Ward

Defendant Carmen Lee Ward was charged in a single information with the first degree murders of Ronald Stumpf and David Adkins (Pen. Code, § 187, subd. (a); all undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code) and the attempted murder of Kenneth Shy (§§ 187, 664). The information further alleged a multiple-murder special circumstance (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(3)) and enhancements for the infliction of great bodily injury (§ 12022.7) and firearm use (§ 12022.5). After the trial court granted defendant’s motion to sever the murder charges, a jury convicted him of the second degree murder of Stumpf and found the firearm use allegation to be true. A second jury then convicted him of the first degree murder of Adkins and the attempted murder of Shy and returned true findings on the enhancement allegations. After a separate proceeding, the jury found true the special circumstance that defendant had been previously convicted of murder in the second degree. (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(2).) Following the penalty phase trial, the jury returned a verdict of death.

Following the verdict, the trial court denied defendant’s motion for a new trial and his automatic motion for modification of…