People v. Carasi

Opinion

BAXTER, J.

Paul Joe Carasi (defendant) and his live-in girlfriend, Donna Lee (codefendant or Lee), were charged, tried, and convicted in the same proceeding of committing two first degree murders on Mother’s Day 1995. (Pen. Code, § 187.)1 The victims were defendant’s mother, Doris Carasi (Doris), and his former girlfriend, Sonia Salinas (Sonia), the mother of his child. As to each murder count, the jury returned a lying-in-wait special-circumstance finding (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(15)), and a finding of personal use of a deadly weapon, i.e., a knife. (§ 12022.) With respect to Sonia’s…