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Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1250', '§ 352', '§ 2', '§ 2', '§ 2', '§ 16', '§ 16', '§ 352', '§ 801']

People v. Coleman (1985) :: :: Supreme Court of California Decisions :: California Case Law :: California Law :: US Law :: Justia
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People v. Coleman (1985)
Defendant raises a number of issues on appeal, notably the propriety of excluding noncitizens from juries (an issue raised in Rubio v. Superior Court (1979) 24 Cal. 3d 93 [154 Cal. Rptr. 734, 593 P.2d 595]), admissibility [38 Cal. 3d 74] of a tape-recorded jailhouse conversation and of letters written long before the murders by one of the victims (his wife, Shirley Coleman) which accused him of threatening on numerous occasions to kill his family, and the propriety of remanding this case to the sentencing court to permit it to exercise its discretion under section 1385 whether to strike the special circumstance in accordance with People v. Williams (1981) 30 Cal. 3d 470 [179 Cal. Rptr. 443, 637 P.2d 1029].
We find the admission of three hearsay letters written by the victim a substantial period of time before her death, which referred to alleged prior threats against her by defendant and her fear of future violence, was error which prejudicially affected defendant's trial and we reverse the convictions. (See, Shepard v. United States (1933) 290 U.S. 96 [78 L. Ed. 196, 54 S. Ct. 22]; People v. Hamilton (1961) 55 Cal. 2d 881 [13 Cal. Rptr. 649, 362 P.2d 473]; People v. Talle (1953) 111 Cal. App. 2d 650 [245 P.2d 633].) Because we reverse on this basis, we do not decide defendant's remaining contentions of error. fn. 2
Kimberly went upstairs to bed. She and her brother and cousin remained awake listening to the radio with the door slightly ajar. After about an hour, Kimberly heard someone come upstairs and walk past the bedroom then return downstairs. A minute or two later, the children heard a loud shot. Kimberly heard defendant say, "I won't have to take any more of this [expletive deleted]." Suddenly, the bedroom door "flew open," and defendant [38 Cal. 3d 75] appeared with a rifle in his hand. Defendant told them, "I'm sorry I have to do this." The children screamed and scrambled under the bed in an attempt to hide. The niece screamed, "No, Uncle Ralph, don't," and was shot. Defendant then threw the bed out of the way and shot his son, Kevin. Finally, he shot at Kimberly, whose face he narrowly missed.
When he went upstairs to retrieve the rifle, defendant "guess[ed] [he] would have had to" have decided to kill his wife, but he could not recall [38 Cal. 3d 76] thinking purposefully. He testified that "everything we had been discussing, everything from the past just all blurred together" and that he "wasn't thinking about anything." When he pointed the rifle at her, he "wasn't thinking" of his act in such a way that he was aware that it would "probably kill" his wife. He never thought about whether he was justified in shooting her or whether there was an excuse for doing it. Immediately, he started up the steps toward the children's room. He "didn't think" about whether he had decided to kill the children. Nor did he recall thinking that he would kill them to spare them difficult lives, though when he was examined by "the doctors" he guessed that was what he thought. He only vaguely remembered the actual shootings, though he remembered a scream and shooting into the darkened room.
As early as 1972, defendant complained of difficulties at work apparently related to his marriage. On one occasion he overheard some fellow employees at Strauss Stores in Youngstown obliquely intimating that his wife was a prostitute. After a confrontation with a sales clerk over a 25-cent bonus commission, defendant began to suffer "constant harassment," in the form of small incidents seemingly calculated to make his work more difficult, such as disturbing the mannequins and the cutting up of sales sheets into ribbons which defendant would have to piece together. After a temporary stint at U.S. Steel, defendant went to work at an assemblyline job at General Motors (GM). After a time, coworkers at GM began to drop hints about an affair between defendant's wife and his pastor. "Harassment" followed, in the form of an overload of work, delayed breaks, speeding up of the line, and one incident in which defendant's car headlights were left on. "[O]nce or twice," people told defendant what he had had for breakfast, leading him to suspect the house was "bugged" by "some agency of some sort," possibly [38 Cal. 3d 77] the police (defendant perceived a possible connection between some policemen acquaintances and an occasion on which he was stopped for speeding) or the FBI or the CIA.
After a seasonal job of short duration at the Campbell Soup Company, at which he suffered "[h]arassment," defendant obtained work as a janitor for the state Department of General Services, which he retained until the date [38 Cal. 3d 78] of the killings. There, too, he felt he was subjected to harassment because of his interracial marriage. Several coworkers confirmed that there was some racial joking among the janitors. Defendant generally impressed them as a calm, quiet individual and a devoted father.
Dr. Allen Axelrad, a psychiatrist, opined on the basis of five interviews with defendant and consideration of a large volume of documentary evidence (including defendant's correspondence with federal agencies, recordings of interviews with relatives, and transcripts of defendant's testimony), that he suffered from an ongoing mental disorder, paranoia, at the time of the offenses. He had psychotic delusions that he was the victim of conspiratorial persecution. Dr. Axelrad testified that defendant's argument with his wife that night dredged up painful memories and led to a "sudden" conviction that his wife had betrayed him and was part of the conspiracy. This "flooding" of his memory due to extreme stress, Dr. Axelrad believed, triggered a temporary break from reality of a few hours' duration which could be characterized as a "psychotic dissociative reaction" or, in the [38 Cal. 3d 79] language of the then-about-to-be-effective Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, Third Edition, of the American Psychiatric Association (DSM III), a "brief reactive psychosis." On this basis, Dr. Axelrad concluded that defendant was insane in that he lacked substantial capacity to appreciate the criminality of his actions or to conform his conduct with the requirements of law. (See People v. Drew (1978) 22 Cal. 3d 333 [149 Cal. Rptr. 275, 583 P.2d 1318].) He also testified that due to the impact of his condition on his judgment and emotional stability, defendant lacked the capacity to "maturely and meaningfully premeditate and deliberate" or even to form an intent to kill.
The prosecution called a number of experts on rebuttal. Two of them, Drs. Lee Coleman, a psychiatrist, and Bernard Ziskin, a psychologist, testified, in essence, that psychiatry is not sufficiently developed as a scientific discipline to render psychiatrists any more qualified than laymen to form reliable or valid opinions as to a person's sanity or capacity to form a particular mental state. Dr. Coleman opined that the reliability of psychiatric diagnosis is limited by the lack of objective measurement tools and [38 Cal. 3d 80] universally accepted descriptive terms, and impeached by the prevalence of a "therapeutic bias" among mental health professionals. He characterized the use of psychological tests such as the Rorschach Test and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory as lacking in reliability and inappropriate for use in forming an opinion as to whether an accused possessed a certain mental state at some time in the past. He specifically criticized Dr. Weissman's interpretation of the tests administered to defendant.
Finally, Dr. Alfred French, a psychiatrist, testified that defendant appeared "mentally normal" when he examined him in September of 1978 under a court appointment. He further opined that defendant was not "mentally disordered" or acting on "psychotic delusional beliefs" when he committed the killings. He described defendant as a "man ... in terrible chronic [38 Cal. 3d 81] pain" who "identified his wife with the pain in a causal way." He killed her simply in order "to make that pain stop." Dr. French admitted that he might have indicated to the prosecutor that, if he had to diagnose defendant's condition, he would characterize it as "a paranoid personality disorder." He also conceded that it was possible for a person subject to "a number of unwarranted beliefs" to undergo a "paranoid psychotic episode" as a result of the type of "colossal stress" that defendant suffered.
Although the trial court ruled the letters' contents admissible only for the limited purposes of impeaching defendant's credibility and to explain and challenge the basis for the opinions of the psychiatric experts, and carefully instructed the jury on these limited proper uses for the letters, we agree with defendant that these instructions did not ¶ and could not ¶ adequately insure that the letters would not be considered as proof of the truth of the hearsay accusations they contained. The abuse of discretion in this case constituted prejudicial error. (People v. Hamilton, supra, 55 Cal. 2d 881; People v. Ireland (1969) 70 Cal. 2d 522 [75 Cal. Rptr. 188, 450 P.2d 580, 40 A.L.R.3d 1323].)
The three handwritten letters at issue are the "Dear Bill and Audrey" letter, dated August 11, 1976; the "Dear Mother" letter, written September 9, 1976; and the "To Whom It May Concern" letter dated September 19, 1977. Each of these letters poignantly describes defendant's wife's feelings of hopelessness and despair in the face of the many personal and marital problems the couple had experienced. The letters allude to both marital partners' suspicions involving defendant's employers and coworkers and [38 Cal. 3d 82] describe extensive contacts with public agencies in an attempt to find out "what happened" and "who did this to us." In one letter the wife admits various marital infidelities while denying others. In both the "Dear Mother" and the "To Whom" letters she expresses remorse for the effect of her selfishness on her family and particularly what she describes as a transformation of defendant "from a gentle, kind-loving man to a very bitter man." In both of these letters the wife says that it is too late to solve the problems and suggests that she is ready to face death.
All parties recognized the enormous impact which such accusations of past violent threats and behavior might have on the trier of fact called upon to decide the major issues in this case: whether defendant was legally insane or suffering from a diminished capacity to form the mental states which accompany the offense of first degree murder at the time he shot the victims. Whether and to what extent the contents of the letters would be placed before the jury was argued on at least seven occasions prior to and during trial. fn. 4 [38 Cal. 3d 83]
[4a] The potential for unfair prejudice from the admission of prior statements of a victim declarant regarding either past or future conduct by an accused has been recognized repeatedly by this court and the United States Supreme Court. The limitations imposed on the admissibility of such evidence have been sufficiently stringent as to virtually preclude the evidence unless the victim's state of mind has been placed in issue or the statements are relevant to prove or explain the acts of the victim (e.g., where the defendant claims provocation or self-defense). (People v. Hamilton, supra, 55 Cal. 2d 881, 894.) The rationale is that the "true evidentiary bearing o f the evidence is at best slight and remote'" and is outweighed by its prejudicial effect. (Ibid.)
In Shepard v. United States, supra, 290 U.S. 96, the Supreme Court reversed defendant's conviction for the murder of his wife because the prosecutor was permitted to introduce a statement made by her three weeks prior to her death in which she accused the defendant of poisoning her. The court rejected various theories supporting admission of the statement but assumed that it might have been relevant to negate the proposition that she had purposefully committed suicide. In spite of this possible relevance the court held admission of the statement prejudicial error. "This fact, if fact it was, the Government was free to prove, but not by hearsay declarations. It will not do to say that the jury might accept the declarations for any light that they cast upon the existence of a vital urge, and reject them to the extent that they charged the death to some one else. Discrimination so subtle is a feat beyond the compass of ordinary minds. The reverberating clang of those accusatory words would drown all weaker sounds. It is for ordinary minds, and not for psychoanalysts, that our rules of evidence are framed. They have their source very often in considerations of administrative convenience, of practical expediency, and not in rules of logic. When the risk of confusion is so great as to upset the balance of advantage, the evidence goes out. [Citations omitted.] ... [¶] The testimony now questioned faced [38 Cal. 3d 84] backward and not forward. This at least it did in its most obvious implications. What is even more important, it spoke to a past act, and more than that, to an act by some one not the speaker. Other tendency, if it had any, was a filament too fine to be disentangled by a jury." (Id., at pp. 104-106 [78 L.Ed. at pp. 201-203].)
In People v. Hamilton, supra, this court also recognized the danger that the jury will be unable to "separate the state of mind of the declarant from the truth of the facts contained in the declarations ...." (55 Cal.2d at p. 895.) We said hearsay statements which referred "solely to alleged past conduct on the part of the accused" should not be admitted. Statements of threats of future conduct by the accused, might, in a proper case be admitted, if "shown to have been made under circumstances indicating that they are reasonably trustworthy," and if they "show primarily the then state of mind of the declarant and not the state of mind of the accused." (Id., at pp. 893-894; see also People v. Ireland (1969) 70 Cal. 2d 522 [75 Cal. Rptr. 188, 450 P.2d 580, 40 A.L.R.3d 1323]; People v. Lew (1968) 68 Cal. 2d 774 [69 Cal. Rptr. 102, 441 P.2d 942].)
People v. Talle, supra, 111 Cal. App. 2d 650 involved facts similar to those in the present case. In Talle, the defendant's wife wrote a letter, on the advice of her attorney, in which she stated that the defendant had used physical force against her and had threatened to kill her. The letter was written in connection with an action for separate maintenance by the wife. Four months later, the defendant killed his wife and the letter was admitted into evidence at the eventual murder trial. The Talle court held that the introduction of the letter was prejudicial error because the state of mind of the victim was never an issue in the case. Furthermore, even if the state of mind was in issue, to be admissible the statement must be made "under circumstances so as to make it reasonably certain it was not the result of a partisan premeditated plan to accuse." (Id., at p. 671.) Thus, such statements "from the grave" were held to be inherently prejudicial and, even if possibly admissible for a limited purpose, required a "reasonably certain" showing of reliability. The Talle court stated: "How could the jury possibly disentangle the charges in that letter and treat the letter only as evidence of state of mind, and forget about the substance of the charges? How could the defendant meet such a situation? He could not cross-examine the deceased. Her lips were sealed. Here was a self-serving statement for a particular purpose against which the accused was powerless to defend." (Ibid.)
The trial court rejected all proffered grounds for admission of the letters under any exception to the hearsay rule. The court correctly ruled that the wife's state of mind was not at issue in this case and thus that the documents did not fall within the rule permitting use of out of court declarations to [38 Cal. 3d 85] show the state of mind of the declarant. (Evid. Code, § 1250; People v. Ireland, supra, 70 Cal. 2d 522.) The court further ruled correctly that the letters did not tend to prove the state of mind of defendant at the relevant time, and that they could not be viewed as adoptive admissions under Evidence Code section 1221.
The second danger is presented when declarations pertaining to threats of future conduct by the accused are attempted to be admitted for the limited [38 Cal. 3d 86] purpose of demonstrating the mental state of the declarant. Both the Shepard and Hamilton decisions recognize "that it is impossible for the jury to separate the state of mind of the declarant from the truth of the facts contained in the declarations ...." (People v. Hamilton, supra, 55 Cal.2d at p. 895.) "... [I]t must be inferred that the declarant had this mental state of fear only because of the truthfulness of the statements contained in the assertion. ... Logically it is impossible to limit the prejudicial and inflammatory effect of this type of hearsay evidence." (Id., at p. 896.)
In this manner ¶ via a series of largely unsuccessful attempts to fashion proper questions for cross-examination of defendant ¶ the prosecutor was able to bring the most prejudicial portions of the hearsay letters before the jury. The nature of the questions coupled with repeated defense objections must have alerted the jury to the importance of the wife's letter and the sensational nature of its contents. The fact that objections to the most damaging questions were sustained could not, contrary to the Attorney General's contention, cancel the impression thus created in the minds of the jurors. The successful objections may instead have had just the opposite effect, as [38 Cal. 3d 87] the jury was left without any explanation or answer by defendant to the hearsay accusations against him. fn. 5
The letters were provided to defense psychiatrists as part of a package of background materials to assist in their evaluation of defendant's sanity. In addition to these letters the package included other letters written and received by defendant and his wife, defendant's account of "people involved," investigator and police reports, transcripts of interviews with friends and relatives of defendant, the report of the autopsy physician and the reports of other medical experts. Each of the experts who testified for the defense had read the letters written by defendant's wife and had considered the letters along with information gleaned from their personal interviews [38 Cal. 3d 88] of defendant and the other materials provided to them in assessing defendant's mental condition.
The second defense expert, Dr. Axelrad, testified on direct examination that he had considered the three letters written by defendant's wife in conjunction with other materials and four personal interviews with defendant. Dr. Axelrad found the letters useful because they indicated that defendant's [38 Cal. 3d 89] paranoid illness had manifested itself after the couple moved to California, and portions of the "To Whom" letter described the paranoid delusion from which defendant suffered. The letters also showed that defendant's wife was very supportive of his illness. Dr. Axelrad further stated that defendant's wife had been the "best observer" of defendant's behavior.
Dr. Markman testified that during a psychiatric interview defendant had admitted pointing a gun at his wife's head during an argument several years prior to the killings. On cross-examination the prosecutor asked whether Dr. Markman was aware that the "To Whom" letter alleged defendant had threatened his wife twice before and whether he had confronted defendant with this allegation. The doctor was aware of the allegation but had not confronted defendant with it. During the People's rebuttal case, Dr. French testified that he was aware of the allegations of prior threats contained in the "To Whom" and other letters. To him these allegations indicated that acts of violence were not foreign to the marital relationship between defendant and his wife. [38 Cal. 3d 90]
Two Courts of Appeal have considered whether an expert may reasonably rely on inadmissible lay-person hearsay in forming a psychiatric opinion. In Board of Education v. Haas (1978) 82 Cal. App. 3d 278 [147 Cal. Rptr. 88] a schoolteacher was suspended after a finding by a panel of three psychiatrists that she was sufficiently impaired by mental illness to render her incompetent to teach. The schoolteacher attacked the finding against her on the basis that a personnel file containing inadmissible hearsay was used, in part, by the psychiatrists in forming their opinions. The file contained information gathered from students, school administrators and fellow teachers. She contended that the information in the file was generally unreliable because it was compiled by lay-persons and was not evaluated for accuracy.
Holding that the trial court had properly admitted the testimony, the Court of Appeal stated: "In the case at bench the trial court properly exercised its discretion in admitting the expert opinion testimony. Granting that the information in the files did not meet strict standards of reliability, it nevertheless helped the psychiatrists to determine how they would conduct the interview, and what areas they would explore. They testified that the letters and other memoranda in the file indicated that Ms. Haas had serious problems at work which included delusions about how others were treating her. Furthermore, each psychiatrist stated clearly that no opinion had been formed until after the interview had confirmed his suspicions. It is apparent that the interview just as easily could have dispelled those suspicions. The trial court properly determined that the information in the personnel file was of a type upon which experts were entitled to place reasonable reliance. [38 Cal. 3d 91] This is especially true in light of the manner in which the personnel file as used by the experts, and in view of the difficult area of psychiatric expertise. Experts in fields such as psychiatry should not be left to form their opinions in a vacuum." (82 Cal.App.3d at pp. 282-283.)
Board of Trustees v. Porini (1968) 263 Cal. App. 2d 784 [70 Cal. Rptr. 73], came to a different conclusion about the use of hearsay. In Porini, a school board suspended a teacher on the basis that she was incompetent due to mental disability. A psychiatrist testified at the trial of the matter that mental disorders prevented the teacher from completing her job. He based his opinion on a personal interview with the teacher along with a tape recording, some letters, and a voluminous dossier of "other material." Although he never characterized the "other material," the psychiatrist testified that the various materials helped him assess the background of the teacher in order to ask her questions.
Neither Haas, supra, 82 Cal. App. 3d 278, nor Porini, supra, 263 Cal. App. 2d 784, contains any indication that the hearsay relied upon by the psychiatric expert was itself presented to the trier of fact to explain the expert's opinion. In both cases, in fact, the hearsay was used to assist the experts in preparation for personal interviews with the teacher whose mental condition was at issue. The cases are not therefore dispositive of defendant's claims of error.
[6a] California law gives the trial court discretion to weigh the probative value of inadmissible evidence relied upon by an expert witness as a partial basis for his opinion against the risk that the jury might improperly consider it as independent proof of the facts recited therein. (People v. Chapman (1968) 261 Cal. App. 2d 149, 178-179 [67 Cal. Rptr. 601].) In Chapman the appellate court upheld the exclusion of a hearsay statement by the defendant which was offered because it had been relied upon by a defense psychiatric expert. The court ruled that "the doctor's use of Mrs. Chapman's St. Joseph statement did not open the door to its being read to the jury. Such a statement has limited admissibility." (Id., at p. 178.) [38 Cal. 3d 92]
In Grimshaw v. Ford Motor Company (1981) 119 Cal. App. 3d 757 [174 Cal. Rptr. 348], the Court of Appeal explained the current state of the law. [7a] "While an expert may state on direct examination the matters on which he relied in forming his opinion, he may not testify as to the details of such matters if they are otherwise inadmissible. (People v. La Macchia (1953) 41 Cal. 2d 738, 744-745 [264 P.2d 15], overruled on other grounds in County of Los Angeles v. Faus (1957) 48 Cal. 2d 672, 680 [312 P.2d 680]; Baily v. Kreutzmann (1904) 141 Cal. 519, 521-522 [75 P. 104]; Intoximeters, Inc. v. Younger (1975) 53 Cal. App. 3d 262, 273 [125 Cal. Rptr. 864]; Furtado v. Montecello [sic] Unified Sch. Dist. (1962) 206 Cal. App. 2d 72, 79-80 [23 Cal. Rptr. 476]; People v. Nahabedian (1959) 171 Cal. App. 2d 302, 310-311 [340 P.2d 1053].) The rule rests on the rationale that while an expert may give reasons on direct examination for his opinions, including the matters he considered in forming them, he may not under the guise of reasons bring before the jury incompetent hearsay evidence. (People v. LaMacchia, supra, 41 Cal. 2d 738.) Ordinarily, the use of a limiting instruction that matters on which an expert based his opinion are admitted only to show the basis of the opinion and not for the truth of the matter cures any hearsay problem involved, but in aggravated situations, where hearsay evidence is recited in detail, a limiting instruction may not remedy the problem. (Evid. Code, §§ 352, 355; see Conservatorship of Buchanan (1978) 78 Cal. App. 3d 281, 289 [144 Cal. Rptr. 241]; Kelley v. Bailey (1961) 189 Cal. App. 2d 728, 738 [11 Cal. Rptr. 448]; see also Adkins v. Brett (1920) 184 Cal. 252, 258 [193 P. 251].)" (119 Cal.App.3d at pp. 788-789.)
[8a] The courts have traditionally given both parties wide latitude in the cross-examination of experts in order to test their credibility. (People v. Tallman (1945) 27 Cal. 2d 209, 214 [163 P.2d 857]; see, e.g., People v. Whitmore (1967) 251 Cal. App. 2d 359, 366 [59 Cal. Rptr. 411].) Thus, a broader range of evidence may be properly used on cross-examination to test and diminish the weight to be given the expert opinion than is admissible on direct examination to fortify the opinion. (See People v. Odom (1980) 108 Cal. App. 3d 100, 115 [166 Cal. Rptr. 283].)
Nevertheless, the trial court must exercise its discretion pursuant to Evidence Code section 352 in order to limit the evidence to its proper uses. The exercise of this discretion may require exclusion of portions of inadmissible hearsay which were not related to the expert opinion. (See People v. Brown (1958) 49 Cal. 2d 577, 587 [320 P.2d 5] [testimony that declarant told phsyician that she "'went to a residence south of the City'" should have been stricken since it was not a declaration upon which the doctor based his opinion that declarant had undergone an induced abortion].) Or it may be necessary to sever portions of the testimony in order to protect the [38 Cal. 3d 93] rights of the defendant without totally destroying the value of the expert witness' testimony. (See, People v. Washington (1969) 71 Cal. 2d 1061, 1082 [80 Cal. Rptr. 567, 458 P.2d 479] [cautionary dictum].) In still other cases where the risk of improper use of the hearsay outweighs its probative value as a basis for the expert opinion it may be necessary to exclude the evidence altogether. (See, People v. Modesto (1963) 59 Cal. 2d 722, 732-733 [31 Cal. Rptr. 225, 382 P.2d 33] [exclusion of tape recording of defense psychiatrist's hypnotic interview with defendant would have been a proper exercise of discretion]; People v. Reyes (1974) 12 Cal. 3d 486, 503-504 [116 Cal. Rptr. 217, 526 P.2d 225] [trial court properly ruled that 20-year-old medical report pertaining to the psychiatric diagnosis of the victim was an extraneous issue which should not be the subject of questioning where it played only an insignificant role in medical experts' conclusion that defendant suffered from diminished capacity].)
[2b] In this case we conclude that the trial court abused its discretion by permitting extensive questioning of the expert witnesses on the contents of the letters in which defendant's wife claimed, inter alia, that he had previously threatened her with violence. Accusatory statements "from the grave" such as these have so great a potential to unfairly prejudice the defendant that the courts have long recognized that a limiting instruction will be insufficient to prevent improper use. (Shepard v. United States, supra, 290 U.S. 96; People v. Hamilton, supra, 55 Cal. 2d 881; People v. Ireland, supra, 70 Cal. 2d 522; People v. Talle, supra, 111 Cal. App. 2d 650.) Here the letters were only a small portion of the material on which the psychiatrists based their opinions and were not cited by them as items of major significance in their evaluation of the defendant's mental capacity. (See People v. Reyes, supra, 12 Cal. 3d 486.) Finally, those portions of the letters which the prosecutor legitimately offered to challenge the psychiatric opinions could have been selected and presented in a fashion which would have lessened their emotional impact and would have avoided the improper inference that the victim's accusations were true.
The trial court denied the prosecutor's motion, made at the close of evidence, to have two of the victim's letters admitted into evidence for all purposes. In his closing argument the prosecutor read excerpts from all three letters describing prior threats and the victim's fears of defendant and used these excerpts to attack the credibility of the defense psychiatrists. "I want to cite to you excerpts from [the letters] which make it quite clear ... and which would have made it quite clear to Doctors Markman and Axelrad had they had an open mind, that the defendant thought about killing his wife and children before he did ... and that the killings were not out of character [38 Cal. 3d 94] or foreign to his character." After reading from the letters he continued: "How could Dr. Markman, knowing of these letters, say to you that he didn't know of any evidence that on previous occasions Ralph had thought of killing his wife and the children? ... How can he say that knowing of these letters? How could Dr. Markman and Dr. Axelrad say the killings were motiveless ... when they had this evidence? They had this evidence which makes it quite clear, as does other evidence, that these were not motiveless killings. ... Is it not quite clear insofar as the psychiatric testimony is concerned that Dr. French's analysis is correct? The killings were in a direct line with what had gone before. They were in context. The defendant had thought about killing before. This was no sudden rash impulse. ..."
[3b] In conclusion we hold that the trial court prejudicially abused its discretion by permitting the hearsay declarations of defendant's wife accusing him of prior threats of violence against her and expressing her fears of future violence to be read into the record, by ruling that copies of the wife's letters would be available to the jury, and by permitting the prosecutor to refer to the letters repeatedly and to argue extensively that the letters should be considered for purposes for which the court had ruled they were inadmissible. (People v. Hamilton, supra, 55 Cal. 2d 881; People v. Ireland, supra, 70 Cal. 2d 522.) The limiting instructions given by the trial court were not adequate to insure that the letters would be used only for proper purposes both because of the inflammatory nature of the hearsay involved [38 Cal. 3d 95] and because the letters could effectively undermine the experts' opinions only if their allegations were true. The accusations of prior threats played such a central role in the prosecutor's theory of the case, it was unrealistic to expect the trier of fact not to consider the letters for the truth of their assertions. This potential improper use of the letters went to the heart of the defenses offered, and the error must therefore be considered prejudicial. (People v. Ireland, supra, 70 Cal. 2d 522.)
Nearly six years ago, two members of this court expressed the view that an accused's state and federal constitutional rights to a jury drawn from a fair cross-section of the community are not abridged by the exclusion of resident aliens from the jury venire. fn. 1 (Rubio v. Superior Court (1979) 24 Cal. 3d 93, 99-105 [154 Cal. Rptr. 734, 593 P.2d 595] (lead opn. of Mosk, J.).) Justices Richardson and Clark concurred in the result in Rubio, but expressed no views on the merits of the cross-sectional issue. (Id., at p. 105.) Three justices dissented on that issue. (Id., at pp. 105-120.)
It is well established that "in the decision of a case before the court in Bank the concurrence of at least four justices is necessary, and ... any proposition or principle stated in an opinion is not to be taken as the opinion of the court, unless it is agreed to by at least four of the justices." (Del Mar Water, etc. Co. v. Eshleman (1914) 167 Cal. 666, 682 [140 P. 591].) Thus, any language or opinion not concurred in by at least four justices of this court has "no controlling weight" and is of no precedential effect. (People v. Ceballos (1974) 12 Cal. 3d 470, 483 [116 Cal. Rptr. 233, 526 P.2d 241]; see also Scott v. Times-Mirror Co. (1919) 181 Cal. 345, 359-360 [184 P. 672, 12 A.L.R. 1007]; Smith v. Evans (1974) 42 Cal. App. 3d 154, 157 [116 Cal. Rptr. 684].)
Neither in Rubio nor in any other case has a majority of this court ever held that the exclusion of resident aliens from California juries satisfies the dictates of the state and federal Constitutions. The constitutionality of Code of Civil Procedure sections 198 and 199 is, therefore, before this court without any guidance from controlling precedent. No violation of the principles [38 Cal. 3d 96] of stare decisis would occur were this court to entertain appellant's claim and decide that those statutes contravene the state Constitution. fn. 2
The principle of "vicarious" representation must not be viewed as a substitute for the cross-section requirement. That constitutional guarantee ensures that the venire reasonably reflect the relative proportions of all distinctive groups in the community. Resident aliens at least "rival naturalized citizens in numbers." (Rubio, supra, 24 Cal.3d at p. 100, fn. 8 (lead opn.), 109, fn. 12 (dis. opn. of Tobriner, J.).) Since resident aliens represent a significant proportion of the community, their exclusion on the "vicarious" [38 Cal. 3d 97] representation theory constitutes a clear violation of the cross-section requirement. fn. 3
Moreover, even assuming arguendo that jury service does "substantially affect the members of the political community" (id., at p. 104 (lead opn. of Mosk, J.)), I think it appropriate to note that the state Constitution does not reflect that concern. The state charter contains no citizenship requirement [38 Cal. 3d 98] for jury service, but only for voting (art. II, § 2) and for election to the Legislature (art. IV, § 2, subd. (c)) or the Governorship (art. V, § 2).
However, the state Constitution does guarantee the right to an impartial trial by jury. (Art. I, § 16.) This court has recognized that this right ensures that the venire will represent "a diversity of experience, knowledge, judgment, and viewpoints." (Hovey v. Superior Court (1980) 28 Cal. 3d 1, 22 [168 Cal. Rptr. 128, 616 P.2d 1301].) Such diversity is necessary in our culturally pluralistic society in order to "recognize a fuller range of possible meanings or explanations for particular behavior ... [¶] ... [and to] insure that the common sense of the community is accurately expressed in applying [the reasonable doubt] standard to the facts." (Id., at p. 24.) If the right to an impartial jury requires the widest diversity of possible views within the limits of the state Constitution, infringements on that right, founded upon no other specific state constitutional provision, are prohibited.
For a discussion of the authority of this court to reduce a judgment and sentence, see my separate opinion in People v. Holt (1984) 37 Cal. 3d 436, 462 [208 Cal. Rptr. 547, 690 P.2d 1207].
The Chief Justice's proposed additional ground for reversal requires little comment. Rubio v. Superior Court (1979) 24 Cal. 3d 93 [154 Cal. Rptr. 734, [38 Cal. 3d 99] 593 P.2d 595], remains the prevailing law in California and it properly should be. The exclusion of ex-felons and aliens from participation in governmental functions has been consistently upheld by the United States Supreme Court. As Chief Justice Burger wrote for the court in Foley v. Connelie (1978) 435 U.S. 291, 295 [55 L. Ed. 2d 287, 292, 98 S. Ct. 1067], to obliterate all the distinctions between citizens and aliens would "'depreciate the historic values of citizenship.'" He explained (at p. 296 [ 55 L.Ed.2d at p. 292]), "This is not intended to denigrate the valuable contribution of aliens who benefit from our traditional hospitality. It is no more than recognition of the fact that a democratic society is ruled by its people. Thus, it is clear that a State may deny aliens the right to vote, or to run for elective office, for these lie at the heart of our political institutions. See 413 U.S., at 647-649. Similar considerations support a legislative determination to exclude aliens from jury service. See Perkins v. Smith, 370 F. Supp. 134 (Md. 1974), aff'd, 426 U.S. 913 (1976). ... This is not because our society seeks to reserve the better jobs to its members. Rather, it is because this country entrusts many of its most important policy responsibilities to these officers, the discretionary exercise of which can often more immediately affect the lives of citizens than even the ballot of a voter or the choice of a legislator. In sum, then, it represents the choice, and right, of the people to be governed by their citizen peers." A jury, of course, performs a vital governmental function.
FN 2. We note that defendant and various amici curiae, including the State Public Defender, American GI Forum, League of United Latin American Citizens and the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., have filed extensive briefing urging that that exclusion of noncitizens from the jury venire violates a defendant's constitutional right to a jury drawn from a fair cross-section of the community. (U.S. Const., 6th Amend.; Cal. Const., art. I, § 16.) We need not reach this issue in this case.
FN 3. In 1981, after the offenses in question, section 189 was amended to provide that "defendant need not maturely and meaningfully reflect" on his act to be guilty of first degree murder.
FN 4. Defendant moved to exclude the letters from use in any manner because of their hearsay nature and because their probative value on material issues would be far outweighed by their unfairly prejudicial effect. (Evid. Code, § 352.) He further argued that the letters show only the mental state of defendant's wife and hence were not a proper basis for expert opinion as to defendant's mental state. (See Evid. Code, §§ 801-803.)
FN 5. Compare, Douglas v. Alabama (1965) 380 U.S. 415 [13 L. Ed. 2d 934, 85 S. Ct. 1074] in which the Supreme Court reversed a conviction because an improper reading of a codefendant's extrajudicial confession implicating defendant effectively deprived defendant of his right to cross-examine and confront the evidence against him. The court acknowledged that the reading of the alleged statement coupled with the codefendant's refusal to answer questions about it were not technically testimony. Nevertheless, the court found the jury might have inferred both that the statement had been made and that it was true.
FN 6. It is not clear that such questions existed. The prosecutor never was able to fully understand the basis for the court's ruling. Several times he asked for clarification and an example of a question the court deemed proper. (The court declined to frame the questions for the district attorney.) Perhaps the court believed that defendant's testimony that he had never carefully read or thought about the "To Whom" letter was incredible in view of the extensive testimony regarding suspicions of plots against defendant and of his wife's infidelities. The letter contained defendant's wife's explanation of her conduct during the marriage and her affirmation that she, herself had not plotted against him.
FN 7. Although the defense brought portions of the letters before the jury in its own examination of Dr. Axelrad, this should not be construed as a waiver of the consistent objections to use of the letters or as a mitigation of the error in permitting extensive quotation and reading of the letters. At this point in the trial the prosecutor had successfully brought the allegations of prior threats and fears of future danger to the attention of the jury through cross-examination of defendant and Dr. Weissman. Dr. Weissman had, at the prosecutor's request and over repeated defense objections, read the full contents of the "To Whom" and "Dear Mother" letters into the record. Defense counsel under these circumstances made a reasonable tactical decision to minimize the damage done by the prosecutor by himself questioning his expert on the effect of the letters. We note that the defense did not read excerpts from the letters and limited its questions to the effect the wife's allegations had on the doctor's diagnosis.
FN 1. Code of Civil Procedure sections 198 and 199 provide, inter alia, that a noncitizen is not competent to act as a juror.
FN 2. As Justice Tobriner noted in his dissent in Rubio, "a number of federal cases have indicated that the exclusion of aliens from jury service does not violate the federal Constitution. (See Foley v. Connelie (1978) 435 U.S. 291 [55 L. Ed. 2d 287, 98 S. Ct. 1067]; Perkins v. Smith (D.Md. 1974) 370 F. Supp. 134, affd., 426 U.S. 913 [49 L. Ed. 2d 368, 96 S.Ct. 2616])," but that "those decisions are, of course, not controlling as to a defendant's right to an impartial jury under article I, section 16 of our state Constitution." (Rubio v. Superior Court, supra, 24 Cal.3d at p. 117, fn. 22 (dis. opn. of Tobriner, J.).)
FN 3. The assumption that differences between naturalized citizens and noncitizens are differences in degree but not in kind finds no basis in fact. In actuality, noncitizens differ significantly from naturalized citizens in racial, ethnic, and cultural characteristics. There has been a shift in the racial and ethnic composition of the immigrant groups due to the changing patterns of immigration and naturalization. Thus, the characteristics of immigrants who presently enjoy the status of naturalized citizens are quite different from those of immigrants who have not yet become citizens.