd. (a)(3), (17).)¹ The jury returned a verdict of death. This appeal is automatic. (Id. , § 1239, subd. (b).) We affirm.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

On July 13, 2002, the bodies of Miguel Ruiz (who was known as Mike), Maritza Trejo, Ana Martinez, and Jasmine Ruiz were discovered in the home they shared.²

Mike, Maritza, and Ana had been fatally stabbed. Jasmine, who was then eight years old, had been sexually assaulted and died from asphyxiation

. Morales was linked to the murders through physical evidence, including shoe prints and a palm print found at the home, fingerprints found on goods stolen from the home, DNA found on Jasmine's body, and bloody clothes and knives located on Morales's property. Morales also admitted to law enforcement officers that he had been in the house at the time of the murders, though he denied committing them.

Morales was charged with four counts of first degree murder (counts 1–4; Pen. Code, § 187, subd. (a) ); one count of first degree robbery (count 5; id. , § 211); one count of first degree burglary (count 6; id. , § 459); one count of a forcible lewd act upon a child (count 7; id. , § 288, subd. (b)(1)); and one count of sexual penetration by a foreign object (count 8; id. , § 289, subd. (a)(1)). Morales was also charged with the following special circumstances: multiple murders (counts 1–4; id. , § 190.2, subd. (a)(3)); murder in the commission of a robbery (counts 1–4; id. , § 190.2, subd. (a)(17)(A)); murder in the commission of a burglary (counts 1–4; id. , § 190.2, subd. (a)(17)(G)); murder by torture (count 4; id. , § 190.2, subd. (a)(18)); murder in the commission of a lewd act upon a child under the age of 14 (count 4; id. , § 190.2, subd. (a)(17)(E)); and murder in the commission of sexual penetration by a foreign object, force, and violence (count 4; id. , § 190.2, subd. (a)(17)(K)). Finally, Morales was charged with the following enhancements: personal use of a deadly and dangerous weapon in commission of a felony (counts 1–3, 5, and 6; id. , § 12022, subd. (b)(1)); great bodily injury on a person 70 years of age or older (count 3; id. , § 12022.7, subd. (c)); use of force, violence, duress, menace, and fear of immediate and unlawful bodily injury (count 7; id. , § 1203.066, subd. (a)(1)); substantial sexual contact with a victim who is under 14 years of age (count 7; id. , § 1203.066, subd. (a)(8)); and great bodily injury (counts 7–8; id. , § 12022.8).

The jury convicted on all counts and found true the special circumstances of multiple murders and murder in the commission of a burglary on all four murder counts. With respect to count 4, concerning Jasmine's murder, the jury also found true the special circumstances of murder by torture, murder in the commission of a lewd act upon a child under the age of 14, and murder in the commission of sexual penetration by a foreign object, force, and violence.

In addition, the jury found true several enhancement allegations: personal use of a deadly and dangerous weapon in commission of a felony (on counts 1, 2, 3, and 6); use of force, violence, duress, menace, and fear of immediate and unlawful bodily injury (count 7); substantial sexual contact with a victim who is under 14 years of age (count 7); and great bodily injury (counts 7 and 8). At the penalty phase, the jury returned a verdict of death. The superior court sentenced Morales to death.

A. Guilt Phase Evidence

In 2002, Mike lived with his common law wife Maritza, his grandmother Ana, his stepdaughter Maritza Raquel Trejo (who was known as Raquel), and his and Maritza's eight-year-old daughter Jasmine in a three-bedroom home in Whittier. Jasmine and Raquel shared a bedroom. Morales, who was in his mid-20's at the time, lived around the corner from the family. Morales and Mike were friends; Morales would visit the family's home almost every day to hang out with Mike.

On his visits, Morales sometimes briefly interacted with Raquel and Jasmine, usually sharing just quick hellos. But on one occasion Morales made Raquel uncomfortable by standing in the backyard, staring at her through her bedroom window, and asking her to come outside. After the encounter, Morales apologized to Mike and Maritza and bought the whole family dinner. Morales also once asked Raquel on a date, and she said "maybe," though she did not want to go out with him, so she avoided him on the night of their date. Thereafter, she felt uncomfortable around him and began staying in her room whenever he came over to the family's house.

Sometimes when Morales visited Mike at home, he would drive his car (a green Mustang), though he lived just down the street. Hector Alvarez, a neighbor of the family, would see Morales's Mustang at the house approximately four days a week. About two months before the murders, Alvarez stopped seeing Morales's car in front of the family's house, and about a month before the murders, he stopped seeing Morales at the house. Raquel also realized about a week before the murders that Morales had stopped coming to the house.

The murders occurred sometime after 9:00 p.m. on Thursday, July 11, 2002, and before 8:30 a.m. on Friday, July 12, 2002. Mike and Maritza were last seen alive between 8:30 and 9:30 p.m. on Thursday night, when one of Mike's friends visited them at their home for 15 to 30 minutes. Raquel spent the night at her uncle's house that night. The family's back-door neighbor, Doris Morris, saw a step stool against the wall of her property that abutted the family's property on either Thursday or Friday morning: At trial in 2005, Morris testified she saw the stool on Thursday morning at around 8:00 a.m. and moved it at about noon, but in an interview with law enforcement officers on Saturday, July 13, 2002, Morris said she had seen the stool on Friday morning at around 6:00 a.m. and moved it at about 11:00 a.m. Morris's backyard was not enclosed, so someone could walk directly from Morris's backyard to Morales's house down the street.

Between 8:00 and 8:30 a.m. on Friday, Mike's father and his father's wife stopped by the family's house. They knocked on the front door and on Ana's bedroom window, but no one answered, so they left after about five to 10 minutes. It was unusual for everyone to be asleep so late. Mike did not show up to work at 9:00 a.m., even though he had a scheduled meeting at that time with Harold Suarez, a distant relative and customer, and was usually very punctual. At around 9:15 a.m., Suarez called Mike's cell phone; someone answered the phone, waited for a few seconds without speaking, and then hung up. Suarez called again five to 10 minutes later and the same thing happened. At various times throughout the rest of the day, Raquel and Mike's sister-in-law, Kenelly Zeledon, attempted to call Mike, but they could not reach him. At about 9:00 p.m., Raquel went to her house with her uncle. Her parents’ cars were in the driveway, but all of the house doors were closed, and the curtains were shut. She knocked on the doors, but no one answered. She left the home between 10:00 and 10:30 p.m. to stay at Zeledon's house.

At 11:00 p.m. on Friday, Leopoldo Salgado, a local bar manager, saw Morales at the bar. Morales, who visited the bar frequently but did not drink, asked to talk to Salgado. Salgado asked Morales to wait until closing, after which Morales left the bar. At around 2:00 a.m., Salgado saw Morales sitting in his car in the bar parking lot, but Salgado did not have time to talk at length with Morales.

On Saturday, July 13, 2002, at around 6:00 a.m., Doris Morris saw a large trash barrel and step stool against her wall abutting the family's property. The step stool was different than the one she had seen previously. When she went outside at 6:15 a.m., both the stool and the barrel were gone.

On Saturday morning, around 11:00 a.m., after failing to reach Maritza by phone, Raquel and Zeledon returned to Raquel's house. No one responded when Raquel knocked, so she jumped over the fence and entered the home through the unlocked kitchen door at the back of the house. She found the house in complete disarray, with blood and food items on the walls and floors, towels on the floors, furniture moved, and items missing from Mike's office. Raquel went outside and told her aunt about the state of the home. Zeledon entered the home and noted the disorder. In Mike's office, she found blood all over, items moved around, and a pair of pants on the floor, which was strange because Mike was usually tidy. In the master bedroom, she noticed furniture had been moved. And in Jasmine and Raquel's room, there was honey all over the furniture. She then walked into Raquel and Jasmine's bathroom and saw Jasmine's lifeless body in the bathtub. On top of Jasmine was a large statue that covered almost the entire length of her body. She also had blood running down her leg. Zeledon then entered Ana's bedroom, where she found the bodies of Mike, Maritza, and Ana. Mike was wearing only underwear (which Raquel testified was unusual), Maritza was wearing a tank top and shorts, and Ana was wearing a nightgown. Zeledon exited the house, told Raquel what she had found, and asked a...