People v. Walker
| Decision Date | 18 May 2006 |
| Docket Number | No. B180004.,B180004. |
| Citation | 43 Cal.Rptr.3d 257,139 Cal.App.4th 782 |
| Court | California Court of Appeals |
| Parties | The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Joe Amall WALKER, Defendant and Appellant. |
Victor J. Morse, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, San Francisco, for Defendant and Appellant.
Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, Robert R. Anderson, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Pamela C. Hamanaka, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Steven D. Matthews and Adrian N. Tigmo, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
Joe Amall Walker previously raped and assaulted two women, one of whom was a prostitute (Irma P.) and one of whom was not (Dorothy B.), and assaulted a second prostitute after she had agreed to have sex with him (Stephanie L.). During Walker's trial for the asphyxiation murder of Kathryn M. Waters, also a prostitute, the People were allowed to introduce evidence of Walker's three prior sexual assaults on these women to establish identity, motive and intent pursuant to Evidence Code section 1101, subdivision (b),1 as well as to prove Walker's predisposition to commit the current offense pursuant to section 1108, subdivision (a). The jury convicted Walker of second degree murder.
Evidence of Walker's attacks on Irma P. and Stephanie L. was properly admitted at Walker's murder trial on the issues of motive and intent and, with respect to Irma P., as to identity as well. However, because Walker was not accused of a sexual offense within the meaning of section 1108, it was error to permit the People to introduce evidence of Walker's prior criminal conduct to prove his propensity to kill Waters. It was also error to admit evidence of Walker's assault and rape of Dorothy B. because of the dissimilarity between the circumstances of that crime and Waters's murder. Nonetheless, the court's improper admission of evidence and its related error in instructing the jury concerning the purposes for which that evidence could be considered were harmless. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment.
In an amended information filed on October 14, 2004 Walker was charged in a single count with the first degree murder of Waters (Pen.Code, § 187, subd. (a)). The information alleged Walker had suffered a prior serious or violent felony conviction within the meaning of the "Three Strikes" law (Pen.Code, §§ 667, subds. (b)(i); 1170.12, subds. (a)-(d)) and Penal Code section 667, subdivision (a)(1), and had served four separate prison terms for prior felony convictions (Pen.Code, § 667.5, subd. (b)).2 Walker pleaded not guilty and denied the special allegations.
Kathy Waters worked as a prostitute to support her heroin addiction. Her badly bruised body was found in a parking lot in Monterey Park on February 23, 2003. Waters had been strangled and died of asphyxia; the bruises on her head and face were caused by blunt trauma force; the bruises on her left hand and wrist were consistent with defensive injuries. DNA from semen found on Waters's external genitalia and one nipple matched Walker's.
Walker, a freelance automobile mechanic, resided at a sober living facility in Carson and attended a rehabilitation program for recovering addicts in downtown Los Angeles. The rehabilitation program was housed in a building adjacent to the apartment complex in which Waters lived.
Jon Wilson, Waters's boyfriend, told a detective from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department he last saw Waters on February 22, 2003 when she left her apartment to meet a customer she referred to as "the mechanic." According to Wilson, Waters had engaged in prostitution with "the mechanic" in her apartment two or three times in the month prior to her death. Wilson provided a description of "the mechanic" that matched Walker's description; he then identified Walker as "the mechanic" from a photograph.3 Walker's telephone number and the name "Joe" were written on a business card found in Waters's apartment.
The People and Walker stipulated that a post-mortem sexual assault examination was performed on Waters, that the findings were consistent with sexual contact (full or partial or attempted sexual penetration) during the hours or days just prior to Waters's death and that there was no medically valid way to determine whether the sexual contact occurred with or without Waters's consent. That stipulation was presented to the jury.
The defense indirectly suggested at trial that Waters may have been killed by her boyfriend Wilson, a drug dealer with a criminal record involving prior assaults and corporal injury to a spouse or cohabitant.
In an interview with investigators from the sheriff's department approximately five weeks after Waters's body was discovered,4 Walker — who did not testify at trial — acknowledged knowing Waters but denied ever having sex with her and attempted to establish an alibi. Walker contended that on February 22, 2003, the day before Waters's body was found, he was working on a car at 118th Street and Wilmington Avenue in south Los Angeles, where it had broken down, and later on Wilmington Avenue, after the car broke down again. Walker maintained he worked on the car until dark and then returned to the sober living house in Carson.
Records for Walker's cellular telephone introduced at trial, however, were inconsistent with his alibi.5 The documents show that an outgoing call was made at 1:00 p.m. from a location near Waters's residence in downtown Los Angeles. A series of outgoing calls were made between 4:15 p.m. and 6:24 p.m. from Huntington Park, an industrial area about six miles from 118th Street and Wilmington Avenue. A call was then made at 7:47 p.m. from the vicinity of Temple City, where Walker had once lived and which is in the opposite direction from the sober living house.
In addition, at trial Stephen Brame, who had resided in the same sober living house and attended the same drug rehabilitation program as Walker, testified Walker told him he had paid sex with Waters in her apartment.
Prior to trial the court granted the People's motion pursuant to sections 1101 and 1108 to introduce evidence of three prior sexual assaults committed by Walker. In July 1981 Walker was convicted of assaulting Dorothy B. with a deadly weapon. According to Dorothy B.'s testimony, the incident occurred when she was hitchhiking from Chino, where she had visited her boyfriend, to her home in Chatsworth. Because her boyfriend was a truck driver who made deliveries in Los Angeles and Dorothy B. had been with him on some of those occasions, she made her way to a truck stop in Los Angeles to look for someone she might know to give her a ride. Not recognizing anyone, Dorothy B. began asking for a ride from the truck drivers present. Walker told Dorothy B. he was a truck driver and could give her a ride. As they walked through a dark, remote train yard to Walker's truck, Walker said he had a weapon and forced Dorothy B. into an empty train car where he had intercourse with her against her will. Walker would not let Dorothy B. leave; he said he had a gun and threatened to "blow [her] head off." Just before morning, as Walker was walking Dorothy B. back to the truck stop, gripping her arm, she managed to break free.
In April 1983 Walker was convicted of raping Irma P. Irma P. testified she was a heroin-addicted prostitute, who worked at a truck stop in Los Angeles that Walker frequented almost daily. On December 14, 1982 Walker approached Irma P. as she left a restaurant in the area at approximately 3:00 a.m. Walker asked her to walk with him and then pulled out a knife. With the knife pressed to her side, Walker took Irma P. into a vacant building; told her to remove her clothes; and, after she took her pants off, began hitting her in the ribs and face and choking her. He raped her and stated several times "that he hated fucking whores." Irma P. was able to escape after telling Walker she heard a noise and thought someone was with them in the building. As they left the building, Walker released Irma P.
According to the testimony of Christopher Schaper, who at the time was an officer with the Los Angeles Police Department, at approximately 7:15 p.m. on December 14, 1982, the same day as the rape and assault of Irma P., he and his partner saw Walker walking with a woman they believed was a prostitute, Stephanie L., in the area where Irma P. had been raped. The officers followed the pair to see whether they would engage in an act of prostitution. After Walker and Stephanie L. turned into a dead-end alley, the officers waited about 15 seconds and then heard a woman screaming. Schaper jumped out from his position and saw Stephanie L. lying face down on the ground with Walker sitting on top of her, trying to cut the back of her neck with a large hair comb. Stephanie L. told the officers she had agreed to have sex with Walker, but as soon as they got in the alley he knocked her down, jumped on her, tried to pull her pants off and then started cutting the back of her neck. After the officers took Walker into custody and were walking him to their police car, Irma P. approached the officers and started yelling that Walker was the man who had attacked her.
The trial court instructed the jury pursuant to CALJIC No. 2.50 that evidence of other crimes committed by Walker, if believed, may be considered for the limited purpose of determining if it tends to show the identity of the person who committed the crime, the existence of the intent that is a necessary element of the crime charged, a motive for the commission of the crime charged or a characteristic method or plan in the commission of criminal acts similar to that used in the...
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