PEOPLE v. CRUZ PART I
Venire member's marriage to a person of Mexican heritage did not make her a member of a cognizable group for purposes of the Wheeler/Batson rule barring race-based discrimination in jury selection. Crime scene photograph, offered to demonstrate that murder victim, a sheriff's deputy, was still alive after he was shot in the back of the head and his patrol car crashed, and then shot a second time in the neck, was not inflammatory where jury was only permitted to look at it while pathologist was testifying and referring to it. Witness's testimony that he asked defendant and another man which of them shot deputy, that the other man nodded toward defendant, and that defendant responded that shooting deputy would not have been necessary had he not been arrested and that he asked witness for money to buy clothes in order to facilitate escape was properly admitted as an adoptive admission, and any error in admitting the testimony would have been harmless because it was consistent with defendant's confession. For purposes of special circumstances of killing a peace officer engaged in lawful performance of his duties and murder to perfect escape from lawful custody, evidence supported finding that defendant--who was asleep in his vehicle when arrested--was under lawful arrest for public intoxication where he was found during early morning hours, in vehicle parked on a dirt shoulder adjacent to highway and well outside fence separating highway from private property, and property owner testified she had called police, less than an hour prior to arrest, because defendant was creating a disturbance and appeared to be "pretty drunk." Evidence that defendant was properly "booked," while essential to a conviction for the crime of escape, is not an element of the special circumstance of murder to perfect escape from lawful custody.
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