P. v. Davis
In 1985 someone stabbed Jane Hylton to death. Fourteen years later, in 1999, detectives reopened the case. Detectives again interviewed Constance Dahl, one of the three people who discovered Hyltons body, about the murder. Confronted many years after the fact, Dahl confessed that defendant Ricky Leo Davis murdered Hylton following an argument about Hyltons 13-year-old daughter, Angela.[1] Dahl and Angela helped defendant clean up the murder scene and then the trio feigned discovering the body. An information charged defendant with murder. (Pen. Code, 187, subd. (a).)[2] A jury found defendant guilty of second degree murder. Sentenced to 16 years to life, defendant appeals, contending: (1) the court erred in excluding evidence indicating Hyltons husband killed her, (2) the court erred in allowing the prosecution to introduce evidence of a prior angry altercation between defendant and a neighbor, (3) the court violated defendants constitutional rights in intrusively questioning a hold out juror while defendant was not present, and (4) the parole revocation fine is improper. The People concede the trial court improperly imposed the parole revocation fine, which Court strike. In all other respects Court affirm the judgment.
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