People v. Serpa CA2/2

I. Facts

A. The underlying crime One morning in the summer of 1985, a concerned neighbor checked on Jean Wildish at her apartment in Santa Monica and found Wildish’s body in the apartment’s bedroom. Wildish was naked from the waist down and was positioned with her knees on the floor and her head on the bed. There was blood all over the floor. An autopsy confirmed that Wildish had died as a result of blunt force trauma to the head. Defendant and a friend had planned to rob Wildish’s apartment, but when she awoke, either defendant or his friend hit Wildish over the head with a hammer. B. Conviction and appeal In April 1987, a jury found defendant guilty of first degree murder based on a felony-murder theory, and found true the special circumstance that Wildish was murdered during the commission of a robbery and burglary. The jury had been instructed on the then governing law—specifically, that the felony-murder special circumstance required the jury to find that defendant “intended to kill a human being or intended to aid another in the killing of a human being.” He was sentenced to

2 life without the possibility of parole, and his conviction was affirmed on appeal.

II.…