California v. Thomas
Annotate this CaseDefendant Rebecca Thomas lived with her boyfriend codefendant Taylor Montgomery-Gutzman and her 22-month-old twins K. and B. In 2016, while defendant was out trying to buy heroin, K. stopped breathing and ultimately died. An autopsy of K. revealed he was strangled to death. B. also exhibited signs of distress and, upon a physical examination, it was revealed B. suffered from extensive internal injuries. Most of B.’s injuries were recently inflicted but some were several weeks old. Defendant and Montgomery-Gutzman were tried together for the murder of K. and abuse of B. Defendant claimed Montgomery-Gutzman inflicted all the injuries and she was unaware of his treatment of the twins. Montgomery-Gutzman claimed defendant was responsible. In his effort to show defendant was responsible, Montgomery-Gutzman introduced evidence defendant had a propensity to commit child abuse. Over defendant’s objection, the court admitted propensity evidence and instructed the jury it could use the propensity evidence to raise a reasonable doubt as to Montgomery-Gutzman’s guilt. In the published portion of its opinion, the Court of Appeal concluded the trial court did not err by admitting propensity evidence nor did it confusingly instruct the jury on how it could consider the evidence. In the unpublished portion of its opinion, the Court rejected defendant’s remaining instructional error claims and her ineffective assistance of counsel claim regarding her attorney’s performance at sentencing.
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