People v. Superior Court

Opinion

WEISMAN, J.

*

The People challenge an order of respondent court granting defendant’s motion under Penal Code section 995 to dismiss special circumstance allegations filed as to two counts of murder, alleging that defendant committed each murder by means of lying in wait. (Pen. Code, § 190.2, subd. (a)(15).) Pretrial writ review of this ruling is justified in the interest of avoiding multiple trials and significant delay in resolution of the issue.

(People

v.

Superior Court

(Caudle) (1990) 221 Cal.App.3d 1190, 1193, fn. 2 [270 Cal.Rptr. 751].)

Facts and Procedural History

The transcript of the preliminary hearing shows that defendant and his wife, Monica, separated sometime in the spring of 1998. After the separation, defendant lived at his mother’s house, which was near the location where Monica lived. After the separation, defendant began telephoning Monica, following her, and parking outside her home and office. When Monica threatened to get a restraining order against him, defendant replied, “Go ahead, if you are still alive.” On July 17, 1998, when Monica told

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defendant she was going on a trip to Las Vegas, he announced that he was going also, stating that he could go anywhere she could go, and “the police can’t do a damn thing to me.” The next day, July 18, 1998, she left for Las Vegas about 4:45 a.m. Defendant proceeded to follow her as she drove to Las Vegas. She drove to a sheriff’s station, where defendant took his right finger, put it to his head simulating a handgun, and pulled the trigger, telling Monica, “That’s going to be you.” Defendant was arrested for making terrorist threats.

Defendant’s statement to the police was introduced at the preliminary hearing through the testimony of a peace officer. Defendant told the police that in the early morning hours of August 16, 1998, he was en route home from his brother’s house at approximately 3:00 a.m. when he saw Monica and her neighbor Gil Madrigal embracing as they walked down the street. Defendant said he became enraged as he watched the couple enter Madrigal’s home because he believed they were going there to have sex. Defendant stated he waited between two trucks, and when he heard Madrigal’s front door open, he grabbed the cement cover off the water meter on the ground near the sidewalk, resumed his position between the two trucks and waited for Monica and Madrigal. He said he waited there until they rounded the comer, and attacked them both with the cement cover. Both victims died from multiple skull fractures.