People v. Vines

• Decision Date: 19 May 2011
• Docket Number: No. S065720.,S065720.
• Citation: 11 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 5955,124 Cal.Rptr.3d 830,2011 Daily Journal D.A.R. 7133,251 P.3d 943,51 Cal.4th 830
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent,v.Sean Venyette VINES, Defendant and Appellant.

51 Cal.4th 830

251 P.3d 943

124 Cal.Rptr.3d 830

11 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 5955

2011 Daily Journal D.A.R. 7133

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.Sean Venyette VINES, Defendant and Appellant.

No. S065720.

Supreme Court of California

May 19, 2011.

OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE Gilbert Gaynor, Santa Barbara, under appointment by the Supreme Court, for Defendant and Appellant.Bill Lockyer and Kamala G. Harris, Attorneys General, Robert R. Anderson, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Mary Jo Graves, Assistant Attorney General, Patrick J. Whalen and Michael Dolida, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.WERDEGAR, J.

[51 Cal.4th 839 , 251 P.3d 953]

A Sacramento County jury convicted defendant Sean Venyette Vines of the first degree murder of Ronald Lee (Pen.Code, § 187; all further statutory references are to the Penal Code unless otherwise indicated) and found true a special circumstance allegation that defendant murdered Lee while engaged in the commission of a robbery (§ 190.2, former subd. (a)(17)(i), now subd. (a)(17)(A)). It also convicted defendant of eight counts of robbery (§ 211), five counts of assault with a deadly weapon (§ 245, subd. (a)(2)), four counts of kidnapping to commit robbery (§ 209, subd. (b)), four counts of false imprisonment (§ 236), and two counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm (§ 12021, subd. (a)). As to 19 of the counts, the jury found true allegations that defendant personally used a firearm during the commission of the crimes. (§ 12022.5, subd.(a).) The trial court found true two prior conviction allegations, one within the meaning of sections 667 and 1170.12, and one within the meaning of section 667.5, subdivision (b).

The jury set the penalty for defendant's murder conviction at death, and the trial court sentenced him accordingly. This appeal is automatic. (§ 1239, subd. (b).)

I. GUILT PHASE

A. Facts

1. Introduction

On September 17, 1994, someone robbed the McDonald's restaurant on Watt Avenue in Sacramento. Eleven days later, on September 28,¹ another McDonald's restaurant, on Florin Road in Sacramento, was robbed and employee Ronald Lee was killed by a gunshot to the back of his head. Defendant was employed at the Watt Avenue restaurant on the date it was robbed and previously had worked at the Florin Road restaurant.

2. Watt Avenue Robbery

a. Prosecution case

In September 1994, defendant and William Deon Proby worked at the Watt Avenue McDonald's restaurant. Two or three weeks before the robbery, while working the closing shift, defendant asked one of the managers, Charles Ruby, Jr., about procedures in the event of a robbery. Ruby told him that employees and managers were supposed to give the robbers the money without resistance. Defendant chuckled and replied, “We are going to get robbed.”

On September 17, the day of the Watt Avenue robbery, defendant was scheduled to work the closing shift at the restaurant, but called in to say he would be unable to come to work. Manager Stanly Zaharko and employees John Burreson, Michael Baumann, and Leticia Aguilar worked the closing shift that evening. Only Zaharko had access to the safe.

The restaurant was scheduled to close at midnight. About 11:45 p.m., Baumann saw someone enter the restaurant and go into the bathroom. Although he got only a quick glimpse of the side of the person's face, Baumann was certain it was defendant.

Just after midnight, Zaharko closed the restaurant and began to lock the doors and make sure that no one other than the employees was still on the premises. Checking the men's restroom, Zaharko saw that someone was in a stall. He realized it was not an employee when he saw all the employees in the front counter and grill area of the restaurant a few moments later. About 12:15 a.m., Zaharko headed toward the restroom to tell the person to leave. As he rounded the corner of the lobby, he saw a man walking out of the restroom with a gun in his hand. The man was a dark-skinned African–American between the ages of 18 and 25, about six feet tall and weighing about 200 pounds.² He was wearing faded jeans, a green jacket with a hood over his head, and a green scarf wrapped around his face.

Believing the restaurant was being robbed, Zaharko raised his hands. The robber raised his gun and pointed it at Zaharko. The robber approached to within three feet of Zaharko, who, still facing the robber, walked backward to the counter area where the safe was located. Although he was not absolutely certain, Zaharko believed the robber was defendant.

When they reached the safe, defendant, using an unnaturally low, gravelly voice, ordered Zaharko to open it. He had the gun pointed at the back of Zaharko's head. After Zaharko opened the safe, defendant ordered him to hand over the keys. Zaharko complied by placing both the store keys and his personal keys on top of the safe. Defendant then directed Zaharko to the back of the restaurant, where the other employees were standing beside a sink. Still disguising his voice, defendant told all the employees to go downstairs. As they proceeded single file down the basement stairway, which was not visible from the customer side of the front counter, defendant kept his gun pointed at them. Aguilar recognized defendant, with whom she had worked as many as a dozen times, most recently the preceding day, as the robber. Defendant instructed them to enter the walk-in freezer. Before doing so, Baumann turned to face defendant, thinking of trying to take his gun. Baumann recognized defendant and, after looking into the robber's eyes, was even surer it was defendant .³ Once the employees were inside the freezer, defendant slammed the freezer door and locked it; although the freezer's lock was inoperable, a metal bar had been fabricated to connect with an eyelet mounted on the wall to permit locking the freezer. Defendant had several times previously locked the freezer using this prefabricated latch.

After waiting about 10 minutes, Zaharko and the other employees used an ax that was stored in the freezer to break through the door and escape. In the course of escaping, Zaharko injured his hand. One of the employees called 911, and they waited in the basement until the police arrived.

Upstairs, Zaharko saw that the safe had been ransacked. About $2,000 had been stolen, and Zaharko's canvas attaché bag and Dodge Dakota truck, which he drove to work every day and routinely parked in the same spot, also were missing. About a month before the robbery, Zaharko had given defendant a ride home from work in the truck. Zaharko told the officers he believed defendant was the robber and described him as a dark-complected Black male, about 21 years old, six feet tall, and weighing 210 pounds.

Vera Penilton, Proby's girlfriend, testified that after the robbery defendant and Proby picked her up at her mother's house and drove to the Rodeway Inn on Watt Avenue. She brought her newborn baby with her. Defendant and Proby were driving a truck, and Penilton saw a nametag bearing the name “Stanly” on the floor of the vehicle. Defendant and Proby previously had told her they planned to rob the McDonald's restaurant where they worked, and now told her about the robbery. Defendant said he committed the robbery by himself because Proby got scared and waited in the car. Defendant described waiting in the bathroom before robbing the restaurant and locking the employees in the freezer. He also told Penilton he hated his manager, Zaharko, and was going to shoot him, but did not do so. As he said this, he was laughing. Penilton saw that defendant and Proby had “a lot of money” and defendant had a small silver handgun.

At some point, defendant and Proby tried to clean the truck and wipe off any fingerprints. They threw some things from the truck into a trash can behind a restaurant and tried to burn the truck. Finally, they left the truck near a Denny's restaurant in the Target shopping center on Mack Road.

Defendant had taken the cellular phone that was in Zaharko's truck. Between 4:53 and 4:57 a.m. on September 18, the phone was used to call Ulanda Johnson's home telephone and pager numbers and Sonya Williams's home telephone number. Defendant had relationships with both women.

That same night, defendant picked up Sonya Williams at her home and brought her to the Rodeway Inn, where they met Proby and Penilton. Along the way, Williams noticed defendant had a small silver gun on his lap. He told her “he did what he said he was going to do or what he talked about,” and showed her a wad of bills. (Two to three weeks earlier, defendant had told Williams that he and Proby were going to rob the McDonald's restaurant where he worked.) Defendant elaborated that he had committed the robbery with Proby; the two men had shared the proceeds, with $900 going to defendant and $700 to Proby; and they had used Proby's car. Defendant told Williams that during the robbery he came out of the bathroom, put a gun to a man's face, put everyone in the freezer, and took the money. When Williams asked defendant something to the effect of “What if you had killed those people that were in the freezer?” he calmly replied, “So?” ⁴ After they checked into the motel, with defendant presenting his identification, Williams counted the wad of bills defendant had shown her earlier; it totaled about $260 in $5 and $1 bills.

Defendant and Williams stayed at the Rodeway Inn for three nights. When they checked out on September 20, defendant paid the bill in cash.

The day after the robbery, defendant went to the Watt Avenue restaurant to work the closing shift. Charles Ruby, Jr., who had learned of the robbery, told Lisa Lee, the general manager of the restaurant, about his earlier conversation with defendant in which defendant had predicted they would be robbed. Lee later said, loudly enough for defendant to hear, that the police had an idea about who had robbed the restaurant and would be coming back that night to talk to some people. Defendant...