People v. MUNGIA
| Decision Date | 02 March 2009 |
| Docket Number | No. S060803.,S060803. |
| Citation | 189 P.3d 880,81 Cal.Rptr.3d 614,44 Cal.4th 1101 |
| Court | California Supreme Court |
| Parties | The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. John MUNGIA, Defendant and Appellant. |
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Michael J. Hersek, State Public Defender, under appointment by the Supreme Court, and Jeffrey Gale, Deputy State Public Defender, for Defendant and Appellant.
Bill Lockyer and Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorneys General, Robert R. Anderson, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Gary W. Schons, Assistant Attorney General, William M. Wood and Lise Jacobson, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
A jury convicted defendant John Mungia of the first degree murder of Alma Franklin. (Pen.Code, §§ 187, 189; all further statutory references are to the Penal Code unless otherwise indicated.) It found true special circumstance allegations that the murder was committed while defendant was engaged in the commission of robbery (§ 190.2, former subd. (a)(17)(i), now subd. (a)(17)(A)) and burglary (§ 190.2, former subd. (a)(17)(vii), now subd. (a)(17)(G)), and that the murder was intentional and involved the infliction of torture (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(18)). At the penalty phase, the jury returned a verdict of death.
After defendant waived a jury trial on the issue, the trial court found true the allegations that defendant had previously been convicted, within the meaning of section 667, subdivisions (c) and (e), of attempted murder (§§ 187, 664), mayhem (§ 203), and three counts of robbery (§ 211). The trial court denied the automatic application to modify the verdict (§ 190.4, subd. (e)) and sentenced defendant to death; in light of the death sentence, no sentence enhancements were imposed for the prior convictions.
This appeal is automatic. (§ 1239, subd. (b).) We vacate the torture-murder special-circumstance finding, but otherwise affirm the judgment.
A. Guilt Phase
In October 1993, defendant moved into a trailer beside the house of his sister, Cynthia Mungia, in Riverside. Cynthia lived across the street from 73-year-old murder victim Alma Franklin. After moving in, defendant told Cynthia that if he ever committed another robbery, he would have to kill the victim to avoid being identified.
On April 11, 1994, Franklin placed a television set on the street to be picked up as trash. Defendant asked her if the television worked; when she replied it did not, defendant said he wanted a part from it.
On April 12, 1994, between 4:00 and 4:30 p.m., defendant asked Cynthia for money. Cynthia refused to give him any and left to go to the store. As she was leaving, she saw Franklin in front of her house. Cynthia returned, but she departed again around 5:15 p.m. for her weekly bingo game. Although defendant occasionally accompanied Cynthia to the bingo game, he did not do so on this occasion. William Mills (Cynthia's next-door neighbor), Kenneth Wilde (Franklin's next-door neighbor), and Melissa DeAnda (a friend of defendant's nephew, Alex Mungia) each also saw Franklin in front of her house from around 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Around 7:00 p.m., Wilde heard defendant ask Franklin if she needed help putting empty tar buckets on the curb for trash collection, and Franklin said she did not.
Around 7:15 p.m., Manuel Lopez III (hereafter Lopez), who lived on the same street as murder victim Franklin and defendant, heard a car coming quickly down the street. Lopez and his father went to the street to yell at the driver to slow down; they were surprised when they saw the car was Franklin's. Lopez considered Franklin a cautious driver, and he had never seen her allow anyone else to drive her car. Lopez's father thought the driver was Paul McAllister, Franklin's boyfriend.
Around 9:15 p.m., Wilde heard a loud noise outside and called Franklin to ask if she had heard the noise. No one answered the telephone.
On the morning of April 13, 1994, Mills saw Alex Mungia feeding the chickens in Cynthia's backyard, a job ordinarily performed by defendant. Later that day, around 4:00 or 5:00 p.m., Melissa DeAnda, who was selling candy to raise money for a school trip, went to Franklin's house. Franklin's front door was open. Through the closed screen door, DeAnda could see Franklin lying on the living room floor. DeAnda ran across the street to Cynthia's house and told Cynthia what she had seen.
Cynthia ran to Franklin's house and saw Franklin's garage door was open and her car was gone. Cynthia entered Franklin's home and saw that Franklin's face was “gashed” in.
Cynthia ran to Mills's house and told him that Franklin was “down in the front room.” Mills went over to Franklin's house, determined that she was dead, and told Cynthia to tell his wife to call 911. After doing so, Cynthia went back to her house, checked defendant's trailer, and found no one there.
Riverside Police Officer Heath Baker and his partner responded to the 911 call. Baker saw Franklin lying on the living room floor with her feet bound together by a white sock and her wrists bound in the same manner. Because of the manner in which the blood had soaked the sock around Franklin's wrists, Riverside Police Detective George Callow, the lead crime scene investigator, concluded the sock had been tied around Franklin's wrists before she started to bleed. Callow also observed damage to Franklin's fingernails, which had blood around them.
Callow noted bloodstains on the bookshelf, on the wall between the bookshelf and coffee table, and on the chair near Franklin. The water in one of Franklin's toilets was red. In the master bedroom several dresser drawers were partially open, and clothing was scattered about the floor. A sheath knife was in the bedroom. The lower doors of a hallway linen closet were open and the closet appeared to have been searched. Franklin's wallet, her watch, and several pieces of her jewelry were missing. There were no signs of forced entry.
Lopez told Riverside Police Detective Gary DeVinna that he had seen someone driving Franklin's car the night before. He described the driver having very short, white hair. Defendant's hair was normally longer and darker than that of Paul McAllister (Franklin's boyfriend, who Lopez's father thought was the driver of her car), but defendant had his hair cut during the first week of April 1994.
When Riverside Police Sergeant Daniel Horton noticed the open garage door and the absence of a car, he reported to the National Crime Information Center that Franklin's car was stolen and wanted in connection with a homicide. About 9:30 p.m., Santa Ana Police Officer Jim Berwanger discovered Franklin's car on the 1300 block of South King Street in Santa Ana. Because the car was wanted in connection with a homicide investigation, Berwanger had it impounded. Around 11:00 p.m., Detective DeVinna spoke with Cynthia and her mother; defendant was not in his trailer next to Cynthia's house.
On April 14, 1994, Lopez told Detective DeVinna that he believed Paul McAllister, Franklin's boyfriend, was the man he had seen driving Franklin's car on the night of the murder. But when shown a photographic lineup that included a picture of McAllister, Lopez was not able to identify him. DeVinna also showed him a photographic lineup that included a picture of defendant with long hair; Lopez identified defendant but said he was not the driver of Franklin's car because the driver had short hair. At the time, he did not know that defendant had had his hair cut a week before Franklin's murder.
Detective DeVinna and his partner then talked to defendant. After defendant was told of, and waived, his constitutional rights to remain silent and to have a lawyer present, defendant said he was in his trailer the night of April 12. DeVinna and his partner asked defendant to remove his shirt. Defendant had superficial scratches on his chest, which he said were itch scratches. Defendant told DeVinna that on April 13 he looked for employment, rode around on a bus, went to a park and a mall, and finally went to the house of his cousin, Peggy Chairez, where he spent the night. Chairez's daughter confirmed that defendant had spent the evening of April 13 at Chairez's house.
On April 20, 1994, California Department of Justice Senior Criminalist Ricci Cooksey processed Franklin's car for evidence. Cooksey recovered a gray hair similar to Franklin's from the front passenger carpet mat; the hair was covered with a red substance that tested presumptively positive for blood. Two fingerprints lifted by Cooksey from the passenger side of the front bumper were later matched as defendant's prints by California Department of Justice Latent Print Analyst Donna Mambretti. Riverside Police Service Representative Richard Greenwood also collected a pair of unmatched cufflinks, a silver-colored pillbox, and a pearl tie pin from the floorboard area of the passenger compartment. Cooksey also recovered from the car's interior a Marlboro cigarette butt that had lipstick on it. Franklin did not smoke; defendant smoked Camel brand cigarettes.
On April 26, 1994, DeVinna and his partner again talked to defendant. Defendant told DeVinna he used to live in Santa Ana but no longer knew anyone who lived there. Defendant denied ever having been in Franklin's house, garage, or car, and claimed he had never worked on or touched her car. Defendant told DeVinna the only time he had ever spoken to Franklin was about the television set.
On May 4, 1994, Lopez spoke with his landlord, John Smothers. Smothers showed him defendant's photograph, which had appeared in that day's newspaper; defendant had short hair in the picture. After looking at the photograph, Lopez concluded that defendant, not Paul McAllister, was the man he had seen driving Franklin's car on the day...
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