Filed 11/20/23 P. v. Lenard CA2/1

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS

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IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION ONE

THE PEOPLE,

Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.

ROBERT ERIC LENARD,

Defendant and Appellant.

 B324751

 (Los Angeles County

 Super. Ct. No. MA081299)

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los 

Angeles County, Robert G. Chu, Judge. Affirmed.

Christine M. Aros, under appointment by the Court of 

Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.

Rob Bonta, Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Chief 

Assistant Attorney General, Susan Sullivan Pithey, Senior 

Assistant Attorney General, Idan Ivri and Gabriel Bradley, 

Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

__________________________________
2

In September 2022, appellant Robert Eric Lenard was 

convicted by a jury of the 1995 murders of Jerek Armstrong and 

Tyrone Overstreet in Lancaster, California. In May 2021, Lenard 

had called the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department to confess to 

these murders. This confession was played for the jury.

Lenard’s sole contention on appeal is that the trial court 

erred in excluding expert testimony he wanted to present 

regarding the effects of methamphetamine use and sleepdeprivation, which testimony he contends would have supported 

his argument that he had made a false confession. Because 

Lenard failed to present to the jury any evidence that he had 

used methamphetamines or was sleep-deprived at the time of the 

confession, we hold the court did not err in excluding the 

evidence. We therefore affirm.1

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND2

A. Confession

On May 5, 2021, Lenard left his son a voicemail, stating he 

was drinking and smoking and was “going to hide in the 

mountains for a couple of days.” On May 8, 2021, Lenard left his 

son another voicemail, claiming that a woman named Shannon 

Johnson and her daughter were conspiring to kill him for “capital 

gain,” after which they would “take that money and murder 

y’all”; Lenard was “not gonna let that happen.” 

1 The parties also dispute whether the exclusion of the 

expert testimony was harmless. Because we find the court did 

not err, we do not address this issue.

2 We limit our summary to the facts and procedural history 

relevant to the issues raised on appeal.
3

Also on May 8, Lenard texted the following message to the 

North Port Police Department in Florida: “I want to use this as 

official evidence in the event of my demise[.] Shannon [middle 

name omitted] Johnson [street address omitted] North Port FL[,] 

dob [date of birth omitted] and her oldest daughter Kiara 

Johnson age [age omitted] conspired for Capitol gain [sic] to have 

me murder[ed]. North Port has precedence because that[’s] 

where the[y] paid for the contract although the attempts were 

made on my life in Ba[]ton Rouge [L]ouisiana[,] Beaumont[,] 

Texas and Lake Charles[,] Louisiana[.] The contractors put a 

substance in my heater core that makes you fall asleep[.] It hits 

the air in a gas form but immediately sticks in cold air which 

driving at night does [sic] . I had property of substantial 

amounts that needed the paperwork corrected and asked 

Shannon Johnson to help me[.] She claimed the property as her 

own and put a contract on me[.] [T]he rest of the contract is to be 

paid out of the claiming of this estate so she needs a death 

certificate with my name on it.”3 Thirteen minutes later, he sent 

another text message to the North Port Police Department 

claiming he had bloodwork done to prove Kiara was not his 

daughter, that he was headed to North Port to file a complaint 

against Johnson and her daughter for “fraud conspiracy to 

commit murder for Capitol gain [sic] bank theft and stalking,” 

and that he was currently in Lake Charles, Louisiana where 

“Kiara[’]s real dad call[s] the shots on who gets killed” and “she 

plans to kill my heirs as well” and “say I left all that to Kiara 

Johnson.” 

3 We omit certain identifying details in this text message 

because they are irrelevant to this appeal.
4

The next day, Lenard called the Los Angeles County 

Sheriff’s Department and confessed to the 1995 murders of Jerek 

Armstrong and “Polar Bear.”4 He explained that, on the day of 

the murders, someone had told him Armstrong was going to kill 

his little brother, and so he walked up to Armstrong and, when 

Armstrong said, “Hey, PB,”5 Lenard shot Armstrong, and then 

shot Polar Bear. Lenard continued that, after the murders, he 

was picked up by his girlfriend, Shannon Johnson, and Shannon’s 

brother, Kevin. Lenard claimed that Johnson was now trying to 

kill him. When asked why he was confessing, Lenard first stated 

it was because he “wasn’t with killing no kid, and then they owe 

me, because I ain’t one to follow the track.”6 He also agreed that 

he was “just trying to get this off [his] chest to clean [him]self a 

little bit,” adding that he had stopped smoking cigarettes and 

“don’t get high no more.” He additionally said he was “trying to 

have my conscience clean before God call me home” and that “[i]f 

I don’t make it to y’all, at least I come clean.”7

Later that night, after Louisiana law enforcement detained 

him, Lenard called a woman and explained that because he had 

“told the law everything,” including “her involvement in a double 

murder,” law enforcement would “probably . . . come pick her 

4 During trial, a witness testified that “Polar Bear” was the 

moniker for Tyrone Overstreet, one of the two victims in this 

case. 

5 Presumably PB stands for Polar Bear.

6 Earlier in his call to the Sheriff’s Department, he had 

explained that Johnson was trying to kill him because “I started 

getting high. And Shannon had ordered a hit on a kid, and I 

wasn’t with that shit” and “[t]hey’ve been mad at me ever since.” 

7 Lenard was in Louisiana when he confessed. 
5

up.”8 He explained to the woman on the phone: “I got to save you 

all” and “I can’t let this shit happen to you all.” He also told her 

that “it’s time I get right with god.” 

B. Pre-Trial

In December 2021, after a preliminary hearing, Lenard was 

held to answer for the murders of Armstrong and Overstreet. In 

January 2022, he was charged by information with two counts of 

murder; Lenard pled not guilty. 

In September 2022, before trial commenced, Lenard moved 

to exclude evidence of the confession he made to the Los Angeles 

County Sheriff’s Department, contending it was involuntary. 

Specifically, Lenard argued that when he made his statements to 

the Sheriff’s Department, he “was under auditory hallucinations 

or delusions or paranoia based on the fact that he was under the 

influence of meth and lack of sleep.” In support of his motion, 

Lenard submitted a document containing questions posed to Dr. 

George Elias, a psychiatrist, regarding the effects of 

methamphetamine use and lack of sleep, and Elias’s answers

thereto. The parties stipulated that if Elias were called to testify, 

he would testify consistently with the answers provided to the 

court. The document included a question of what “the 

8 Lenard told the woman he was speaking with that “she” 

was likely to be booked because he had “told of her involvement. 

Her and Kevin’s.” He also stated that he “told them that she was 

[an] accomplice” and an “accessory after the fact.” From the 

context of the conversation, and Lenard’s earlier statements to 

the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department that Shannon and her 

brother Kevin had picked him up after the murders, the “she” 

and “her” in this conversation appear to refer to Shannon 

Johnson, not the woman Lenard was speaking with. 
6

combination of meth use and lack of sleep [would] do to a person’s 

ability to make rational decisions” and Elias’s answer that “Meth 

use itself can induce psychosis. Meth use + sleep deprivation can 

accelerate and enhance the problem.” The document also 

included a question about whether “the use of meth and lack of 

sleep [could] cause a person to believe that they did something 

even though in reality they didn’t” and Elias’s answer that 

“Individuals can hold various false beliefs in the context of a 

psychotic state, including believing they did something they did 

not do.” No one asserted, and there is no evidence in the record 

showing, that Elias ever examined Lenard.

Lenard testified at the hearing that, before he called the 

Sheriff’s Department on May 9, 2021, he had used 

methamphetamines “for approximately seven or eight days” and 

that he had not slept between April 31 and May 7, at 3:00 a.m., 

when he slept for three hours.9 Lenard admitted to using 

methamphetamines “three times a week” since 2000. The court 

did not find Lenard’s confession to be involuntary, and denied the 

motion. 

Lenard’s counsel then asked that statements he made to 

law enforcement regarding other, uncharged murders be 

excluded; the court agreed “unless the defendant testifies.” 

9 Lenard’s counsel then asked, “So, essentially, from May 

7th to May 9th of 2021, total hours of sleep you had was three 

hours?” Lenard responded, “Yes, sir. Correct.” It is unclear from 

the record whether counsel intended to ask whether Lenard had 

slept for three hours from May 1 to May 9, or whether this was a 

new area of inquiry as to how much Lenard slept from May 7 to 

May 9 (when he made the phone call to the Sheriff’s 

Department).
7

Lenard’s counsel stated he was unsure whether Lenard would 

testify but, if he did, the defense intended to call Elias. The court 

responded that if Lenard testified, “Dr. Elias’s testimony would 

become relevant at that time, and the court would allow” him to 

testify in that case. 

C. Trial

A five-day jury trial took place between September 13 and 

September 19, 2022. Seven witnesses testified for the 

prosecution; one witness testified for the defense. 

Of relevance to this appeal, the police officer who detained 

Lenard in Louisiana testified that he had been a police officer for 

ten or eleven years at the time of detention, had been trained on 

the behavior of individuals under the influence of drugs, and 

observed nothing in Lenard’s behavior to cause him to believe 

Lenard was under the influence of methamphetamines when 

detained. A search of Lenard’s person at that time also revealed 

no methamphetamines. 

Additionally, one of the police officers who listened to 

Lenard confess telephonically testified he had been trained to 

recognize the effects of methamphetamines, had spoken with 

people high on methamphetamines “several hundred times” in 

his career, and had never had such a person “just come out of the 

blue and confess to a murder.” 

Finally, Lenard’s 24-year-old son testified that he received 

two voicemails from his father on May 5 and May 8, 2021, in 

which his father sounded “intoxicated,” although he did not know 

on what substance his father may have been intoxicated. 

Lenard’s son testified that he had previously spoken to his father 

when he was under the influence of “hard drugs,” “like 

methamphetamine, crack cocaine, [or] heroin,” and when he 
8

heard the two voicemails, he believed his father was under the 

influence of drugs. When asked what made him believe this, he 

testified it was because his father said “he was going to hide in 

the mountains” and because his father “was paranoid.” Lenard’s 

son did not otherwise testify about his father’s 

methamphetamine use, and did not testify about his father being 

sleep-deprived. There was no other testimony from anyone 

regarding Lenard’s methamphetamine use, and no testimony 

about any sleep-deprivation that Lenard was allegedly suffering 

from.

Though Lenard chose not to testify, his counsel 

nevertheless asked the court to permit Elias to testify about 

“what meth use . . . and lack of sleep does to [a] person’s state of 

mind.” Lenard’s counsel explained that he intended to use that 

testimony “to argue that, at the time of the phone call [Lenard 

made confessing to the murders], Mr. Lenard was under the 

influence of meth and hadn’t slept for eight straight days; and 

that because of that, he was not acting rationally.” The court 

denied the request, finding Elias’s testimony irrelevant because 

“there’s been no evidence presented to the jury that the 

defendant didn’t have any sleep or was using meth for the past 

eight straight days.” After the admission into evidence of the two 

text messages Lenard sent to the North Port Police Department, 

the defense rested. 

In closing, Lenard’s counsel argued that his confession was 

fabricated, stemming from Lenard’s “irrational belief that his life

was in danger” and, “with this irrational belief, he thinks that by 

confessing to things he didn’t do, and if he got in police custody, 

[that] would mean he and his family are safe.” His counsel 

explained that Lenard was “trying to implicate Shannon 
9

Johnson,” and “trying to get her arrested, taken into custody so 

that, in his mind, she can’t kill his family, his heirs, as he talks 

about in his text[] messages and in his voicemails.” His counsel 

highlighted perceived discrepancies between Lenard’s confession 

and the physical evidence and suggested alternative channels 

through which Lenard could have learned how the murders were 

committed. His counsel pointed out that no physical evidence 

tied Lenard to the murders and “the only thing that we have is 

this false confession from a man who was going through 

something at the time, whether he was under the influence of 

some kind of a substance, whether he was having a mental 

breakdown, we don’t know.” 

After the jury began deliberating on the morning of 

September 19, 2022, they requested a laptop to “listen to the 

CDs.”

10 The court provided them with the requested laptop.

Soon thereafter, they reached a verdict, finding Lenard guilty of 

both counts of first degree murder, and finding true that he used 

a handgun in the crimes. In October 2022, the court sentenced 

Lenard to fifty years to life, plus another eight years (for use of a 

firearm in two felonies), to run consecutively. Lenard timely 

appealed.

DISCUSSION

“No evidence is admissible except relevant evidence.” 

(Evid. Code, § 350.) “ ‘The trial court has broad discretion in 

deciding whether to admit or exclude expert testimony [citation], 

and its decision as to whether expert testimony meets the 

10 All the audio clips presented during trial were on CDs.
10

standard for admissibility is subject to review for abuse of 

discretion.’ ” (People v. Brown (2014) 59 Cal.4th 86, 101.)11

The Evidence Code defines “proffered evidence” as 

“evidence, the admissibility or inadmissibility of which is 

dependent upon the existence or nonexistence of a preliminary 

fact,” and provides that “[t]he proponent of the proffered evidence 

has the burden of producing evidence as to the existence of the 

preliminary fact, and the proffered evidence is inadmissible 

unless the court finds that there is evidence sufficient to sustain 

a finding of the existence of the preliminary fact, when [¶] . . . 

[t]he relevance of the proffered evidence depends on the existence 

of the preliminary fact.” (Evid. Code, §§ 401, 403, subd. (a)(1).)

Elias’s testimony regarding the effects of 

methamphetamine use and sleep-deprivation was relevant only if 

Lenard had presented evidence that he had used 

methamphetamine and was sleep-deprived. Lenard claims he 

presented such evidence, citing to: (1) his son’s testimony that he 

had spoken with his father when his father was under the 

influence of “hard drugs,” “like methamphetamine, crack cocaine, 

[or] heroin,” and that in his father’s voicemails to him on May 5 

and May 8, 2021, his son thought he sounded intoxicated; (2) 

Lenard’s text messages to the North Port Police Department that

a substance had been put in his heater core that would make 

someone fall asleep; and (3) his statement to the Los Angeles 

11 Lenard claims that “where a defendant’s constitutional 

rights are affected by the exclusion of relevant evidence, an 

appellate court applies a de novo standard of review, according 

the trial court no deference.” Because, as discussed herein, we 

hold the trial court did not exclude relevant evidence, we need 

not address Lenard’s contention.
11

Sheriff’s Department that Johnson was trying to kill him because 

he “started getting high.”

12 We are unpersuaded. At most, this 

evidence may have supported an inference that Lenard was 

under the influence of some unknown substance and was 

experiencing paranoid delusions when he left the voicemails for 

his son and texted the North Port Police Department. But this 

evidence did not support an inference that he had been using 

methamphetamines or was sleep-deprived at all, let alone that he 

had used methamphetamines or was sleep-deprived in any 

significant amount. Therefore, Lenard failed to establish the 

preliminary facts necessary to make relevant Elias’s testimony 

regarding the effects of methamphetamine use and sleepdeprivation, and the trial court did not err in excluding that 

testimony.

13

12 We note that in the same call, he also told the Sheriff’s 

Department that he had stopped getting high. 

13 Thus, we find misplaced Lenard’s reliance on People v. 

Caparaz (2022) 80 Cal.App.5th 669. In Caparaz, the appellate 

court found the trial court had erred in excluding expert 

testimony that the defendant was a “highly suggestible 

individual” and “highly susceptible to giving a false confession

under the stress of police interrogation” because such testimony

was relevant to whether the defendant’s statements to police 

were reliable. (Id. at pp. 681, 684–685.) But in Caparaz, there 

was no dispute that the expert had examined the defendant to 

determine whether he was “especially susceptible to giving a 

false confession” and that the defendant had in fact made 

statements to police. (Id. at p. 681.) Here, by contrast, there was 

no evidence presented to the jury that Lenard was using 

methamphetamines or was sleep-deprived at the time of his 

confession.
12

DISPOSITION

The judgment is affirmed.

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED

CHANEY, J.

We concur:

ROTHSCHILD, P. J.

WEINGART, J.