People v. Jackson

The defendant in this case forced his victim to perform . an act of oral copulation on him, then killed her by strangling her and. severing her carotid artery.

An error in jury instructions requires, under existing statutory and case law, that defendant’s conviction of first degree murder be reversed or reduced to second degree murder. That judgment is reversed.

Defendant’s judgment of conviction of forcible oral copulation is affirmed, but remanded for resentencing.

Statement of Facts

On January 5, 1982, at about 3:45 p.m., Joan Stewart left her home on Scout Road in the Montclair area of Oakland to walk to a shopping area about a 15-minute walk away. She did not return. Joan Stewart’s husband found her dead body the next morning, lying among some trees and shrubbery down the hill to the side of Scout Road. The contents of her purse were spilled out near the body, except for her wallet, which was missing.

The presence of sperm in the mouth of the corpse proved that an act of oral copulation had taken place. Multiple scrapes and bruises on Joan Stewart’s face, left arm, legs, right hip, abdomen, and back, which had been inflicted before her death, proved that her…