Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/california/court-of-appeal/2d/210/153.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 09:51:42+00:00

Document:
THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. CHARLES E. MERCER, Defendant and Appellant.
Douglas G. Cowan and Willard E. Stone for Defendant and Appellant.
Stanley Mosk, Attorney General, John S. McInerny and Robert R. Granucci, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
Defendant Charles Mercer appeals from a conviction of murder in the second degree.
Early in the morning of May 9, 1961, defendant Mercer, an ex-Marine employed as a Fuller Brush salesman, walked into the sheriff's office in Salinas, California, and stated that he had killed a man. He told where the body was located and accompanied several officers to the scene. At the site, the officers found an expended bullet in the center of a large [210 Cal. App. 2d 155] bloodstain on the nearby roadway. A trail of blood, bent grass and weeds led to a point about 29 feet north of the bloodstain, where lay the body of a man subsequently identified as Frank Barrios, who had been shot once in the heart and once in the head. Laboratory examination developed the deceased had a blood-alcohol level of .240, which is ordinarily indicative of a high state of intoxication. Death was caused by the bullet which passed through his heart.
While still at the scene (the intersection of the Boronda and Castroville highways) defendant Mercer gave the sheriff's officers a statement, which was tape-recorded and subsequently played at the trial. The defendant stated that at 7 or 8 p. m. on the preceding evening, he had stopped at a tavern in Castroville and there struck up a conversation with two men seated near him at the bar. The defendant stated that one of the men was a sergeant first class and that they began discussing their military experiences. The sergeant subsequently left the bar, and Barrios came over and stated that he had overheard the conversation, and that he had been in the paratroopers.
According to the defendant, the three men continued conversing at the bar until shortly before 12, when the proprietor closed the tavern. At that time, Barrios and the defendant decided to go to a bar in Salinas. Although Barrios said that he had a car, the defendant suggested that they go in his car because he was concerned about safeguarding certain Fuller Brush merchandise which he kept there. The two men then drove to Salinas in the defendant's car and visited several bars. During the course of the evening, the defendant talked about the collections he had made for the Fuller Brush Company in the past two days. He stretched the amount a bit in talking and informed Barrios that he had collected an amount equal to all of the merchandise he had sold during the past week. He also told Barrios that he would have to go down to the bank and open a business account in which to deposit his collections.
Thereafter, at approximately 2 a. m., the two men got into the defendant's car and headed back toward Castroville. When they reached a point on the highway near the intersection with Boronda Road, Barrios asked the defendant to pull over to the side so that he could get out and urinate. When the defendant stopped the car, Barrios got out and informed the defendant that he had a "weapon" and that he [210 Cal. App. 2d 156] was going to get the defendant's money. When the defendant asked Barrios what he wanted him to do, Barrios told him to get out and give him his money. The defendant kept a gun in the glove compartment of his car because it made him feel safer when he or his wife were out collecting for the Fuller Brush Company. When Barrios told him to get out of the car, the defendant began sliding across the seat and reached up and opened the glove compartment. Barrios then jumped a little bit and asked the defendant what he was doing. The defendant replied that he was getting what Barrios was after. He then reached into the glove compartment with both hands and pulled at random. He grasped an envelope containing his automobile instruction manual in his left hand, pulled it out, and told Barrios, "I got it here. Move, so I can get out." Defendant's right hand was on the gun. As Barrios half-turned to let him out, the defendant dropped the envelope in his left hand, jacked a shell into the chamber of the gun, pointed it in Barrios' direction, and pulled the trigger. Barrios fell down on his stomach and then raised up again on his elbows, yelling something indistinguishable. The defendant, upon seeing this movement, believed that Barrios was not disabled and was still able to harm him. He therefore fired again from his position halfway across the seat. He then found his flashlight and got out of the car. He searched Barrios but was unable to find a weapon. In his statement to the sheriff's officers, the defendant said: "In my mind all this time he had a gun because he said a weapon. That's what entered my mind. He said a weapon and that scared me. If he'd had a gun, in my mind it would've been self defense, if he'd had a gun, I'd have turned around and I'd went in to the police department and brought them out and it would've been settled. But he didn't have a gun and I was scared. I'd shot a man that didn't have anything." The defendant then became frightened, dragged Barrios' body off the road, drove home, and told his wife what he had done. After calling his brother in Martinez, he drove to the Salinas sheriff's office.
In addition to the May 9 statement summarized above, the defendant gave the sheriff's officers an additional tape statement on the morning of May 10. At that time, the highway patrol had just discovered Barrios' wallet alongside the Castroville Road roughly one mile north of the Boronda intersection. Upon being questioned about the wallet, the defendant at first stated that he had found it on the seat of the [210 Cal. App. 2d 157] car as he was driving home and that he had thrown it out of the car window. He stated that he did not know how it got on the seat unless it fell out of Barrios' pocket sometime during the evening. Upon further questioning, however, the defendant admitted that he had removed the wallet from Barrios' body after discovering that he had no weapon. He stated that he removed nothing from the wallet, but that he threw it from the car window to prevent anyone from connecting him with Barrios.
The defendant's testimony at the trial was entirely in accord with his out-of-court statements. He consistently maintained that Barrios had said he had a weapon. He stated that he believed Barrios was holding a gun outside the car door and that he fired out of fear and in order to protect himself.
The evidence produced by the prosecution consisted of the defendant's two tape-recorded statements and the testimony of witnesses who had seen the defendant and Barrios in various Salinas bars on the night of May 8. There was also evidence that defendant's wife had told a sheriff's officer that her husband was despondent over sales in his Fuller Brush territory and was thinking of seeking other employment.
At the conclusion of the trial, the jury found the defendant guilty of second degree murder. Judgment was entered accordingly.
Appellant now contends that the evidence is insufficient as a matter of law to support his conviction. Appellant asserts that the prosecution produced no direct evidence as to the manner in which the killing occurred other than his two out-of-court statements. It is his position that the prosecution, having introduced these statements into evidence, was bound by his version of the killing in the absence of circumstantial evidence showing that it could not have occurred in the manner described by him.
Penal Code, section 1105, provides as follows: "Upon a trial for murder, the commission of the homicide by the defendant being proved, the burden of proving circumstances of mitigation, or that justify or excuse it, devolves upon him, unless the proof on the part of the prosecution tends to show that the crime committed only amounts to manslaughter, or that the defendant was justifiable or excusable." (Emphasis added.)  Appellant contends that, in the instant case, the proof on the part of the prosecution, since consisting largely of his own statements to the sheriff's officers, tended [210 Cal. App. 2d 158] to show that the homicide was justifiable or, at most, manslaughter. Under such circumstances, the prosecution retained the burden of showing that appellant acted with the malice essential for a conviction of second degree murder. Appellant asserts that the prosecution produced no such evidence.
[2a] In People v. Griego (1955) 136 Cal. App. 2d 51, 55-56 [288 P.2d 175], the court stated the rule as follows: "... if the prosecution presents as a part of its case a statement of the defendant evidencing justification for the alleged crime, the prosecution is bound by that evidence in the absence of proof to the contrary."
"Under the evidence, the acts of Whiteside gave defendant reasonable grounds to believe that Whiteside was about to commit a felony (Pen. Code, § 286), and that there was imminent danger of its being accomplished. We hold the evidence establishes as a matter of law that the homicide was justifiable. [Pp. 592-593.]"
In the present case, appellant's version of the homicide was not inherently improbable. Indeed, we cannot perceive any motive for the killing other than self-defense. Appellant's statement that he had never met the deceased until the evening of May 8 was not contradicted; that he and the deceased had visited several bars in Salinas was corroborated by the People's own witnesses; and there was no evidence or intimation of any quarrel or altercation between appellant and the deceased.
Although it is arguable that some evidence of motive was provided by the testimony indicating that appellant was despondent over his job and was contemplating a change of employment, it must be noted that the defendant in the Collins case, supra, was unemployed and without sufficient funds to buy food. Yet the court there stated that there was no evidence of any motive other than self-defense.
On argument, respondent admits that the only ground that exists for a first degree murder conviction is to be found in the contention that the homicide resulted while appellant was committing the felony of robbery and that the evidence in support thereof is very weak; and, that there is no evidence that would support a finding of express malice on appellant's part.
Respondent, in urging that the judgment be affirmed, contends that appellant's alleged fears did not justify his course of action, and that appellant is guilty of using excess and unreasonable force in defending his person and property. Such argument fails to find any support in the record.
 Although it is true that appellant fired two shots at the deceased, the rule is well established that one who, without fault, is placed under circumstances sufficient to excite the fears of a reasonable man that another designs to commit a felony or some great bodily injury and to afford grounds for a reasonable belief of imminent danger, may act upon those fears alone and may slay his assailant and be justified by appearances. (People v. Hecker (1895) 109 Cal. 451, 462-463 [42 P. 307, 30 L.R.A. 403]; People v. Dawson (1948) 88 Cal. App. 2d 85, 96 [199 P.2d 338]; People v. Ranson (1953) 119 Cal. App. 2d 380, 387-388 [259 P.2d 910].)  "Where the peril is swift and imminent and the necessity for action immediate, the law does not weigh in too nice scales the conduct of the assailed and say he shall not be justified in killing because he might have resorted to other means to secure his safety." (People v. Collins, supra, at p. 589; People v. Hecker, supra, at p. 467.) Furthermore, it must be remembered that the defendant in the Toledo case, supra, struck the deceased twice. In the Salaz case, supra, the defendant fired five shots at the deceased. In the Collins case, the deceased was struck repeatedly by the defendant. Yet all three decisions resulted in the reversal of a manslaughter conviction.  In the instant case, appellant was convicted of second degree murder, a crime requiring malice aforethought. (Pen. Code, §§ 187, 189; People v. McAuliffe (1957) 154 Cal. App. 2d 332, 338 [316 P.2d 381]; People v. Todd (1957) 154 Cal. App. 2d 601, 608 [317 P.2d 40]; People v. Wallace (1934) 2 Cal. App. 2d 238, 240 [37 P.2d 1053].) Appellant's statement, which was presented as part of the case for the prosecution, showed that he killed the deceased in order to prevent the commission of a felony [210 Cal. App. 2d 162] (Pen. Code, § 211) and in order to avoid serious bodily injury. We are satisfied that the prosecution produced no evidence which can reasonably be viewed as incompatible with appellant's version of the killing.
In view of the above, it becomes unnecessary to discuss appellant's other assignments of error, and the judgment of conviction must be and is reversed, with directions to the trial court to discharge appellant.
I reluctantly concur on the authority of Gomez v. Superior Court, 50 Cal. 2d 640 [328 P.2d 976]. While I agree that the judgment must be reversed, I do not agree that the defendant should be acquitted as a matter of law as a result of double jeopardy. In the instant case, in addition to the defendant's statement, there is the circumstantial evidence of the victim's wallet which the police discovered after the offense, and the fact that the defendant first told conflicting stories about the wallet, but finally admitted he had removed the wallet from the body and thrown it from the car window to prevent anyone from connecting him with the [210 Cal. App. 2d 163] decedent. While the prosecution is bound by the defendant's statement, the jury, as the trier of fact, is not, as it may accept or reject the defendant's statement as a whole or in part. If the jury completely rejected the defendant's statement and concluded on the basis of the evidence relating to robbing the decedent of his wallet, and the shooting and killing of the decedent, the result would have to be murder in the first degree (Pen. Code, § 189); if the jury accepted the defendant's statement as a whole, the result would have to be justifiable homicide.
I agree that there is no merit in the prosecution's contention that the evidence indicates a murder in the second degree. The evidence in the record before us warrants a finding either of first degree murder or justifiable homicide. But for the Gomez case, the proper procedure would be to reverse the judgment with directions for a new trial, directing that the jury be given instructions only on murder in the first degree and justifiable homicide.
It cannot be said as a matter of law that there is no evidence in the record to show that defendant is guilty of murder in the first degree, a killing in the commission of a felony, to wit: robbery.

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