P. v. Hopson CA4/1
This case is before us on remand from the California Supreme Court. (People v. Hopson (2017) 3 Cal.5th 424.) In 2013, defendant Ruthetta Lois Hopson was convicted by a jury of the 2011 first degree murder of her housemate, Laverna Brown. (Pen. Code, § 187, subd. (a).) The jury found true the special circumstances that she intentionally murdered Brown while lying in wait (id., § 190.2, subd. (a)(15)) and while engaged in the commission of a robbery or attempted robbery (id., subd. (a)(17)(A)). She was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, and appealed her conviction on the grounds that her rights of confrontation were violated at trial by the admission of evidence about a stationhouse confession made by her boyfriend, Julius Thomas, before he killed himself in jail. (U.S. Const., 6th Amend.) As reported at trial by a detective, Thomas admitted during an interview that Hopson convinced him to participate in the killing at her residence.
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