People v. Watkins CA3

CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedMay 21, 2021
DocketC088677
StatusUnpublished

This text of People v. Watkins CA3 (People v. Watkins CA3) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Watkins CA3, (Cal. Ct. App. 2021).

Opinion

Filed 5/21/21 P. v. Watkins CA3 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA THIRD APPELLATE DISTRICT (San Joaquin) ----

THE PEOPLE, C088677

Plaintiff and Respondent, (Super. Ct. No. STKCRFE20150005393, v. SF130600A )

RICHARD HOWARD WATKINS,

Defendant and Appellant.

Defendant Richard Howard Watkins and Kelly M. shared a hotel room in Manteca for several nights. Shortly thereafter, Kelly was found strangled to death in a dumpster less than a mile from the hotel room. Surveillance video footage showed defendant dumping Kelly’s body in the dumpster, and his DNA was found on her breasts and under her fingernails.

1 Following a jury trial, defendant was convicted of first degree murder. (Pen. Code, § 187, subd. (a).)1 The trial court sustained two strike allegations (§§ 667, subd. (d), 1170.12, subd. (b)) and sentenced defendant to 75 years to life in state prison. Defendant contends on appeal that sustaining hearsay objections to proposed questioning of the lead investigator deprived him of his rights to confrontation and to present a defense, the erroneous admission of the victim’s hearsay statements was reversible error, cumulative error warrants reversal, and remand is required in light of People v. Dueñas (2019) 30 Cal.App.5th 1157, 1160 (Dueñas). The evidence defendant intended to produce through the proposed cross- examination of the lead investigating officer involved hearsay or second-hand hearsay, and did not implicate any third party as a possible suspect in the murder. Exclusion of this line of questioning was within the trial court’s discretion under Evidence Code section 352, and the exclusion did not implicate defendant’s rights to confrontation or to present a defense. The victim’s statement that she was not defendant’s girlfriend was admissible for a nonhearsay purpose. While the trial court erred in admitting the victim’s statement that she was waiting for defendant, the error was harmless. Finding cumulative error does not warrant reversal and Dueñas was incorrectly decided, we shall affirm. BACKGROUND On the night of March 15, 2014, Jeremy Chambers discovered a body while looking for recyclables in a dumpster behind a Manteca shopping center. His fiancé called 911. Manteca police officers found the body of a dead woman, naked from the waist up, covered by a cardboard box. The ligature marks on her neck were consistent with strangulation using a cylindrical material. She died at least 36 hours before the March 17 autopsy, and showed signs of being a methamphetamine user.

1 Undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code.

2 The woman was identified as 22-year-old Kelly M. Her mother reported her missing on March 17. She had given Kelly a white Mitsubishi Lancer. On March 11, Kelly’s mother saw defendant driving the Lancer with Kelly as a passenger. April Scharff was collecting cans and bottles from a dumpster by a nearby Circle K store on March 16 when she found a pillowcase containing women’s clothing, and a backpack. The backpack contained Kelly’s journal and a torn camisole. A friend identified the camisole as Kelly’s; when Kelly wore it a few days earlier, it was not torn. Video surveillance from the Circle K showed defendant was inside the store on March 15 at 8:14 p.m. and at 11:54 a.m. on March 16. A surveillance video showed that on March 15, at 10:27 p.m., a man2 with a white shirt pulled over his head placed a comforter containing a body in the dumpster, pulled the comforter away so the body rolled out, and then covered the body with a cardboard box from the dumpster. A comforter with that design and a pillow were found missing from room 117 of the Pacific Express Inn, a low budget hotel in Manteca. The hotel was 0.8 miles from where Kelly’s body was found. The room was registered to Kelly from March 13 through March 16, and defendant was seen in the room for several days before the comforter disappeared. An unplugged table lamp was found on the floor. Defendant was at the Pacific Express Inn on March 13 with Kelly and her friends Ashley Noonan, Brittany Westerdale, and Westerdale’s boyfriend Benjamin Voget. Kelly smoked methamphetamine while defendant drank vodka. Defendant sold some marijuana to Noonan, who testified that defendant and Kelly interacted like business partners who were trying to sell various items. They did not appear to have any romantic relationship with each other. At one point, defendant told Kelly in a rude voice to pick her stuff up from the bed.

2 During closing argument, defense counsel admitted defendant was the person who dumped Kelly’s body in a dumpster.

3 Defendant and Voget then took Kelly’s car to go to Stockton; defendant drove. They went to several liquor stores. During the drive, defendant told Voget he wanted to get to know Kelly and thought Voget’s girlfriend Westerdale could help him with this. Voget told defendant Kelly would like whom she chooses and nothing he could do would help persuade her to do anything. Heading back to Manteca, defendant lost control of the car and got it stuck in a drainage ditch by the onramp to Interstate 5. As the Highway Patrol was arriving, defendant told Voget to say that he rather than defendant was driving the car. Defendant first told the responding officers that someone else had been driving the car, and then tried to blame Voget. Defendant’s voice was raspy and slurred; when officers tried to arrest him, he ran across the southbound lanes and onto the center median. The officers had to use a taser to arrest defendant. Defendant was booked into San Joaquin County Jail at 5:19 a.m. on March 14 and released that day at 11:24 a.m. Kelly’s car was towed away at this time. Voget returned to the hotel without defendant and he and Westerdale slept there for a while. Later on March 14, Westerdale and Voget went to Voget’s parents’ house; Westerdale talked to Kelly on her cell phone at 8:30 p.m. On March 15, Bryan McDonald gave defendant a ride to Stockton at the request of McDonald’s friend Skip. Defendant told McDonald he needed to pay for an impounded car that he had crashed. At one point, defendant purchased cocaine and marijuana, combined them into a “chewy” cigarette, and smoked it. He told McDonald that he did not want to pay for Kelly’s car, and something like it was not his fault. On the way back to Manteca, defendant told McDonald he had a “sexy” or “hella pretty” woman waiting for him, a girl who was “wife material.” Defendant and McDonald returned to the Pacific Express Inn before 11:45 a.m. Defendant invited McDonald into the room to smoke some marijuana and get gas money.

4 Kelly was in the room when McDonald entered and got $20 gas money from defendant. McDonald left after about five minutes. DNA from the cardboard box covering Kelly’s body in the dumpster matched defendant’s. Defendant’s DNA was also found on samples taken under Kelly’s fingernails. Swabs from Kelly’s breasts had the DNA of two people; Kelly was the major contributor and defendant the minor. The lamp cord from the hotel room contained the DNA of four or five persons, a mixture too complex to identify contributors. DISCUSSION I Third Party Evidence Defendant contends the trial court denied his rights to confrontation and to present a defense by sustaining the prosecution’s objections to the defense introducing various statements in police reports through the cross-examination of the lead investigator in this case. We disagree. A.

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People v. Watkins CA3, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-watkins-ca3-calctapp-2021.