PEOPLE v. STANLEY

Filed 8/24/06

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF CALIFORNIA

THE PEOPLE, )

)

Plaintiff and Respondent, )

) S022224

v. )

) Alameda County

DARREN CORNELIUS STANLEY, ) Super. Ct. No. 103289

)

Defendant and Appellant. )

)

A jury convicted defendant Darren Cornelius Stanley of the first degree murder of Rudy Rubalcava (Pen. Code, § 187)^[1] (count I), the attempted murder of Mitchell Fakoury (§§ 664, 187) (count IV), and the robberies of Joseph Sieder, Joseph Coggiano, Mitchell Fakoury, Joshua Adelaja, John Cheatam, and James Dollison (§§ 211, 212.5, subd. (b)) (counts II, III, V, VI, VII, and IX). A robbery-murder special circumstance was found true (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(17)(i)), and defendant was found to have personally used a deadly weapon (knife) in the commission of the murder, attempted murder, and six of the robberies. (§ 12022, subd. (b).) Defendant admitted allegations that he had suffered six prior felony convictions for residential burglary for which he had served a separate prison sentence. (§ 667, subd. (a).)

After a penalty trial the jury returned a verdict of death. The trial court denied the automatic motion to modify penalty (§ 190.4, subd. (e)) and imposed the sentence of death. Defendant also received a 27-year aggregate prison sentence for the noncapital offenses of which he was convicted. This appeal is automatic. (§ 1239.) We affirm the convictions and judgment of death but order defendant's determinate sentence reduced by two years.

I. FACTS

A. Guilt Phase

1. Prosecution evidence

Defendant committed the murder, attempted murder, and six robberies of which he was convicted during a crime spree in Oakland that began on December 24, 1988, and ended with his arrest on January 12, 1989.

Robbery of Joseph Sieder (Count II)

On the afternoon of December 24, 1988, Joseph Sieder was robbed by defendant in the elevator of an apartment building at 725 Market Street in Oakland. Defendant entered the elevator while a second, taller Black man stood in the doorway. Defendant told Sieder, â€

Description	Criminal defendant's request for self-representation was properly denied where defendant did not fully appreciate that he would be forgoing right to assistance of appointed counsel if permitted to represent himself. Trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying defendant's pretrial motion to sever capital murder charge from remaining charges where the charges were all the same class and evidence of each charge was relevant to the other charges to show motive, identity, opportunity, intent, plan, or knowledge. Defendant's Batson-Wheeler motions were properly denied where prosecutor's notes showed race-neutral reasons for peremptory excusal of each of the prospective jurors scrutinized in connection with the motions, even though prosecutor had difficulty articulating reasons and merely said that each of the jurors showed sympathy for the defendant. Trial court did not err in not dismissing juror where, on second day of trial, juror read newspaper article about the case that described defendant as an ex-convict and summarized opening arguments and discussion involving defendant's Batson-Wheeler motions. However, the juror said mostly what he remembered was summary of opening statements that indicated he had no recollection of having read anything about defendant's prior criminal record or about defendant having discussed the racial makeup of the jury with the court; did not discuss article with other jurors; and said nothing he read would affect his ability to be a fair juror. Where felony-murder (robbery) special circumstance instruction given to jury contained a one-word error that resulted in the first and second paragraphs of the instruction being stated in the disjunctive ("or") rather than the conjunctive ("and") effectively omitting the intent element of the special circumstance instruction. The error was not prejudicial given the delivery of another specially requested defense instruction as well as the closing arguments of both the prosecutor and defense counsel. Where defendant voluntarily excused himself from courtroom during his brother's testimony. The court did not have sua sponte duty to caution the jury not to draw any inferences from defendant's absence. Defendant was erroneously sentenced under three robbery counts to three one-year full consecutive terms for the deadly weapon enhancements whereas, because he was consecutively sentenced on more than two robbery convictions involving the use of a deadly or dangerous weapon, and none of the robberies qualified as a serious felony, the subordinate term for each subsequent robbery conviction should have been limited to one-third the middle term of imprisonment and one-third the enhancement. Which would have reduced his aggregate determinate sentence by two years from nine to seven years.
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PEOPLE v. STANLEY PART- I

Filed 8/24/06

I. FACTS

A. Guilt Phase

1. Prosecution evidence