People v. Odle

• Decision Date: 19 May 1988
• Citation: 45 Cal.3d 386,754 P.2d 184,247 Cal.Rptr. 137
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 754 P.2d 184 The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. James Richard ODLE, Defendant and Appellant. Crim. 23254.

Page 137

247 Cal.Rptr. 137

45 Cal.3d 386, 754 P.2d 184

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. James Richard ODLE, Defendant and Appellant.

Crim. 23254.

Supreme Court of California In Bank.

May 19, 1988.

Rehearing Denied June 30, 1988.

Certiorari Denied Oct. 17, 1988. See 109 S.Ct. 275.

Jonathan Matthew Purver, Novato, under appointment by the Supreme Court, for defendant and appellant.

Eric S. Multhaup, San Francisco, as amicus curiae on behalf of defendant and appellant.

John K. Van de Kamp, Atty. Gen., Steve White, Chief Asst. Atty. Gen., Edward P. O'Brien and John H. Sugiyama, Asst. Attys. Gen., Herbert F. Wilkinson and Blair W. Hoffman, Deputy Attys. Gen., for plaintiff and respondent.

LUCAS, Chief Justice.

Defendant James Richard Odle was convicted of the first degree murder of Rena Aguilar, and the first degree murder of Floyd "Bernie" Swartz. The jury found defendant personally used a deadly and dangerous weapon (a knife) in the Aguilar murder, and that he personally used a firearm in the Swartz murder. With respect to the Aguilar murder, the jury found true one multiple-murder special circumstance (Pen. Code, § 190.2, subd. (a)(3) ¹ ); with respect to the Swartz murder, it found true three special circumstances: murder of a peace officer (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(7)), murder to avoid arrest (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(5)), and multiple murder (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(3)). The jury also convicted defendant of three counts of assault with a deadly weapon on a peace officer (§ 245, subd. (b)), and found that he personally used a firearm in committing the offenses. In addition, defendant was convicted of possessing a sawed-off rifle (§ 12020, subd. (a)), and three counts of automobile theft (Veh.Code, § 10851). He was sentenced to death for the murders. This automatic appeal arises under the 1978 death penalty law. We affirm.

I. FACTS

In April 1980 Kathy Flannery and Rena Aguilar lived in Flannery's house in the City of Pinole. Flannery had known defendant for about 15 years and had been "seeing" him before he was sentenced to state prison. After his parole in October 1979, defendant was a frequent visitor at the Flannery home.

Defendant told Flannery he wanted a van or a truck to visit someone in Oregon. Thereafter, Flannery noticed a van parked across the street from her house. She told Aguilar she thought the van was stolen. Defendant was later identified as the man who had taken the van from a Richmond used car lot on the pretense of taking a test drive.

On the day of Aguilar's murder, defendant, his nephew, Bryan Odle, and William Moran, a friend of the Odle family, left San Pablo in defendant's 1968 Chevrolet Impala. They spent the next eight hours driving around northwestern Contra Costa County, stopping periodically to buy and consume 6 six-packs of beer. Defendant was driving and did not drink as much as Moran and Bryan. Around noon, each of the three took one "hit" of LSD, but were unaffected by the drug. Moran and Bryan split the remainder of the drug after lunch, but still felt no effect. About 5 p.m., the trio drove to where the stolen van was parked across the street from Flannery's house, parked defendant's Chevrolet and left in the van. Soon thereafter defendant stopped at a gas station in Pinole and made a telephone call. When he returned to the vehicle, he said he "wanted to kill that bitch," or that he was "going to kill that bitch." Neither Moran nor Bryan asked defendant what he meant.

The group next met an acquaintance, Jessie Raymond, who joined the peripatetic beer drinking party. The four men eventually drove to Berkeley and made a sauna and hot tub appointment for later that night. They then drove to the Berkeley waterfront. When a fight erupted between Moran and Raymond, Bryan broke a table in the van. Defendant screamed, "This may be a stolen van, but it's my ... van." The foursome proceeded to the Albany bowl, where Raymond left the group. At some point during the afternoon, Raymond heard defendant say that an unidentified "girl" knew that he had taken the van and that "he was going to talk to her about it or something."

After Raymond left, the trio went to their sauna and hot tub appointment. While driving back to Pinole between 10:30 and 11 p.m., Moran told defendant he was "stupid," and was "going to end up back in prison." Defendant struck Moran with the back of his hand and brought the van to a stop. Moran jumped out and hid in some bushes on the side of the road. Defendant yelled: "If you snitch or say anything I am going to kill you...." Defendant and Bryan drove around for 25 minutes looking for Moran. Finally they stopped at a gas station. Bryan testified defendant left the van and talked to Flannery, who was at the gas station sitting in her car. When defendant returned to the van he said, "I have to be at Kathy's at 11:30 for a phone call."

Defendant and Bryan drove to Flannery's house. Defendant, holding a tire iron, entered the house through the unlocked front door, with Bryan following. While defendant stood in the hallway, the telephone rang, and Aguilar left her bedroom to answer the telephone. Bryan saw defendant strike her twice in the head with the tire iron as Aguilar screamed and tried to cover herself. Bryan left the house because the scene "turned [his] stomach." As he was leaving, Bryan heard defendant say: "This is what you get, bitch, for snitching." After five to ten minutes, Bryan walked back into the house and saw defendant choking Aguilar. He again left the house.

A short time later, defendant walked outside and told Bryan to back the van up to the porch, and handed him the keys. Defendant carried Aguilar out wrapped in a blue quilt and put her in the van. Bryan saw what he thought to be a large pool of blood at Aguilar's head. He also saw that she was still breathing. Bryan told defendant to "put her out of her misery." Defendant then hit her "a couple more times."

Bryan refused to ride in the van. Defendant went inside the house and got the keys to Aguilar's car and gave them to Bryan. Bryan drove away in Aguilar's car, but soon realized defendant was not following him, and stopped at a stop sign. Defendant then pulled up quickly in the van and screamed to Bryan, ordering him to get in the van. Bryan entered the van and the two men drove away. Aguilar was no longer in the van. Bryan testified that defendant "was in a rage. He was saying, 'The bitch wouldn't die. The bitch wouldn't die.' He just kept repeating it as in disbelief saying, 'I stabbed her and I stabbed her and the bitch wouldn't die.' "

Several residents of the area had seen the van drive down the street. Dale Dacon heard "squealing" tires, followed five seconds later by a man yelling, and then, five to ten seconds later, she heard a woman "scream[ing] a high pitched scream." At her window she saw a van "slowly stopping and going down our street...." Sylvan Amdahl heard the squeal of brakes in the front of his house. He then heard a woman cry out in a loud and "terrified" voice, "Help me, someone please help me." Lea Wallace, her daughter Alyce, and her son-in-law, Donald Hightower, also saw the van drive by. Alyce described a "shrill scream"; she heard, "Oh, no. Oh, oh, no." Donald ran to the street and found Aguilar partially propped up against a stack of newspapers on the front porch of a house. An ambulance was called and Aguilar was taken to a nearby hospital where she died of "multiple traumatic injuries" just after 2 a.m.

The autopsy showed Aguilar's injuries to be of three major types: stab wounds to the chest, stab wounds to the abdomen and wounds to the head and surface of the brain consistent with being beaten with a blunt object. The wounds to the abdomen were about three inches deep, some penetrating to the back muscles. There were also injuries to the neck consistent with being choked by the gold chain that was found around the victim's neck. Some injuries could have been caused by falling or jumping out of a moving vehicle onto asphalt, and others on the hands and forearms were self-defense wounds.

Defendant and Bryan left the area in the van. Meanwhile, Pinole Police Officer Hodges had been called to the area because of the screams and the screeching tires. He encountered the van and gave chase. The van stopped suddenly on Merritt Avenue and its two occupants fled on foot. Guy Odle (defendant's nephew and Bryan's brother) lived on Merritt Avenue with his wife Michele. Defendant appeared at their house sometime after 1 a.m. He closed the curtains and asked for a shirt. He told Michele he had strangled and hit someone with a tire iron, but that she would not die. He said he tried to kill her because she was a snitch.

Defendant left the house after about 15 minutes and went to the home of Patricia Hart, Michele Odle's mother. Cleona Bennett, a friend of the Odle family, lived with Ms. Hart. Bryan was already at the Hart house when defendant arrived sometime between 1 and 1:45 a.m. Bennett heard defendant tell Bryan that he killed Aguilar because she was going to "snitch him off about the van." Bennett heard defendant say he wanted to get Bill Moran for the same reason.

The next day defendant went back to Guy and Michele Odle's house. Bill Moran went to the house that day and heard defendant telling Guy, Michele and a third person that he kept stabbing Aguilar but that she would not die. Moran testified defendant "was kind of laughing about it...." Michele Odle advised Moran "under her breath" that he had better leave. Moran feared defendant, and spent the next several days in various hotels until defendant was captured.

Defendant wrote two notes the day after the murder. Although he tore up the first note, it was later reconstructed. The first note read: "I James Richard Odle, I done the crime early this morning alone, no one helped me, no one did nothing to me. I am a Loner, & a Rebel, I James R. Odle signed this." The second note read: "I James...