Hovey

I. Background1

On March 10, 1978, eight-year-old Tina Salazar was abducted while she was walking home from school in Hay- ward, California. Later that afternoon she was found by the side of a road, bound at the wrists and thighs. Doctors con- cluded that she had six depressed skull fractures and fourteen laceration wounds. Eight days later, Salazar died.

Three months later, in June 1978, Hovey was arrested in connection with the kidnapping of another young girl, Amy Guard, in Albany, California. In December of that year, while in custody for the Guard kidnapping, Hovey was arrested for the Salazar kidnapping and murder. Hovey was charged with kidnapping and with first degree murder with two “special circumstances”: murder during a lewd and lascivious act on a child, which was dismissed during trial, and murder during the course of a kidnapping.

Under California law applicable at the time of Hovey’s 1 The following facts are derived from the last state opinion of record, People v. Hovey, 44 Cal. 3d 543 (1988), and evidence admitted during the course of the district court’s evidentiary hearing. 9448 HOVEY v. AYERS trial, kidnapping was not a felony that could…