People v. Jones

Defendants pleaded guilty to murder in the first degree, waived a jury trial on the issue of punishment, and, after a five-day hearing on that issue, were sentenced to death. The appeals are automatic. (Pen. Code, § 1239, subd. (b).)

On April 6, 1958, Ruth Swanson Rivers, a woman of advanced middle age, was found dead on her bed in her apartment on Geary Street in San Francisco. The body was nearly nude and had a knotted rag around and embedded in its neck. In the opinion of the autopsy surgeon and the chief pathologist of the coroner’s department, the cause of death was strangulation effected…