The Supreme Court today affirms the death sentence in People v. Poore for a 1999 Riverside County murder committed by a member of the Aryan Brotherhood, a white supremacist gang. The jury, however, had rejected gang enhancements.
As is typical in direct, automatic capital appeals where the court cannot decline to hear a case or limit the issues it will decide, the court’s unanimous opinion by Justice Carol Corrigan addresses — and rejects — numerous arguments. Among other things, the defendant claimed that the absence of mitigating evidence required reversal of the penalty (even though he directed his attorney to not present such evidence) and that he was improperly required to wear a stun belt and to be confined to a restraint chair during trial.
The court does find there was a statutory violation in the defendant’s absence from the trial during a part of jury voir dire, but concludes the error was harmless. It also concludes that, although it was a “close” question, substantial evidence supports the superior court’s dismissal of two prospective jurors because of their views on the death penalty.
Justice Goodwin Liu signs the court’s opinion, but also writes a concurrence. He says it remains an open question whether the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in McCoy v. Louisiana (2018) 584 U.S. _ [138 S.Ct. 1500] “affects our precedent on the right of a capital defendant to control counsel’s presentation of mitigating evidence.” A McCoy violation caused a death penalty reversal in April.
