Jones

A Riverside County jury convicted defendant William Alfred Jones of the first degree murder of his elderly neighbor Ruth Eddings (Pen. Code, §§ 187, subd. (a), 189), and further found true the three special circumstance allegations that the murder took place during the commission of rape, sodomy, and burglary (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(17)). The jury additionally convicted defendant of the arson of Eddings’s home (§ 451, subd. (b)), and also found true various sentencing enhancement allegations— that defendant had two prior “strikes” (§§ 667, subds. (c) & (e), 1170.12, subd. (c)), had two prior serious felony convictions (§ 667, subd. (a)), and had served a prior prison term (§ 667.5, subd. (b)). Following the penalty phase of the trial, the jury returned a verdict of death. After conducting an automatic review and declining defendant’s request to modify the jury’s verdict (§ 190.4, subd. (e)), the trial court sentenced defendant to death for the first degree murder count, and also imposed an indeterminate term of 25 years to life, with an additional determinate term of five years, for the arson count. This appeal is automatic. (§ 1239, subd. (b).)

We affirm the judgment in its…