The People v. Solomon

• Court: California Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: CORRIGAN, J
• Citation: People v. Solomon, 49 Cal.4th 792, 234 P.3d 501, 112 Cal.Rptr.3d 244 (Cal. 2010)
• Decision Date: 15 September 2010
• Docket Number: No. S029011.,S029011.
• Parties: The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent,v.Morris SOLOMON, Jr., Defendant and Appellant.

49 Cal.4th 792

234 P.3d 501

112 Cal.Rptr.3d 244

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent,v.Morris SOLOMON, Jr., Defendant and Appellant.

No. S029011.

Supreme Court of California

July 15, 2010.

Rehearing Denied Sept. 15, 2010.

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Bruce Eric Cohen, Berkeley, under appointment by the Supreme Court, for Defendant and Appellant.

Bill Lockyer and Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorney General, Robert R. Anderson, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Mary Jo Graves, Assistant Attorney General, Stephen G. Herndon, Patrick J. Whalen, Michael P. Farrell and David Andrew Eldridge, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

CORRIGAN, J.

A jury convicted defendant Morris Solomon, Jr., of four counts of first degree murder and two counts of second degree murder, and found true a multiple-murder special-circumstance allegation.¹ It also found him guilty of sexually assaulting two other victims. On retrial following jury deadlock at the first penalty trial, a second jury returned a verdict of death. ² This appeal is automatic. We affirm the judgment.

I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

The facts are summarized here for background purposes. Further details and procedural matters are discussed in connection with defendant's specific contentions.

A. Guilt Phase: Overview of Prosecution's Case³

In the 10 months between June 1986 and April 1987, Sacramento police discovered the bodies of seven local prostitutes. All but one were found at homes where defendant had worked or resided. More than half were buried in shallow, backyard graves. Nearly all of the women had been bound, two were gagged, and four were nude or partially clad from the waist down. All were drug users.

After defendant's arrest for the murders, three prostitutes reported to police that defendant had sexually assaulted them. One had been bound and gagged.

Police interviewed defendant multiple times. Both before and after his arrest, defendant made inconsistent and false statements about his presence and activities in the places where the bodies were found. He also falsely denied knowing, or misrepresented the nature of his interactions with, the victims.

1. The six murders ⁴

a. The first degree murder of Yolanda Johnson

On the morning of June 18, 1986, a 911 call summoned officers to an abandoned duplex on 4th Avenue in the Oak Park section of Sacramento. They discovered the decomposing body of 22-year-old Yolanda Johnson in the closet of the upstairs apartment. There were ligature marks on her neck and wrists, and her body position suggested her wrists had been bound together behind her back. Johnson, a prostitute and drug user, was nude from the waist down and there were semen stains on her thighs. She had sometimes used the abandoned building to engage in prostitution. The day before Johnson's body was found, defendant told several people he was looking for her.

An autopsy showed Johnson had died one to four days earlier. Due to decomposition, the pathologist was unable to determine the exact cause of death. But he opined Johnson could have died from either drug toxicity or strangulation. ABO blood grouping tests showed defendant could have been the source of the semen stains on Johnson's thighs.

b. The first degree murder of Maria Apodaca

On March 19, 1987, workers digging a ditch in the backyard of an abandoned house on 19th Avenue in South Sacramento unearthed the body of 18-year-old Maria Apodaca. The victim was a heroin addict and prostitute who had been missing for several months.

Apodaca was buried at a depth of about three feet, under a piece of plywood covered with dirt. Her clothed body was bound in a fetal position; a cloth belt held her wrists behind her knees. The body was wrapped in a bed sheet enveloped by black plastic.

The body was badly decomposed. The pathologist estimated death had occurred two to eight months earlier. The cause of death could not be determined, but dark discoloration around Apodaca's neck suggested asphyxia from suffocation or from a broad-width ligature.

c. The second degree murder of Cherie Washington

On April 20, 1987, one month after the discovery of Apodaca's body, police detectives investigating defendant's possible involvement in that murder visited his former residence on 44th Street in Oak Park. An unusual depression in the backyard yielded the body of 26-year-old Cherie Washington from a shallow grave. She was nude from the waist down, but had not been bound or wrapped in a covering. Washington was a rock cocaine addict who sometimes engaged in prostitution to support her habit. Neighbors recalled seeing her several times standing at the front door of the house where her body was recovered.

Again, advanced decomposition precluded an exact determination of the date or cause of death. The pathologist estimated she died between three and nine months earlier, possibly of positional asphyxia, strangulation with a soft, wide ligature, or cocaine overdose.

d. The second degree murder of Linda Vitela

On April 22, 1987, two days after Washington's body was unearthed, the body of 24-year-old Linda Vitela was recovered from a shallow grave in the backyard of an uninhabited residence on Broadway in Oak Park. Vitela's body was fully clothed and wrapped in a blanket tied with electrical wire in several places. Vitela was a prostitute and a heroin addict.

An autopsy disclosed Vitela had died approximately one year before her body was discovered. Although decomposition precluded a determination of the cause of death, the pathologist could not exclude the possibility of asphyxia or a fatal intoxication with drugs or alcohol.

e. The first degree murder of Sheila Jacox

Also on April 22, 1987, police found the body of 17-year-old Sheila Jacox in a second shallow grave in the Broadway backyard. Jacox's nude body was wrapped in bedding secured by duct tape. Duct tape had also been used to bind her body from the waist down and to hold a balled-up sock inside her mouth. Jacox was a prostitute and narcotics user.

The decomposition of Jacox's body was even more pronounced than that of Vitela's. However, a forensic anthropologist estimated that Jacox had been dead “about a year.” Although the pathologist who performed the autopsy reported the cause of Jacox's death as “undetermined,” he could not exclude alcohol or drug overdose, or most forms of asphyxia.

f. The first degree murder of Sharon Massey

On April 28, 1987, police unearthed the body of 29-year-old Sharon Massey from the same 19th Avenue backyard where Maria Apodaca had been exhumed the previous month. Massey's body was encased in a sheet knotted over her left shoulder, then covered with a bedspread. Her thighs, legs, and ankles were bound with a severed electrical cord, and a braided fabric strap held her wrists behind her back. Draped around her neck was a three-foot-long stereo speaker connector. Massey's upper body was fully clothed, but her panties and jeans were on only the right leg, and were pulled down to the thigh. A red sock was compacted into her throat, and a second sock protruded from her mouth. Massey had supplemented her income from a hospital clinic job with prostitution, and she may have been a crack cocaine user.

The pathologist who performed the autopsy of Massey's decomposed, mummified body estimated she had been dead approximately six months. A cause of death could not be determined, but asphyxia was not excluded.

2. The nonfatal sexual assaults on other victims

News of defendant's arrest prompted two women to report that defendant had sexually assaulted them. Police later discovered a third sexual assault victim.

Melissa H. was a prostitute with a $300-a-day heroin habit. Although Melissa had once smoked cocaine with defendant in his car, she had repeatedly rebuffed his attempts to “date” her, telling him she did not date Black men. In early June 1986, several weeks before the discovery of Johnson's body, defendant grabbed Melissa by the neck as she entered the back door of the vacant apartment where she often brought clients. At knifepoint, defendant directed Melissa to disrobe and get on the bed. He hit her in the face with his fist and a table leg, and forced her to orally copulate him. After binding Melissa's wrists behind her back with a piece of leather, defendant sodomized, orally copulated, and raped her. At one point, defendant placed a sock in Melissa's mouth, which muffled her screams. Then, to prevent her from getting up, he tied her feet to the foot of the bed with an electrical cord that ran up her body and encircled her neck. About five hours later, defendant fled through the back door when Melissa's boyfriend/pimp started knocking on the doors and windows, yelling for her to open up. Melissa's boyfriend found Melissa wrapped in a quilt, bound, gagged and bleeding from her nose, mouth, and vaginal area.

Sherry H. supported her cocaine addiction with prostitution. One morning in October 1986, she agreed to “date” defendant for $50 and got into his car. After arriving at a house on 19th Avenue, Sherry started to remove her sweater. As she did so, defendant approached her from behind and tried to strangle her with a shoestring. Sherry frustrated the attempt by slipping her fingers between the shoelace and her neck and then falling to the ground. After an act of intercourse, she convinced defendant to take her home. Sherry suffered welts on her neck and internal hemorrhaging in one eye. ⁵

3. Defendant's presence in the locations where the bodies were found

Defendant either lived in or worked at each of the locations where the murder victims were discovered.

In November 1985, defendant was hired to remodel a fire-damaged house on Broadway. He lived there until June 18, 1986, when he was evicted for failing to pay rent. The bodies of Linda Vitela and Sheila Jacox were unearthed from the...