People v. Razo CA2/4

Filed 10/29/15 P. v. Razo CA2/4 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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 FOUR

THE PEOPLE, B257727

Plaintiff and Respondent, (Los Angeles County Super. Ct. No. LA073386) v.

ALEJANDRO RAZO,

Defendant and Appellant.

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, Thomas Rubinson, Judge. Affirmed. Murray A. Rosenberg, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant. Kamala D. Harris, Attorney General, Gerald A. Engler, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Assistant Attorney General, Yun K. Lee and William H. Shin, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent. ______________________________

Alejandro Razo appeals from a judgment following his conviction of sexual contact with human remains. (Health & Saf. Code, § 7052, subd. (a).) Appellant argues the trial court committed reversible error in failing to instruct the jury to consider whether the main witness against him, Pamela Pearl, had admitted being untruthful. We disagree and affirm.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL SUMMARY An 82-year-old patient died at the Sherman Oaks Hospital on January 20, 2013, after suffering septic shock. Appellant was the patient’s primary nurse, and after her family and hospital staff left, he remained in her room to remove tubes and bag the body. When Pearl, the nurse in charge, went in to help appellant, she saw him making a thrusting motion between the patient’s legs. One of the legs was over appellant’s shoulder. Pearl initially thought appellant either had dropped the body or was trying to lay it on the ground, but then she noticed that appellant’s scrub pants were down to his mid-thigh, and she could see the head of his penis and his scrotum. When Pearl asked appellant what he was doing, he pushed the body to the middle of the bed and pulled his pants up. Pearl commented that was “mentally ill behavior” and asked appellant if he had done something like that before; he said he had not. Pearl was visibly upset when she approached the nurse’s station after the incident and when she related what she had seen to a respiratory therapist who happened to be at the station. She kept asking herself out loud what she should do. When appellant came out of the patient’s room, Pearl told him he would lose his job, and he replied that his life was in her hands. At Pearl’s direction, the nursing staff called the police. During the autopsy, the pathologist observed injuries to the corpse’s vaginal area, and consulted Astrid Heger, an expert on sexual assault and elder abuse. Dr. Heger’s examination revealed massive hemorrhages beneath the skin surrounding the vaginal opening, and she opined that the injuries were consistent with blunt trauma rather than the insertion of a catheter. According to Dr. Heger, the injuries were inflicted before death. DNA consistent with that of the deceased patient was present in samples collected