Jurado

Defendant Robert Jurado, Jr., appeals from a judgment of death upon his conviction by jury verdict of one count of murder in the first degree (Pen. Code, § 187), 1 with the special circumstance of intentionally killing while lying in wait (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(15)), and one count of conspiracy to commit murder (§§ 182, 187). The jury found that defendant personally used a deadly and dangerous weapon to commit the murder. (§ 12022, subd. (b).) The jury that returned these verdicts as to guilt and special circumstance also returned a penalty verdict of death for the murder. The trial court denied the automatic motion to modify the penalty (§ 190.4, subd. (e)) and sentenced defendant to death.

*82 This appeal from the judgment of death is automatic. (§ 1239, subd. (b).) We affirm the judgment in its entirety.

I. Facts and Proceedings

On May 17, 1991, a stranded motorist saw the body of Teresa (Terry) Holloway in a culvert beneath Highway 163 in San Diego County. She had been strangled and beaten to death two days earlier. As the prosecution’s evidence at trial established, defendant killed Holloway, with the help of Denise Shigemura and Anna Humiston, to prevent her from…

In 1993, in a concurring opinion in a noncapital case (People v. Ceja (1993) 4 Cal.4th 1134 [ 17 Cal.Rptr.2d 375 , 847 P.2d 55 ]), I expressed a “growing concern” that the definition of lying in wait that this court had earlier adopted in People v. Morales (1989) 48 Cal.3d 527 [ 257 Cal.Rptr. 64 , 770 P.2d 244 ] “may have undermined the critical narrowing function of the lying-in-wait special circumstance: to separate defendants whose acts warrant the death penalty from those defendant who are ‘merely’ guilty of first degree murder.” (People v. Ceja, supra, at p. 1147.) I expressed this concern again in separate opinions in People v. Hillhouse (2002) 27 Cal.4th 469, 512 [ 117 Cal.Rptr.2d 45 , 40 P.3d 754 ], and People v. Combs (2004) 34 Cal.4th 821, 869 [ 22 Cal.Rptr.3d 61 , 101 P.3d 1007 ]. In none of these cases, however, did I indicate how I would decide this constitutional issue.

During the same period, without writing separately, I have concurred in decisions affirming judgments of death based in part on lying-in-wait special circumstances, including decisions rejecting claims that the lying-in-wait special circumstance is unconstitutional because it does not adequately…

Defendant Robert Jurado, Jr., appeals from a judgment of death upon his conviction by jury verdict of one count of murder in the first degree (Pen.Code, § 187), [1] with the special circumstance of intentionally killing while lying in wait (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(15)), and one count of conspiracy to commit murder (§§ 182, 187). The jury found that defendant personally used a deadly and dangerous weapon to commit the murder. (§ 12022, subd. (b).) The jury that returned these verdicts as to guilt and special circumstance also returned a penalty verdict of death for the murder. The trial court denied the automatic motion to modify the penalty (§ 190.4, subd. (e)) and sentenced defendant to death.

This appeal from the judgment of death is automatic. (§ 1239, subd. (b).) We affirm the judgment in its entirety.

On May 17, 1991, a stranded motorist saw the body of Teresa Holloway in a culvert beneath Highway 163 in San Diego County. She had been strangled and beaten to death two days earlier. As the prosecution's evidence at trial established, defendant killed Holloway, with the help of Denise Shigemura and Anna Humiston, to prevent her from disclosing their plan to kill a…