People v. Clark CA1/1

BACKGROUND

We summarize only the facts relevant to the issues on appeal. Tina Sistrunk, the victim, provided the main evidence against defendant at trial. Sistrunk, in California, met defendant, then in Minnesota, online. They chatted and formed a friendship. On learning defendant had never been to California, Sistrunk told him he was welcome to visit and crash, for a week, on the couch in the apartment she was about to get. Defendant immediately accepted the offer and drove out with his truck and camper. Within a week of defendant’s arrival, the two became physically intimate but, according to Sistrunk, they were not in a romantic dating relationship. Sistrunk and defendant were, at first, living out of the camper, and then were living together in Sistrunk’s new apartment in Concord. Defendant stayed in the apartment for about a month with Sistrunk, and then a second month while she was not there. Although the two

1 continued to have sex during these two months, their relationship faltered in part due to defendant’s belief there was a real dating relationship and defendant’s “weird and paranoid” behavior. After that, Sistrunk “got him to leave.” Some days later, on February 2,…