People v. Super. Ct. (Woodward)

I. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

A. 1992–1996 Murder Prosecution On September 5, 1992, Laurie Houts was found dead in her car, parked about one mile from her place of work in Mountain View. She had been strangled with a rope while seated in the driver’s seat. The rope had been pulled through her mouth like a gag, knotted behind the neck, and left in place. The cause of death was strangulation. Woodward was identified as a suspect. At the time, he lived with Houts’s boyfriend Brent Fulmer. Woodward had reportedly displayed possessive behavior toward Fulmer and became jealous when Houts began spending time with Fulmer. Two latent fingerprints belonging to Woodward were recovered on the outside of Houts’s car, 2 and fibers collected from masking tape on the free end of the rope used to strangle Houts showed characteristics similar to the outside of Woodward’s sweatpants. Woodward had no alibi for the window of time in which Houts was killed. During a pretext phone call between Woodward and Fulmer, Woodward never denied killing Houts. Based on these and other circumstances and evidence, the district attorney charged Woodward with Houts’s murder. The first jury trial resulted in a…