People v. James

74 Cal.Rptr.2d 7 (1998)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

In August 1995, D rented a mobile home and lived there with her four children: Jimmy, who was seven; Deon, three; Jackson, two; and Megan, one. Richard Jones, and his girlfriend Kristy Barton, also lived in the mobile home. Jones and Barton looked after the children and kept house. Michael Talbert stayed in the mobile home from time to time. D owned a camper, which was kept next to the mobile home. Harry Jensen lived in the camper. In exchange for room and board, he acted as a handyman. D made a living by manufacturing methamphetamine. All the adults were methamphetamine users, and none had any legal source of income. D made a batch of methamphetamine about once a week. Jensen helped her during the manufacturing process and cleaned up afterward. Talbert obtained chemicals for her and helped her collect debts. D had on hand 1 or 2 five-gallon drums of acetone, up to 30 to 40 one-gallon cans of Coleman fuel, and up to 20 cans of lye. The acetone was kept in a shed and brought inside, as needed, in a smaller jar or can. The lye was kept both in the kitchen and in the back bathroom. It was also used to clean out clogged drains. D kept red phosphorus in glass jars under her bed. She kept iodine crystals in a plastic jar. She kept muriatic and/or sulfuric acid under the bathroom sink. A fire broke out in the mobile home and burned it to the ground. D and oldest son, Jimmy, also escaped through a window. Deon, Jackson, and Megan died in the fire. These were all indications that a possibly toxic chemical was burning. The fire also generated an unusually large amount of smoke. After the fire, Barton and Jones took Jimmy to the home of a neighbor, Kim Hartigan. Jimmy a neighbor: 'his mother was cooking white stuff on the stove. . . . While she was pouring the white stuff in the pan, . . . it caught on fire.' He told the same story to the police. D denied ever manufacturing methamphetamine. The evidence was overwhelmingly against her. At trial, D testified she had made some 300 batches of methamphetamine over a 10-year period and had never had an explosion or a fire. D was convicted of second-degree felony murder with the inherently dangerous felony being the manufacturing of methamphetamine. D appealed.