People v. Goree CA2/3

Filed 7/30/14 P. v. Goree CA2/3 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION THREE

THE PEOPLE, B243403

Plaintiff and Respondent, (Los Angeles County Super. Ct. No. BA245379) v.

CHRISTOPHER LEVI GOREE,

Defendant and Appellant.

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, Lance A. Ito, Judge. Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded for resentencing. Janyce Keiko Imata Blair, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant. Kamala D. Harris, Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Assistant Attorney General, Paul M. Roadarmel, Jr., Shawn McGahey Webb and Allison H. Chung, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

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Defendant and appellant, Christopher Levi Goree, appeals the sentence he received following his conviction for special circumstances murder (during commission of a rape) and forcible rape. He was sentenced to state prison for a term of life without possibility of parole. The judgment is affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded for resentencing. BACKGROUND 1. The crime. When defendant Goree was 17 years old he committed an extremely brutal rape and murder. The victim was Dr. Josephine Tan. Dr. Tan emigrated from the Philippines in the late 1980’s. She had practiced there as a pediatrician and was preparing to take a qualifying examination so she could practice in California. Tan was in her forties, weighed 97 pounds and was five feet tall. In November 1993, Goree attacked Tan as she was crossing a pedestrian footbridge over the 110 freeway in Torrance. Goree weighed about 165 pounds and stood six feet, three inches tall. Tan’s naked body was discovered supine, her arms and legs stretched apart. She had sustained two skull fractures, which rendered her unconscious. Parallel markings indicated she had then been dragged from the footbridge to a concrete drainage ditch adjacent to the freeway. Injuries to the soles of her bare feet indicated she had tried to flee from her attacker. She had sustained severe facial injuries consistent with a beating, and a shoe print on her right thigh indicated she had been held down during the beating. Tan had likely been raped more than once because her vaginal cavity was cut and contained a profuse amount of blood and semen. She died of asphyxiation by manual strangulation, her bra having been wrapped around her neck and apparently used as a ligature. In 2002, the DNA profile obtained from the sperm recovered from Tan’s body was matched to Goree. The chance of such a match was one in a hundred quintillion, which is a one followed by 18 zeros. When Goree was arrested in June 2002, he was 26 years old.