The Supreme Court today affirms the death sentence in People v. Helzer for five murders in 2000. The defendant had pled guilty and admitted several special circumstances prior to a penalty jury recommending capital punishment.
The unanimous opinion by Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero rejects a number of appellate arguments, including that a motion to suppress evidence was improperly denied, an error which, the defendant contended, would have allowed him to withdraw his guilty plea. The motion was based on a claim that a wholesale suppression of evidence was required by the police having exceeded the scope of two search warrants.
The court also found unavailing assertions the superior court erred in excusing a prospective juror who expressed personal opposition to the death penalty, limiting the defendant’s questioning of prospective jurors, instructing the jury, and allowing certain evidence of corpse dismemberment. Regarding the latter argument, the Supreme Court concluded allowing the activation during the prosecution’s closing argument of a power reciprocating saw that had been used to dismember some of the murder victims, even if error, was not prejudicial. The court did find the prosecutor had misstated some law regarding mitigating factors, but found the misstatements harmless.
