Case Name: THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. DONALD THOMAS WRIGHT, Defendant and Appellant
Court: Supreme Court of California
Jurisdiction: California
Decision Date: 2005-05-26
Citations: 35 Cal. 4th 964
Docket Number: No. S119067
Parties: THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. DONALD THOMAS WRIGHT, Defendant and Appellant.
Judges: 
Reporter: California Reports
Volume: 35
Pages: 964–986

Head Matter:
[No. S119067.
May 26, 2005.]
THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. DONALD THOMAS WRIGHT, Defendant and Appellant.
Counsel
Madeline McDowell, under appointment by the Supreme Court, for Defendant and Appellant.
Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, Manuel M. Medeiros, State Solicitor General, Robert R. Anderson, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Mary Jo Graves, Assistant Attorney General, Carlos A. Martinez, Janet E. Neeley, Brian R. Means, Janis Shank McLean, John G. McLean and Aaron R. Maguire, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
David La Bahn; Steve Cooley, District Attorney (Los Angeles), Patrick D. Moran, Acting Head Deputy District Attorney, and Brent Riggs, Deputy District Attorney, for Appellate Committee of the California District Attorneys Association as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Plaintiff and Respondent.

Opinion:
Opinion
BROWN, J.
In re Christian S. (1994) 7 Cal.4th 768 [30 Cal.Rptr.2d 33, 872 P.2d 574] (Christian S.), we reaffirmed that an actual, though unreasonable, belief in the need to defend oneself from an imminent threat of death or great bodily injury negates the malice element of murder, reducing the offense to manslaughter. (See also People v. Flannel (1979) 25 Cal.3d 668, 674 [160 Cal.Rptr. 84, 603 P.2d 1].) We granted review in this case to consider whether to extend this "doctrine of imperfect self-defense" (Christian S., at p. 771) to a case in which the defendant's actual, though unreasonable, belief in the need to defend himself was based on delusions and/or hallucinations resulting from mental illness or voluntary intoxication, without any objective circumstances suggestive of a threat. After studying the record, we conclude that we do not need to reach that issue here, because defendant was able to claim imperfect self-defense, the jury heard evidence supporting that defense, and the trial court's exclusion of additional evidence supporting that defense was not prejudicial to defendant. Accordingly, because defendant was not prejudiced by the exclusion of this additional evidence, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeal.
I. Factual and Procedural Background
A. The Prosecution Case
Eddie and Laura Sanchez and their children moved next door to defendant in April 1996. In the early morning hours of November 15, 1999, defendant visited the Sanchez home, shot and killed Eddie, and then wounded Clarence Redoble, a friend of defendant's who had accompanied him. Eddie had been urging defendant out the door, when defendant pulled out a Kimber .45 pistol, loaded with Black Talon hollow-point bullets, and fired, while members of the Sanchez family sat in the living room watching a movie. According to witness accounts, no argument or threatening conduct preceded the shooting.
The previous day, the Sanchez family had hosted a barbecue. They dug a fire pit in the backyard. Two of Eddie's brothers, John and Anthony, their families, and Laura's younger sister, Tracey, were at the house. This was not unusual. The families were close-knit. Family members visited often and frequently stayed overnight. About a month before the shooting, Anthony was sleeping on the couch at Eddie's house, when he was awakened by defendant knocking on the door. Defendant told Anthony someone was trying to burglarize Eddie's car, and then he said, "Don't worry, I got something for them," showing Anthony a gun he had tucked in his waistband. Anthony's impression was that defendant "was a little off' and "kind of odd."
Clarence Redoble, defendant's friend, lived five minutes away from defendant, and, as he often did, he saw defendant several times on November 14, the day before the shooting. That morning, at defendant's insistence, he brought his pit bulls over to defendant's house and released them in the crawl space under the house as a security precaution. Defendant thought people were trying to gain access to his house by tunneling their way into the crawl space. Redoble went back later to feed the dogs and turned them loose in the backyard.
By nightfall on November 14, the weather had turned cold and rainy. The Sanchez family rented three videos and went inside for a dinner of hot soup and a movie marathon. Some family members watched the movies; others fell asleep. Most of the children were put to bed.
Sometime after 11:00 p.m., defendant called the Sanchez house; Laura's sister Tracey answered the phone. Defendant said he needed to talk to a friend and wanted Tracey to come over. She refused. Defendant asked to speak to Eddie, but Tracey told him Eddie was asleep and then hung up the phone.
Around midnight, Clarence Redoble returned to defendant's house and found him standing outside in the rain. Defendant said he had locked himself out of the house. It was cold, and Redoble had tucked his hands into his jacket pockets, but defendant asked Redoble to take his hands out of his pockets, which made Redoble think defendant was "tripping." Redoble checked the doors and windows to see if there was any way to get into the locked house. Finally, he suggested breaking a small window in the side door, which he could easily repair the next day. Defendant rejected that idea. He wanted to go to Eddie's house to call a locksmith. Redoble thought it was too late to disturb the neighbors, so he offered to go to his own house to call a locksmith. Defendant was adamant. As an alternative, Redoble offered to go next door alone and ask the Sanchezes to call a locksmith so that defendant, who used crutches, would not have to negotiate the path on his crutches in the rain. Defendant stubbornly followed Redoble to Sanchez's door.
Eddie answered Clarence Redoble's knock and invited him and defendant inside. Defendant refused to sit down and remained standing just inside the door, resting on his crutches, while Eddie looked up locksmiths in the telephone book and made a couple of calls.
Defendant's behavior was unusual. According to witnesses, he was mumbling to himself, pointing to different people, saying, "Oh, there's one . by the window. Oh, [that]'s her." Clarence Redoble wanted to leave, but defendant resisted. He asked to go to the backyard to see Eddie's dogs. Eddie refused, explaining it was cold and raining outside and defendant was on crutches. Defendant then started to get aggressive, demanding to see the backyard. Eddie sought to soothe defendant's agitation, telling him, "No one's gonna hurt you here."
At some point during this exchange, Eddie went into the kitchen and put a barbecue fork in his back pocket. Eddie's brother John saw him do so and expressed concern. Eddie said: "Everything's okay. Don't worry about it." Defendant was wearing a jacket, and he kept putting his hand in the jacket pocket, which had a noticeable bulge.
The front door had been opened and cold air was seeping into the house. Eddie asked defendant to leave, telling him the baby would get sick because of the cold air coming in through the open door. Defendant refused, saying, "No, I don't wanna go." He seemed to get upset, and he asked Eddie, "Are you packing?" Eddie answered, "No, what do I need a gun for?" and then asked, "Why? Does he have a gun?" Eddie was standing next to defendant. He patted or frisked defendant's jacket and then stepped back a little. Eddie had nothing in his hands. He never touched the fork in his back pocket. Defendant pulled the pistol from his jacket and fired several shots at Eddie. Clarence Redoble was holding defendant's arm, and when he tried to pull defendant away, defendant turned the gun toward Redoble and fired a shot that grazed Redoble's hip.
Eddie was flung backward by the blast. His body was sprawled on the dining room floor. One of the Black Talon hollow-point bullets, with which defendant had loaded the gun, had lacerated two major blood vessels in Eddie's lower abdomen. After the shooting, Eddie's brother Anthony was the first person to reach defendant, who was standing right outside the door, the gun still in his hand. Defendant turned the gun toward Anthony, but Anthony launched himself at. defendant, grabbed his gun hand, and bashed him in the face. Defendant dropped his crutch, and Anthony picked it up and beat defendant until the crutch broke. Anthony thought defendant was trying to get the gun, which had fallen to the ground during the struggle, but John got to it first. John picked the gun up, placed the barrel against defendant's head, but he did not pull the trigger. He took the gun inside the house and placed it on the dining room table.
A patrol officer heard the gunshots and arrived at the scene within two minutes. He found defendant sitting in the middle of the lawn, bloodied but conscious. The paramedics arrived and transported Eddie to the hospital, where he died.
Officers who searched defendant's house after the shooting found more guns and ammunition. They also found a note, written on an old parking ticket, that said, "It might not be Ed, but Jay."
B. The Defense Case
As a result of the struggle that followed the shooting, defendant suffered a possible concussion, a fractured right wrist, an abraded and crushed little finger, and metacarpal fractures of his left hand. His toxicological screen was positive for amphetamines, benzodiazepines, and opiates. Defendant also had a number of serious preexisting medical problems. He suffered from osteoarthritis and high blood pressure. A broken leg had healed improperly and had required corrective surgery in September 1999. Defendant had to use crutches until his leg healed and had prescriptions for his various ailments, including pain killers. He supplemented his Social Security disability income by selling drugs.
The jury learned more background information about defendant through the testimony of Dr. Charles Schaffer, a psychiatrist who testified concerning defendant's mental condition. In 1998, defendant was the victim of an aggressive home invasion robbery. Evidence suggested that a family member—perhaps defendant's niece, Corina Fajardo—and other people with whom defendant was acquainted were involved in the robbery. The intruders tied defendant up, gagged him, and beat him, taking money, drugs, and jewelry.
After the robbery, defendant's friends, neighbors, and relatives noticed that his behavior became increasingly bizarre. He seemed more paranoid, nervous, and vulnerable. Cindy Fajardo, defendant's half sister, lived with him for a time, but moved out when defendant accused her of being part of a conspiracy against him. Defendant's leg injury also seemed to increase his paranoia. Defendant went through a complete personality change; he was "tripping . . . thinking the wrong thoughts." Defendant said his cat was acting strangely because it could hear people tunneling under the house. Defendant also believed people were trying to break into his house through the attic and were planting microphones. Defendant inquired from a salesperson named Pete Cabanyon about installing a home security system. One neighbor, Joaquin Miranda, saw defendant wearing a headset that defendant claimed could detect people in the backyard and the attic. The day before the shooting, Miranda heard defendant calling for help. Defendant said that he had been shot, but when Miranda examined him, he found no injuries.
Defendant made repeated 911 calls. He told officers that "someone was trying to put a satellite dish on top of his house so they could beam rays down from space and take over his body." The day before the shooting, he claimed he heard gunshots in the attic, but responding officers found nothing.
Defendant's paranoia often focused on Eddie Sanchez and sometimes on one of Eddie's coworkers, Jay Moffit. He accused Jay and Eddie of stealing from him. He thought there was a "Hispanic conspiracy against him" and that Eddie was "running it." He told people the harassment from Eddie was getting out of hand.
Prior to the shooting, defendant reported he had been "snorting a couple of lines" of methamphetamine every day for at least six months.
Dr. Charles Schaffer personally interviewed defendant, and reviewed statements of friends, relatives, and neighbors, as well as records from the county jail and reports of other mental health professionals, and concluded that at the time of the shooting defendant was suffering from an "amphetamine induced psychotic disorder, with delusions." Dr. Schaffer noted that psychotic symptoms "can include delusions [or] thoughts that are out of touch with reality . . perceiving things that don't exist. . . seeing things that are not based on any real object . . . ." Defendant denied experiencing any psychotic symptoms at the time of the interview with Dr. Schaffer. He claimed he could remember only bits and pieces of the confrontation with Eddie. He recalled clearly why he went to the Sanchez house. He needed a locksmith, and his auto club card was locked inside the house. He remembered asking Eddie about a weapon and recalled nothing else until he woke up in the University of California hospital.
Although Dr. Schaffer discounted defendant's claim of amnesia, he believed that his diagnosis of psychotic disorder with delusions was sound, based in part on the stories related to him by defendant's relatives and neighbors. He rejected—as highly improbable—the possibility that defendant was malingering. He also opined, in support of defendant's claim of imperfect self-defense, that a person suffering from defendant's symptoms would have a heightened sensitivity to threat, especially when crowded by other people.
Defense counsel sought to have all of the witnesses on whose statements Dr. Schaffer relied, including Joaquin Miranda, Pete Cabanyon, and Cindy Fajardo, testify during the trial. The court sustained the prosecution's objection that this evidence would be cumulative, but left open the possibility the defense could present these witnesses if Dr. Schaffer failed to recall what they said.
The jury found defendant guilty of the second degree murder of Eddie Sanchez (Pen. Code, § 187, subd. (a)) and the assault of Clarence Redoble (§ 245, subd. (a)(2)). As to the murder charge, the jury found true an allegation that defendant personally used a firearm in violation of section 12022.53, subdivision (d). As to the assault charge, the jury found true an allegation that defendant used a firearm within the meaning of section 1203.06, subdivisions (a)(1), and section 12022.5, former subdivision (a)(1) (now subd. (a)). In a separate sanity phase of the trial, the jury found defendant was legally sane during the commission of the crimes.
On appeal, defendant argued, among other things, that the trial court erred when it excluded testimony from the witnesses on whose statements Dr. Schaffer had relied in reaching his conclusions. The Court of Appeal found trial court error and reversed the judgment. The court reasoned that this testimony was crucial to substantiating defendant's assertion of imperfect self-defense, and its exclusion prejudicially violated defendant's state and federal due process rights. We granted review.
II. Discussion
The People assert that a claim of imperfect self-defense must be based on objective circumstances indicating a threat, not on mere delusions or hallucinations arising from voluntary intoxication. The People argue that the evidence in this case does not support imperfect self-defense because the only arguably threatening objective circumstances that preceded defendant's violent outburst were the barbeque fork in Eddie Sanchez's back pocket and the fact that Eddie patted or frisked defendant's jacket. According to the People, these circumstances were not sufficient to support the claim of imperfect self-defense. We need not reach that issue, however. Assuming without deciding that imperfect self-defense applies here, we see no prejudice to defendant in the trial court's ruling that excluded the testimony of his witnesses.
The jury was instructed on the doctrine of imperfect self-defense, and defense counsel was permitted to argue this theory. Moreover, evidentiary support for defendant's imperfect self-defense claim was provided by the testimony of prosecution witnesses Clarence Redoble and Anthony Sanchez, as well as defense expert Dr. Schaffer. Redoble, for example, described in detail defendant's paranoid behavior prior to the shooting, including his belief that he was the target of a possible attack and that people were trying to enter his house. The Court of Appeal reversed solely because the trial court excluded as cumulative the testimony of other witnesses who would have recounted additional incidents reflecting defendant's precarious mental state in the days, weeks, and months preceding the shooting. According to the defense offer of proof, these witnesses would have testified to the circumstances of the home-invasion robbery, how defendant's behavior deteriorated after the robbery, what defendant told police officers who responded to his 911 calls, and how defendant was acting on the day before the shooting.
The substance of this excluded testimony was, however, admitted through Dr. Schaffer, the defense expert who relied on statements from these various witnesses in forming his opinion about defendant's mental state and who described these statements to the jury. The trial court admitted his descriptions without a limiting instruction, and defense counsel elicited details from Dr. Schaffer without a single objection from the prosecution. In addition, the trial court, as already noted, permitted the defense to renew its request to present these witnesses if Dr. Schaffer's testimony was inadequate, and defense counsel chose not to do so, suggesting satisfaction with Dr. Schaffer's testimony.
Thus, the jury heard Dr. Schaffer recount the statement of defendant's uncle that after the home-invasion robbery defendant "became very vulnerable" and was concerned that someone was trying to burglarize his house, that defendant also believed someone was surveilling the house and monitoring his conversations with hidden microphones, and that, on the day before the shooting, defendant was "really strange," "agitated and disturbed," "shaking," and "looking bad," and made his uncle afraid. Dr. Schaffer also recounted the statement of the uncle's grandson that, on the day before the shooting, defendant was "acting weird" and "talking about strange things," such as people entering his home and planting microphones, hearing voices in the attic, seeing people crawling underneath the house, and cars chasing him. Dr. Schaffer further recounted the statement of defendant's half sister who lived with defendant for several months. She reported that defendant became "very afraid right after his home invasion robbery," that he repeatedly woke her up in the middle of the night because he believed someone was in the house, that he believed someone had "bugged" the house and was out to "get" him, that he had accused her of being part of a conspiracy against him, and that she believed his leg injury had exacerbated his paranoia. In addition, Dr. Schaffer recounted the statement of the home security system salesperson who visited defendant in September or October 1999 and reported that defendant was terrified and shaking and believed people had "bugged" his house, were trying to enter the house, and were "out to get him." Dr. Schaffer also recounted the statement of the neighbor who reported that defendant became increasingly paranoid about six months before the shooting, claimed people were stealing from him and trying to kill him, asserted that his headset could detect intruders, and falsely declared on the day before the shooting that he had been shot in the back. Finally, Dr. Schaffer described the 911 call on the day before the shooting, in which defendant claimed that there were intruders in the house, that he had heard gunshots in the attic and the crawl space under the house, and that someone was trying to install a satellite dish on his roof. Dr. Schaffer described the conclusion of the police officer who responded to the call and found no basis for defendant's concerns. In short, through Dr. Schaffer's testimony, the jury heard the substance of what all these witnesses had to say. We certainly do not condone the use of hearsay to present a case to the jury, but the primary consequence of the trial court's ruling excluding the testimony of these several witnesses was that the jury did not see the witnesses testify live.
The Court of Appeal found the trial court's ruling prejudicial error. In the court's words, "this is the rare case in which the trial court abused its discretion," because defendant's mental state "was the lynchpin of his defense" and the excluded testimony "was crucial to the defense's position that defendant's delusional mental state was not falsely fabricated after he committed the crime." Under these circumstances, the Court of Appeal reasoned, defendant was deprived of his state and federal constitutional rights to due process of law.
The Court of Appeal's analysis cannot withstand scrutiny. Not only did the jury learn the substance of the excluded testimony, but the People never challenged the accuracy of the witnesses' statements or Dr. Schaffer's description of those statements, and therefore the credibility of these witnesses was simply not a central issue. In fact, after the defense made its offer of proof regarding these witnesses, the district attorney explained to the court: "I am not contesting that the statements he read are true. I mean, if the witnesses come in, I wouldn't intend on suggesting in any way that they are making this stuff up." Moreover, in closing argument to die jury, the district attorney referred to Dr. Schaffer's testimony and said: "[I]f the psychotic disorder is true that the psychiatrist was telling you about, that he actually has some real delusions, and it sounds like that's true. [j[] He's having some real delusions the week before and up to this very day. These real delusions probably have an impact on him, right? That's no problem with that. Everybody can buy that. I think we can all be on the same page that this is going on . . ." (Italics added.) The district attorney's strategy, in other words, was to concede the existence of defendant's mental problems but argue there was no evidence that defendant actually believed an imminent peril necessitated the use of deadly force at the moment the shooting occurred. (See Christian S., supra, 7 Cal.4th at p. 783.) As the district attorney put it: "These are issues that show that he has moments certainly of lucidity and clarity. [][] And when he's over there at the house we don't know what happened for sure. We don't know what's in his head. [][]••• HO Where's the evidence? Where's the evidence in his head that at that moment he said, oh, my gosh, I know I have an [actual] unreasonable belief in the need to defend myself against this imminent peril right now. I've got to do it, boom. [|] You know what, there's no evidence of that." Thus, defendant's actual belief at the time of the shooting was the critical issue in the case, not the general existence of his abnormal mental condition, and testimony of live witnesses who would have described defendant's general state of mind at various times prior to the shooting would not have affected the jury's assessment of that critical issue in any way, because (1) the jury learned the substance of this testimony through Dr. Schaffer, and (2) the prosecution conceded the truth of the statements recounted by Dr. Schaffer, as well as Dr. Schaffer's diagnosis of psychotic delusions.
The Court of Appeal, relying in part on Crane v. Kentucky (1986) 476 U.S. 683 [90 L.Ed.2d 636, 106 S.Ct. 2142], concluded that exclusion of this testimony was so serious an error that it violated defendant's right to a fair trial under the federal Constitution, and defendant, also relying on Crane, argues that the trial court's ruling prevented the jury from assessing the credibility of his defense. In Crane, the credibility of the defendant's confession was the central issue in the case, and the high court held that the trial court in that case erred in excluding evidence related to the circumstances of the confession, because that evidence bore on the question of credibility. (Id. at pp. 690-691.) Here, on the other hand, the People did not contest the accuracy of Dr. Schaffer's hearsay account of defendant's delusional behavior, and in fact the People conceded that defendant was having the delusions that the excluded witnesses would have described. Therefore, contrary to defendant's assertion, the exclusion of their testimony did not impact the credibility of his defense as directly as the exclusion of evidence that was at issue in Crane.
Because the circumstances at the time of the shooting only weakly support the conclusion that defendant was acting at that time under a delusional belief that he was under attack (cf. People v. Viramontes (2001) 93 Cal.App.4th 1256, 1263 [115 Cal.Rptr.2d 229]), the evidence of other paranoid delusions prior to the shooting was of some importance—but the jury heard about this paranoid and delusional behavior from defendant's friend Clarence Redoble. The trial court's decision to bar additional testimony to the same effect (but to allow Dr. Schaffer to describe the substance of this excluded evidence) arguably did not violate Evidence Code section 352, but we need not decide the question. Even if we assume the trial court erred, and if we assume the error was so grave as to implicate defendant's federal due process rights, the exclusion of this evidence was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. (Chapman v. California (1967) 386 U.S. 18, 24 [17 L.Ed.2d 705, 87 S.Ct. 824].)
HI. Conclusion
Assuming that the trial court erred in its evidentiary ruling, we find that error to be harmless. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeal and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
George, C. J., Kennard, J., Baxter, J., Werdegar, J., Chin, J., and Moreno, J., concurred.
All statutory references are to the Penal Code unless otherwise indicated.