People v. Hajek and Vo

*1157 Opinion

Defendants Stephen Edward Hajek and Loi Tan Vo were convicted of the 1991 murder of Su Hung (Pen. Code, § 187) 1 as to which lying-in-wait and torture-murder special circumstances were found true (former § 190.2, subd. (a)(15), (18)). Additionally, defendants were convicted of four counts of premeditated attempted murder (§§ 664, 187), one count of kidnapping (§ 207, subd. (a)), three counts of false imprisonment (§§ 236, 237), one count of robbery (§§ 211, 212.5, subd. (a)), and one count of first degree burglary (§ 459, former § 460.1). Hajek was separately convicted of dissuading a witness. (§ 136.1, subd. (c)(1).) The jury also found true firearm use allegations as to Hajek and deadly or dangerous weapon use allegations as to Vo, in their commission of the murder, attempted murder, kidnapping, and false imprisonment counts. (Former §§ 12022, subd. (b), 12022.5, subd. (a).)

Following the penalty phase trial, the jury returned verdicts of death as to each defendant, which the trial court declined to modify. The court sentenced each defendant to death for the murder of Su Hung, and on the remaining counts, sentenced Hajek to life plus 21 years and Vo to life plus…

Concurring and Dissenting.—I concur in the majority opinion except in one respect: As to defendant Loi Tan Vo, the evidence is, in *1259 my view, insufficient to support the jury’s torture findings. I would therefore reverse, as to Vo, the jury’s true finding on the torture-murder special-circumstance allegation (Pen. Code, § 190.2, subd. (a)(18)) and set aside the judgment of death as to Vo. I further conclude that there is insufficient evidence to convict Vo of first degree murder on a torture-murder theory, although I agree with the majority that Vo’s first degree murder conviction can be upheld on the theory of deliberate and premeditated murder.

L

Defendants Hajek and Vo, who were both 18 years old, devised a scheme to go to the home of 16-year-old Ellen Wang (with whom Hajek had been arguing), to kill Ellen’s family while she watched, and then to kill Ellen. Hajek announced his intention in advance to an acquaintance. On January 18, 1991, Hajek and Vo arrived at the Wang residence about 10:00 a.m. They had gloves and a pellet gun. Inside the home were Ellen’s 10-year-old sister, Alice, and her 73-year-old grandmother, Su Hung.

Hajek and Vo used a ruse to enter the Wang…

I. FACTS

A. Guilt Phase

On the morning of January 18, 1991, defendants gained access to the Wang residence, where they held various members of the family hostage for several hours.2 At some point, they killed Su Hung, the family’s 73-year-old grandmother, who was visiting from Taiwan. The attack on the Wang family was in retaliation for a minor altercation a few days earlier between the family’s teenage daughter, Ellen, defendant Hajek, and a girl named Lori Nguyen, who was a friend of both defendants. On the night before the attack, Hajek told another friend that he was going to the house of an unidentified girl who had threatened him. He said he planned to kill each member of her family while she watched and

2 For clarity, we refer to individual members of the Wang family by their first names and to the family’s father, Chi Ching Wang, as “Tony,” the name used at trial.

2 then kill her last. The next day, he and Vo went to the Wang residence, where the events transpired that led to the charges in this case.

1. Prosecution Evidence

a. The altercation between Hajek, Nguyen, and Ellen On January 14, 1991, between 4:30 and 5:00 p.m., Hajek and his friend, Lori Nguyen,…