Edwards

I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

A. Guilt Phase

1. Prosecution Evidence

a. Murder of Marjorie Deeble

1) The crime scene and condition of the victim’s body In the late afternoon of Thursday, May 15, 1986, Marjorie Deeble was found dead in her single story apartment on Green Street in Los Alamitos, California. The front screen door was closed but unlocked, and the wooden front door was open approximately four inches. There was no sign of forced entry. The screen from a window next to the door had been removed, and was leaning against the building. Inside the home, loud music was playing in the southeast bedroom. Deeble was discovered in this bedroom. She was lying face-down on the floor between the bed and a dresser. She was wearing a long nightgown that had been pushed up around her waist and no panties. The bottom of the nightgown had been either cut or ripped. Her hands were tied behind her back with material from the nightgown, and with torn telephone cord. Deeble‘s neck was in a noose made from a thin belt. The end of the belt was tied to the top drawer handle of the dresser, so that her neck was suspended about eight inches above the floor. The drawer was open about six to eight…

Defendant Robert Mark Edwards was convicted of the first degree murder of Marjorie Deeble. (Pen. Code, 1 §§ 187, subd. (a), 189.) The jury also found true the special circumstance allegations of burglary murder and torture murder. 2 (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(17), (18).) The jury was unable to reach a penalty verdict, and the trial court declared a mistrial. At the second penalty phase trial, the jury returned a death verdict, and the trial court entered a judgment of death. This appeal is automatic. (Cal. Const., art. VI, § 11, subd. (a); § 1239, subd. (b).) For the reasons that follow, we ¿firm the judgment.

*670 I. Factual Background

A. Guilt Phase

1. Prosecution evidence

a. Murder of Marjorie Deeble

1) The crime scene and condition of the victim’s body

In the late afternoon of Thursday, May 15, 1986, Marjorie Deeble was found dead in her single-story apartment on Green Street in Los Alamitos, California. The front screen door was closed but unlocked, and the wooden front door was open approximately four inches. There was no sign of forced entry. The screen from a window next to the door had been removed, and was leaning against the building.

Inside the home, loud…

In People v. Dungo (2012) 55 Cal.4th 608 [ 147 Cal.Rptr.3d 527 , 286 P.3d 442 ] (Dungo), a majority of this court held that a pathologist giving an opinion about a victim’s cause of death may recount “objective facts” that he did not observe, derived from an autopsy report he did not write, without running afoul of the confrontation clause. (Dungo, at p. 621.) This case demonstrates why the Dungo rule is unworkable.

In Dungo , as here, a witness described findings made by a nontestifying pathologist. Both the majority and Justice Werdegar’s concurring opinion in Dungo emphasized that the statements attributable to the absent pathologist were limited to “anatomical and physiological observations” of the victim’s body at the autopsy. (Dungo, supra, 55 Cal.4th at p. 619 ; id. at p. 621 (conc. opn. of Werdegar, J.).) Justice Werdegar suggested, “[t]he process of systematically examining the decedent’s body and recording the resulting observations is . . . governed primarily by medical standards rather than by legal *769 requirements of formality or solemnity” and that such observations do not “resemble the ex parte examinations of historical example or the structured police…