People v. Suff

• Decision Date: 28 April 2014
• Docket Number: No. S049741.,S049741.
• Citation: 58 Cal.4th 1013,324 P.3d 1,171 Cal.Rptr.3d 130
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. William Lester SUFF, Defendant and Appellant.

58 Cal.4th 1013

324 P.3d 1

171 Cal.Rptr.3d 130

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.William Lester SUFF, Defendant and Appellant.

No. S049741.

Supreme Court of California

April 28, 2014.

See 1 Witkin, Cal. Procedure (5th ed. 2008) Attorneys, § 104.

Jeffrey J. Gale, Sacramento, under appointment by the Supreme Court, and Michael J. Hersek, State Public Defender, for Defendant and Appellant.

Edmund G., Brown, Jr., and Kamala D. Harris, Attorneys General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Gary W. Schons, Assistant Attorney General, Adrianne S. Denault and Erika Hiramatsu, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

CANTIL–SAKAUYE, C.J.

A jury convicted William Lester Suff of the first degree murders of Kimberly Lyttle, Tina Leal, Darla Ferguson, Carol Miller, Cheryl Coker, Susan Sternfeld, Kathleen Milne (also known as Kathleen Puckett), Sherry Latham, Kelly Hammond, Catherine McDonald, Delliah Zamora (also known as Delliah Wallace), and Eleanor Casares (Pen.Code, §§ 187, subd. (a), 189), and one count of attempted murder of Rhonda Jetmore (Pen.Code, §§ 664,187). ¹ The jury found true the special circumstance allegations that defendant was convicted of more than one offense of murder in this proceeding, and that defendant intentionally killed each of the homicide victims while lying in wait. (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(3), (15).) The jury also found true the allegations that defendant personally used a deadly and dangerous weapon, a knife, within the meaning of sections 12022, subdivision (b) and 1192.7, subdivision (c)(23), in the commission of the murders of Leal, Miller, Coker, McDonald, and Casares. After defendant waived his right to a jury trial on the special circumstance allegation that he had suffered a prior conviction for murder, the trial court found the allegation to be true. (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(2).)

Following the penalty phase of the trial, the jury returned verdicts of death with respect to each of the 12 murder convictions. The trial court denied defendant's application to modify the death penalty verdict to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole (§ 190.4, subd. (e)), and sentenced defendant to death with respect to each of the 12 murder convictions. The court also sentenced defendant to life with the possibility of parole with respect to the attempted murder conviction, and to a total of five years with respect to the findings that he personally used a deadly and dangerous weapon in the commission of five of the murders. This appeal is automatic. (§ 1239, subd. (b).) We affirm the judgment.

I. FACTS

A. Guilt Phase Evidence

1. Prosecution case

Defendant's victims abused drugs and worked as prostitutes in Riverside County. The homicide victims were killed between June 1989 and December 1991. All of his victims were asphyxiated, four of the victims also suffered stab wounds to the chest, and the right breast of three of the victims had been excised. Hairs, fibers, tire tracks, and shoe impressions connected defendant with the homicide victims, and each of these types of evidence was associated with more than one victim. The victim of the attempted homicide identified defendant as her assailant, and a friend of homicide victim Kelly Hammond identified defendant as the person driving a van that Hammond entered the evening she disappeared. A knife found in defendant's van had blood on it that was consistent with the last homicide victim's and not consistent with defendant's. Testing of DNA found on or near nine victims reflected matches to defendant. Personal items belonging to three of the homicide victims were found at defendant's worksite, in his wife's jewelry box, and in the possession of acquaintances to whom he had given them. Defendant had repeatedly expressed his hatred of prostitutes, and had stated to one person that he thought that prostitutes should be killed.

a. Attempted murder of Rhonda Jetmore

In January 1989, Rhonda Jetmore was seated on a bench on Main Street in the City of Lake Elsinore (Lake Elsinore), “hoping to encounter a date.” A man drove a station wagon alongside the curb near where she was sitting, and confirmed that he was looking for a “date.” He moved a box containing files of papers from the front passenger seat to the backseats, where there were more papers, and she entered his vehicle. He told her his name was “Bob,” they agreed on a price of $20 for “straight sex,” and she directed him to a nearby vacant residence. Once inside, Jetmore requested prepayment for her services. The man handed her a bill and, using her flashlight, she determined it was a single dollar. Before she could say anything, he grabbed her around her neck with both hands, pushed her down, and began choking her. As he choked her, she looked at his face, and also noticed his belt buckle, which had “Bill” spelled on it. She felt she was losing consciousness, and she believed he was attempting to kill her. When she realized she still had her flashlight, she struck him with it on the side of his head, and he released his grip on her neck. They struggled as she attempted to escape, and his eyeglasses, which had a wire or metal frame, came off. Her assailant agreed to let her leave if she assisted him in finding his glasses. She spotted them with her flashlight, and escaped as he retrieved them.

She did not report the assault until she was contacted later in January 1989 by the Riverside County Sheriff's Department regarding a different matter. She informed a sheriff's deputy of the name on the belt buckle, and of her perception that the assailant had responded when she called him “Bill.” When she was contacted again in 1992 by the sheriff's department, she selected defendant's photograph from a group of six photographs, and she recalled that he drove a light-colored station wagon. She identified defendant at trial, and stated she had no doubt that he was her assailant.

At the time of the attack on Jetmore in January 1989, defendant was living with Bonnie Ashley in Lake Elsinore. Ashley identified defendant in photographs in which he was wearing wire-rimmed glasses and a belt buckle with the name “Bill” on it. She kept real estate documents and other papers in her vehicle, and defendant sometimes drove her vehicle, which was a white station wagon.

b. Murder of Kimberly Lyttle

Kimberly Lyttle worked on Main Street in Lake Elsinore. On June 28, 1989, her body was discovered in a rural area near Lake Elsinore. Among the clothes on her body were socks and a shirt that did not appear to be hers. The cause of death was asphyxiation due to strangulation. In her neck area were numerous scratches that appeared to have been caused by fingernails, both of the person compressing her neck and by the victim trying to free herself. There was bruising on the skin and in the muscles of her neck, and a hemorrhage and fracture of the hyoid bone. In addition, hemorrhaging in her scalp was indicative of blunt force trauma, and round red abrasions on her arms and other parts of her body were indicative of cigarette burns.

Two kinds of tests were performed on DNA found in a vaginal swab from Lyttle's body: restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) and polymerase chain reaction (PCR). No results were generated by the RFLP test. PCR testing on the male fraction of DNA established one type that matched defendant. The probability of finding that type would be one in nine in the Black population, one in 11 in the White population, and one in five in the Hispanic population.² The small amount of DNA available prevented further testing.

On a towel draped over Lyttle's body were hairs that were similar to defendant's head hair, and pubic hair similar to defendant's pubic hair. Also on the towel were fibers similar to the carpeting, the sidepanel upholstery, and the seat fabric in defendant's van. Other fibers on the towel were similar to the blue nylon exterior, the red acetate lining and the white nylon insulation of a sleeping bag found in defendant's van. Sisal rope fibers found on the towel were similar to the sisal rope found in defendant's van.

c. Murder of Tina Leal

On December 13, 1989, Tina Leal's body was discovered in the Lake Elsinore area on a dirt road that was not well traveled. A T-shirt that did not belong to her was on her body. The cause of death was asphyxiation due to ligature strangulation and stab wounds to her heart. She had hemorrhaging within her neck and eyes, and abrasions on her neck from a ligature. She had four stab wounds to her chest inflicted antemortem, two of which penetrated three to four inches and into her heart. She also suffered numerous other antemortem injuries, including injuries to her lip and chin consistent with being hit, a black eye, an incised or “cutting” wound to her left breast, lacerations or “splitting injuries” to her vagina, probably caused by blunt force, and a stab wound to the pubic area. Around her wrists and ankles was redness indicative of a binding ligature. A General Electric Miser 95–watt light bulb was found inside her uterus; the bulb apparently entered through the vagina and cervix. General Electric Miser 95–watt light bulbs were found in defendant's apartment.

Hairs found on one of her socks and on the body bag in which she was transported from the crime scene were similar to defendant's head hair. Fibers found on the T-shirt were similar to carpet fibers in the two units of an apartment building in which defendant lived from March 1987 until mid–1988 and beginning again in March 1989. Fibers on the T-shirt were similar to the red acetate lining of the sleeping bag and the gold acrylic fabric that covered a pillow found in defendant's van. Fibers found in her hair and on her clothing matched a sisal rope in defendant's van.

In April 1990, defendant gave one of his female friends a pair of red-and-white cloth tennis shoes. A fiber found on Leal's sock was similar to the fibers of the tennis shoes, and...