Description:
On the night of August 21, 1977, Lockin went to a gay bar in Garden Grove, California.[14] He left the bar with a slight, 34-year-old unemployed medical clerk, Charles Leslie Hopkins (who already had a police record, and was on probation at the time). Several hours later, Hopkins called police to say that a man had entered his apartment and tried to rob him.[13] Upon arrival, police found Lockin's body on the floor of Hopkins' apartment. He had been stabbed 100 times, and bled to death.[13] His body had also been mutilated after death.[14] Hopkins claimed he had no idea how the dead body got in his apartment.[15] He was arrested
On the night of August 21, 1977, Lockin went to a gay bar in Garden Grove, California.[14] He left the bar with a slight, 34-year-old unemployed medical clerk, Charles Leslie Hopkins (who already had a police record, and was on probation at the time). Several hours later, Hopkins called police to say that a man had entered his apartment and tried to rob him.[13] Upon arrival, police found Lockin's body on the floor of Hopkins' apartment. He had been stabbed 100 times, and bled to death.[13] His body had also been mutilated after death.[14] Hopkins claimed he had no idea how the dead body got in his apartment.[15] He was arrested immediately.
Lockin was interred at Westminster Memorial Park cemetery in Westminster, California.
Trial
Police found a book of pornographic pictures in Hopkins' apartment which showed men being tortured during sexual orgies.[14] Prosecutors initially intended to seek a first degree murder conviction, and to use the book to prove that Hopkins had planned the murder. Hopkins' trial began in May 1978, but was delayed for two months after the prosecutor was injured in an unrelated accident.[14] During the delay, the Supreme Court of the United States held in United States v. Chadwick, 433 U.S. 1 (1977), that police may not engage in warrantless searches in the absence of an exigency.[16] On July 31, the trial court ruled the pornographic book inadmissible as evidence.[14] On August 8, the trial court judge held that the death penalty could not be applied to Hopkins due to lack of evidence of premeditation.[17]
On September 28, 1978, Hopkins was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to a three-year prison term.[15] Since the court was permitted to consider suppressed evidence if the evidence was not seized merely to obtain a lengthier prison sentence and it did not "shock the conscience of the court," the trial judge increased Hopkins' sentence from the usual three years to four years.[15] Prosecutors said that with good behavior, Hopkins would be released in two years (considering time served).[15]
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