People v. Superior Court

Opinion

BAXTER, J.

Defendant and real party in interest Ronald Decker has been charged with the attempted willful, deliberate, and premeditated murder of his sister, Donna Decker, and her friend, Hermine Riley Bañera. (Pen. Code, § 664, subd. (a).) According to the evidence offered at the preliminaiy hearing, Decker did not want to kill these women himself—as he explained, “he would be the prime suspect” and “would probably make a mistake somehow or another”—so he sought the services of a hired assassin.

Decker located such a person (or thought he did). He furnished the hired assassin with a…