The People, Plaintiff and Respondent v. Eloy Loy, Defendant and Appellant

Summary

The California Supreme Court affirmed Loy's convictions and death sentence for murdering his 12-year-old niece during a lewd and lascivious act. It rejected challenges to the jury-selection comments, admission and instructions concerning prior sexual offenses, the victim's out-of-court statement, the special circumstance, and California's death-penalty scheme, while finding two evidentiary errors harmless. Justice Kennard, concurring and dissenting, agreed the prior-sex-offense instruction was nonprejudicial but would have held the instruction invalid because it permitted reliance on prior offenses as the sole basis for conviction.