Tate

A jury found defendant Gregory O. Tate guilty of the first degree murder of Sarah LaChapelle. (Pen. Code, §§ 187, 189.) 1 The jury also found that defendant personally used a dangerous and deadly weapon, a knife (§ 12022), and that robbery-murder and burglary-murder special circumstances were true (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(17)). Defendant was sentenced to death. This appeal is automatic. We will affirm the judgment in its entirety.

I. FACTS

A. Guilt trial.

1. Prosecution case.

Around 8:00 p.m. on Monday, April 18, 1988, Tanya DeLaHoussaye paid a brief visit to Sarah LaChapelle in Sarah’s home on Hesket Road in Oakland. 2 Sarah’s burgundy Oldsmobile Cutlass was parked in her driveway. Sarah was wearing a nightgown and said she planned to lie down because she had a cold.

At 11:00 a.m. on Tuesday, April 19, 1988, Anthony LaChapelle, Sarah’s son, went to her home and noticed her Cutlass was not in the driveway. The front door was open, though the outer screen door was closed. Anthony went *642 in and found his mother dead on the living room floor, dressed in a nightgown. Her body had been impaled with a butcher knife and a barbecue fork. Her ring finger had been cut off and…

Although I concur in the majority opinion, I write separately to address the trial court’s refusal to give Prospective Juror A.S.-P. an opportunity to refute the prosecutor’s assertion that she had lied about her academic credentials. It is true that a defendant “has a right to jurors who are qualified and competent, not to any particular juror.” (People v. Holt (1997) 15 Cal.4th 619, 656 [ 63 Cal.Rptr.2d 782 , 937 P.2d 213 ].) However, where hearsay allegations are made regarding the truthfulness of a prospective juror, fairness requires that the prospective juror be given an opportunity to respond to those charges—fairness not only to the party *714 objecting to the prospective juror’s excusal on this ground but to the juror herself whose reputation has been sullied by an allegation of dishonesty.

We give seated jurors this opportunity when such charges are made against them. “When the trial court discovers during trial that a juror misrepresented or concealed material information on voir dire tending to show bias, the trial court may discharge the juror if, after examination of the juror, the record discloses reasonable grounds for inferring bias as a ‘demonstrable reality,’…

A jury found defendant Gregory O. Tate guilty of the first degree murder of Sarah LaChapelle. (Pen. Code, §§ 187, 189.) [1] The jury also found that defendant personally used a dangerous and deadly weapon, a knife (§ 12022), and that robbery-murder and burglary-murder special circumstances were true (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(17)). Defendant was sentenced to death. This appeal is automatic. We will affirm the judgment in its entirety.

Around 8:00 p.m. on Monday, April 18, 1988, Tanya DeLaHoussaye paid a brief visit to Sarah LaChapelle in Sarah's home on Hesket Road in Oakland. [2] Sarah's burgundy Oldsmobile Cutlass was parked in her driveway. Sarah was wearing a nightgown and said she planned to lie down because she had a cold.

At 11:00 a.m. on Tuesday, April 19, 1988, Anthony LaChapelle, Sarah's son, went to her home and noticed her Cutlass was not in the driveway. The front door was open, though the outer screen door was closed. Anthony went in and found his mother dead on the living room floor, dressed in a nightgown. Her body had been impaled with a butcher knife and a barbecue fork. Her ring finger had been cut off and was lying near her body. A chair had been turned…