State's high court won't review Baldwin Park murder case

BALDWIN PARK -- The state's high court declined to review the case against a man found guilty of murdering a Baldwin Park man during a 1986 burglary and causing the death of the victim's fiance, who was raped and stabbed during the attack and suffered self-inflicted injuries while in a psychiatric ward.

A majority of the California Supreme Court on Wednesday denied a defense petition seeking review of the case against Martin Rios Talavera, while Associate Justice Joyce L. Kennard "is of the opinion the petition should be granted," according to the court's docket on the case.

In a 2-1 ruling in January, a panel from California's 2nd District Court of Appeal rejected Talavera's claim that there was insufficient evidence that he "proximately caused" the death of Peggy Johnson, who died of self-inflicted wounds in March 1987.

"In this case, there was substantial evidence that as a result of appellant's attack, Johnson's mental condition continually spiraled downward until she became mentally disordered at the time of her self-inflicted pelvic and leg injuries," Associate Justice Patti S. Kitching wrote in the Jan. 26 ruling, with Presiding Justice Joan D. Klein concurring.

Kitching noted in the 26-page ruling that Johnson, 61, had been in excellent health and would frequently take 10-mile walks before she and her fiance, Sylvester Flood, were attacked during a 1 a.m. break-in at their home in January 1986.

In a dissenting opinion filed along with the appellate court panel's opinion, Associate Justice H. Walter Croskey wrote that he would reverse Talavera's conviction for Johnson's murder and instead modify it to attempted premeditated murder.

"The majority opinion accepts the people's argument that Johnson was brutally sexually assaulted by defendant, and that it was foreseeable that a victim of such an assault might engage in self-harm even many months after the attack. I disagree," Croskey wrote.

The killings went unsolved for 22 years until DNA evidence linked Talevera to the crime.

He was sentenced to two consecutive life prison terms without the possibility of parole for the attack, which also involved a second man who has not been identified.