The People v. Baker

274 Cal. Rptr. 3d 655 (2021)

Purchase the Printed Copy at bsmsphd.com

Nature of the Case

To access this section all you need to do is click here and register.

Facts

Palmer disappeared. Her body was found in the desert several weeks later, severely decomposed. The case involves three sets of charged offenses. The first was for Judy Palmer. The second was for crimes that the jury found D committed against women other than Palmer and the third was charged offenses concerning crimes, regarding women other than Palmer, of which D was acquitted. Judy Palmer was a 60-year-old grandmother at the time of her disappearance on April 17, 2004. She was an active participant in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), sober for nearly 28 years, and “dedicated a large amount of her time to helping” others in the program. Palmer met D through AA. He was roughly 17 years her junior and very strong. They began dating no sooner than 2001 and started living together in Palmer's apartment no later than 2002. The relationship was rocky and on and off again. D was arrested in Palmer's apartment and taken into custody. Palmer's hearsay statement indicated that d had forced himself into her apartment. After officers entered Palmer's apartment, D removed a narcotics pipe from a pocket of his shorts. He was arrested for possession of that paraphernalia. Officers also recovered a set of keys to Palmer's apartment from his underwear. Two days after the incident, on April 7, D was served with a restraining order restricting his contact with Palmer. At some point around this time, roughly between April 3 and April 10, Palmer told a friend “that she was afraid of him and that if anything happened to her that-to look at him, that he did it.” Palmer was last seen alive by friends and family on Saturday, April 17, 2004. The jury was permitted to find D guilty of first-degree felony murder on a theory that the murder was committed during the commission of a burglary. The jury was instructed that defendant was guilty of burglary only if he entered with intent to commit (i) theft, (ii) rape, (iii) sexual penetration by a foreign object, or (iv) sodomy. D argues that “neither a burglary-based felony murder nor a burglary special circumstance can properly be based on an entry with the intent to commit sexual assault.” D was convicted and this automatic appeal occurred.