People v. Redd
| Citation | 108 Cal.Rptr.3d 192,48 Cal.4th 691,229 P.3d 101 |
| Decision Date | 29 April 2010 |
| Docket Number | No. S059531,S059531 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court (California) |
| Parties | The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Stephen Moreland REDD, Defendant and Appellant |
Grace Lidia Suarez, San Francisco, under appointment by the Supreme court, 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, Holly D. Wilkens and Jennifer A. Jadovitz, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
A jury convicted Stephen Moreland Redd of the first degree murder of Timothy McVeigh (Pen. Code, §§ 187, subd. (a), 189), the attempted murders of James Shahbakhti and Chris Weidmann (Pen. Code, §§ 187, subd. (a), 664), two counts of second degree robbery (Pen. Code, § 211), and two counts of second degree commercial burglary (Pen. Code, § 459).1 The jury found true the special circumstances that the murder was committed while defendant was engaged in the commission of robbery and of burglary. (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(17)(A), (G).) The jury also found true the allegations that defendant personally used a firearm in the commission of each of the seven crimes (§§ 1203.06, subd. (a)(1), 12022.5, subd. (a)), and that defendant, with the specific intent to inflict such injury, personally inflicted great bodily injury upon James Shahbakhti (§ 12022.7). The jury also found that defendant previously had been convicted of five serious or violent felonies. (§ 667.) Following the penalty phase of the trial, the jury returned a verdict of death. Defendant moved for a new trial (§ 1181) and for modification of the penalty to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole (§ 190.4, subd. (e)). The trial court denied these motions and sentenced defendant to death. The court also sentenced defendant to a term of 111 years to life in prison with respect to the other charges of which he was convicted, and ordered restitution in the amount of $10, 000. (§ 1202.4, subd. (b).) This appeal is automatic. (§ 1239, subd. (b).) For the reasons that follow, we affirm the judgment in its entirety.
a. Burglary and Robbery at Sav-on Drug Store
On March 13, 1994, Dean Bugbee was working as a supervisor at a Sav-on drug store in the City of Orange. Bugbee testified that he was counting currency in the store's safe at approximately 10:50 p.m., when defendant approached the safe, stated "it's time for a till audit, " and held a gun over the door of the safe. Bugbee stood up and faced defendant, with a distance of approximately two feet between them. According to Bugbee, defendant removed between $2, 000 and $3, 000 from the safe, placed it in his pocket, and exited from the store.
Bugbee confirmed that he described defendant to law enforcement officials as a White male, 32 to 38 years of age, approximately five feet eight inches tall, and approximately 210 pounds in weight, with dark brown hair. Bugbee recalled that defendant was wearing sunglasses, light blue jeans, a dark blue zip-up sweat jacket with a hood, and a baseball cap. The hood was over defendant's head when he entered the store, and Bugbee could not discern whether the hair he saw was natural or a wig. He confirmed at trial that defendant's weapon had a chrome surface, and that he described it at the time of the events as possibly a.45 semiautomatic pistol.
On June 16, 1994, Bugbee met with representatives of the Orange Police Department, who showed him photographs of six individuals. Bugbee confirmed he told the police that He acknowledged that, unlike the person who robbed him, the individual in the third photograph had a beard and mustache, but confirmed that he "felt this was the person."2
b. Attempted murders outside Vons market
On May 31, 1994, James Shahbakhti was working as a uniformed but unarmed officer for a private security company. He testified that at approximately 10:40 p.m., his dispatcher requested that he respond to a report of a
transient harassing customers at a Vons market in the City of Orange. When he arrived at the shopping center in which Vons was located, a person who appeared to be a transient attracted his attention. The individual was approximately 70 or 80 yards from Vons, near akarate studio situated to the right of Vons and the Sav-on drug store. Shahbakhti testified that he drove his marked security vehicle past the individual and circled around, to give himself an opportunity to observe the individual and to request the assistance of another private security officer. He then left his vehicle and approached the individual, who, at this point in time, was in the front of the Vons market. Shahbakhti testified that he asked the man what he was doing there and, when the man did not respond, asked him for identification. The man replied that he did not have any identification, and that he would leave the area. Shahbakhti then asked the man to remain where he was.
Chris Weidmann, who was Shahbakhti's backup private security officer and also unarmed, arrived at the scene in a marked patrol vehicle. Shahbakhti testified that as Weidmann exited from his vehicle, the man removed a gun from his jacket pocket and pointed it at Shahbakhti's face. Shahbakhti estimated that he and the man were standing two to three feet apart, and he testified that he could see the man's face clearly. Shahbakhti next recalled seeing Weidmann running toward Shahbakhti's vehicle, and then seeing the man fire one or two shots at the vehicle, from which Weidmann was attempting to retrieve a cellular telephone. Shahbakhti further testified that as the man fired at Weidmann, Shahbakhti began running away from the man. As he ran, he heard three to five more shots and was struck in the back. Shahbakhti also testified that the bullet entered his shoulder muscle, hit a bone, tore cartilage, collapsed one of his lungs, and hit his clavicle.
The next day, Shahbakhti was interviewed by Detective Michael Harper of the Orange Police Department, who showed him the same photographic lineup viewed by Bugbee. (See ante, fn. 2.) Shahbakhti testified that one of the six photographs "looked just pretty much like who the individual was." He confirmed that he told Harper "I can't be one hundred percent, but I'd say number three, " and he was "90 to 95 percent sure" that the third photograph was of the man he encountered at the Vons market. Shahbakhti also confirmed that the man wore a dark blue hooded sweatshirt with a front zipper, a black or navy blue watch cap, blue jeans, and what appeared to be a woman's dark-colored shoulder-length wig. Finally, he testified that the man's weapon was a chrome semiautomatic handgun.
Chris Weidmann testified that as he approached Shahbakhti and the man with whom Shahbakhti was speaking, he heard the man state that he was leaving, and Shahbakhti telling the man that he needed some information from him. Weidmann walked around a large pillar in front of the Vons market
as he approached them, and encountered the man as the man walked around the pillar. Weidmann could not see Shahbakhti, who was behind the pillar, and did not see the man's gun until the man pointed it at Weidmann's forehead. Weidmann recounted that he raised his hands and said to the man, "you're the boss, " and the man then lowered his gun and turned back toward Shahbakhti. Weidmann testified that he then ran to Shahbakhti's vehicle, because it had a cellular telephone inside. After Weidmann entered 911 and pressed the "send" button, he looked up and saw the man standing by the passenger side of the vehicle, pointing his gun at Weidmann's head. Weidmann testified that the man rapidly fired three shots, all of which struck the vehicle occupied by Weidmann. Weidmann explained thatwhen he felt broken glass from the windshield strike his face, he grabbed his face to make it appear that he had been hit by gunfire, rolled out of the vehicle, and pretended to be dead. He testified that he heard four additional shots from the same gun but, until the man fled, he was unaware Shahbakhti had been shot.
Weidmann testified that he was unable to identify in photographs the man who shot at him, but confirmed that the man was wearing a woman's brown shoulder-length wig and a blue or purple hooded sweatshirt. He described the man's gun as a chrome nickel-plated automatic weapon that he thought to be a nine-millimeter firearm.
Joseph Loya testified that on May 31, 1994, at 10:45 p.m., he was parking his vehicle approximately 100 yards from the back parking lot of the Vons market when he saw a man wearing dark clothing and a zippered sweatshirt with a hood jog out of an alley. The man stopped next to what appeared to Loya to be a light blue 1984 Ford Tempo. Loya testified that the man removed a mask, or perhaps a hat and a wig, exposing a white face and clean-shaven head. The man then entered the light blue vehicle and departed, driving in a normal manner. Loya followed the man's vehicle in his own vehicle, and recorded the vehicle's license plate number. Loya followed the vehicle for approximately three minutes, during which time the man began speeding and driving erratically, and then Loya contacted the Orange Police Department and reported what he had witnessed.
Detective Harper testified that the vehicle with the license plate number provided by Loya was a blue Mercury Topaz, which is "basically the same model" as a Ford Tempo, and that the vehicle was registered to defendant. Harper testified that he requested the Fullerton Police Department to look for defendant at an apartment complex in the City of Fullerton.
Linda King, a police officer with the City of Fullerton, testified that at approximately 1:00 a.m. on June 1, 1994, she received a request to travel to an address on Deer Park...
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