People v. Navarette

133 Cal.Rptr.2d 89

30 Cal.4th 458

66 P.3d 1182

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Martin Anthony NAVARETTE, Defendant and Appellant.

No. S022481.

Supreme Court of California.

April 28, 2003.

Rehearing Denied July 9, 2003.¹

Certiorari Denied January 20, 2004.

Jeffrey L. Garland, Grinnell, IA, under appointment by the Supreme Court, for Defendant and Appellant.

Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, Robert R. Anderson, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Pamela C. Hamanaka, Assistant Attorney General, John R. Gorey and James William Bilderback II, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

Certiorari Denied January 20, 2004. See 124 S.Ct. 1149.

BROWN, J.

Defendant Martin Anthony Navarette appeals from a judgment of death. A jury convicted defendant of the first degree murder (Pen.Code,² ? 187, subd. (a)) (count 2), burglary (?? 459, 460) (count 3), and robbery (?? 211, 212.5, subd. (a)) (count 4) of a neighbor and the first degree murder (? 187, subd. (a)) (count 5), burglary (?? 459, 460) (count 6), and attempted robbery (?? 211, 212.5, subd. (a), 664) (count 7) of a second neighbor. The jury found true allegations that defendant committed both murders with burglary-murder, robbery-murder, and multiple-murder special circumstances (? 190.2, subd. (a)(3), (17)) and that defendant personally used a deadly or dangerous weapon within the meaning of section 12022, subdivision (b). As to a third victim, the jury acquitted defendant of attempted murder (?? 187, subd. (a), 664) but convicted him of the lesser included offense of battery with serious bodily injury (? 243, subd. (d)) (count 8) and also convicted him of second degree robbery (?? 211, 212.5, subd. (a)) (count 9), finding great bodily injury (? 12022.7) in connection with both these offenses. The jury acquitted defendant of a separate count of burglary (?? 459, 460) (count 1).

At the penalty phase, the jury returned a verdict of death, and the trial court denied defendant's motion for a new trial or modification of the verdict. The court sentenced defendant to death as to counts 2 and 5, and stayed the one-year personal-use enhancements (? 12022, subd. (b)). The court struck the great bodily injury enhancement (? 12022.7) as to count 9. As to the other counts and related allegations, the court imposed a total determinate sentence of eight years and four months. This appeal is automatic. (? 1239, subd. (b).) We affirm the judgment.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

A. Guilt Phase Evidence

Defendant began drinking beer during the morning of December 5, 1989, after his girlfriend and housemate, Maria Valles, left for work. Valles is the mother of defendant's two children. Defendant spent the day drinking beer with various companions. During the course of the day, defendant and a few others consumed two or more cases of beer, and defendant became intoxicated. Defendant also smoked cocaine.

Defendant had no key to his ground floor apartment and regularly used a window to gain entry. His apartment was one of three, each with similar ground floor windows. Deborah Converse lived in apartment 3, Alexandra Hickman lived in apartment 4, and defendant lived with his family in apartment 5. About 5:00 p.m. on December 5, 1989, Deborah Converse discovered that her apartment had been burglarized. Her bedroom was ransacked, and a videocassette recorder was missing from the living room. Converse went to the house of a neighbor and called the police. The police found that the burglar had used a bedroom window to gain entry. Police also noted that certain valuables, including a 35-millimeter camera and three rifles, had not been stolen.

About 5:00 or 6:00 p.m., defendant had a beer with David Nichols and Shane Wilson. Defendant asked them if they knew where to sell a videocassette recorder and a clock radio/telephone. The same night, at 11:30 p.m., witnesses observed defendant at the apartment complex, wearing blue jeans and a white shirt with a Nike logo. A few hours later, about 1:30 a.m., defendant called his girlfriend Brigette Morales, a different woman from the woman he lived with. He asked Morales to go out with him in a truck he was driving (defendant did not own a truck), but Morales refused. Defendant also asked Morales to call someone on the telephone, which she did, but the person was not there.

The same night, about 3:30 or 4:00 a.m., neighbors awoke to the sound of breaking glass and a man's angry voice. Alexandra Hickman's upstairs neighbor heard what sounded like a struggle coming from the vicinity of Hickman's apartment, and he called police. He surmised from the noises that someone was trying to get out of, rather than in, Hickman's apartment. One neighbor observed defendant running away from the building, wearing blue jeans and a white shirt.

The police arrived shortly after 4:00 a.m. A window had been broken out of Hickman's apartment, with the screen and most of the glass lying outside, and the curtain also hanging outside. One officer peered into the apartment and saw a body lying in a pool of blood on the floor. Officers entered the locked apartment. Hickman's body was warm but without signs of life. She had suffered stab wounds from her head all the way to her legs, too many to count. The autopsy later found 43 stab wounds and five slice wounds. Police called paramedics and secured the crime scene. Water was running from the bathtub faucet, and officers turned it off. The bedroom also showed signs of a struggle, with blood on all the walls and a plant and other items overturned.

During the course of the morning, investigators discovered more evidence. A wooden-handled steak knife was on the floor under Hickman's body, the handle broken off and the blade bent. Similar knives were in an open drawer in the kitchen. Police also found, near Hickman's body, a metal rivet-type button similar to the buttons used to close jeans at the waist. A few torn threads were attached to the button. Police found no signs of ransacking or theft in Hickman's apartment, and an autopsy later found no evidence of forced sexual assault.

Police took statements from Hickman's neighbors. No one responded at Deborah Converse's apartment, and her pickup truck was missing. Valles (defendant's girlfriend and housemate) responded at defendant's apartment, and police observed that she seemed nervous. Officers could not locate defendant. That afternoon, after several attempts to determine where Converse might be, police decided to enter her apartment. Officers slid open a window and saw a bloody body on the floor. After making friends with Converse's dog, they entered the apartment. Converse's hands and feet were bound with a dog leash, and she had suffered about 15 stab wounds to her chest and upper torso. She was naked from the waist down, with her pants and underwear around her ankles, though an autopsy found no other evidence of forced sexual assault. Officers observed signs of a struggle. In addition, a knife was missing from a wooden knife block next to the kitchen sink, and officers found the handset of a red portable telephone in the bathroom sink. The base of the same telephone was near the dining room table. Converse's family determined that certain items were missing, including Converse's pickup truck, her keys, two purses, and the 35-millimeter camera and rifles that had been in the apartment after the burglary the afternoon before.

Officers also observed and photographed several shoe prints in the mud near Hickman's and Converse's apartments. In addition, they found a clean knife on the roof of the carport. The autopsies indicated that this knife could have been the knife used to kill both Hickman and Converse. A neighbor also found a clock radio/telephone in the carport and reported this discovery to the police.

Meanwhile, about 6:50 a.m. on the morning after the murders, defendant got back in touch with his girlfriend Brigette Morales. He said the truck he was driving had broken down, and he convinced Morales to meet him at a nearby hamburger stand. When Morales arrived, she saw defendant come toward her car from across the street. He climbed into the backseat on the passenger side and wrapped himself in a blanket because he was cold. His shirt was on inside out and backwards, and Morales observed stains on his clothes. Defendant said the stains were paint. He pointed to a truck and identified it as his. Morales's recollection of the truck generally matched Converse's missing truck.

Morales went to buy some gas, and in the gas station, she observed that the stains on defendant's clothes were blood. Defendant said he had been in a fight and then signaled with his eyes that Morales should stop asking questions. He told her where to drive, and when they were in a residential neighborhood, he told her to stop. Then he said he wanted to tell her a secret. She put her seat back and turned to face him, and he struck her in the face hard enough to break her nose. Then he put the blanket over her face and held her down. She threw her keys outside the car, and when he asked for the keys, she managed to escape, fleeing to a nearby house. Defendant retrieved the keys and left with her car. A local resident helped Morales and also called the police. Morales's face was covered with blood, her nose was pushed to one side, and her lip was swollen. Her nose later required surgery.

About noon on the same day, while police were busy investigating Hickman's murder and searching for Converse's truck, Benny Garcia, Valles's brother-in-law, saw defendant sitting on the stairs in front of Garcia's home. Defendant was wearing stained jeans but no shirt. (A shirt with a Nike logo and bloodstains later turned up at defendant's apartment.) Defendant told Garcia he had been in a fight. Garcia invited him inside, and defendant asked if he could wash his clothes. He put his jeans in the washroom and borrowed some clothes from Garcia. Garcia later took defendant to ...