Title: People v. Krebs
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: S099439
State: California
Issuer: California Supreme Court
Date: November 21, 2019

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF 
CALIFORNIA 
 
THE PEOPLE, 
Plaintiff and Respondent, 
v. 
REX ALLAN KREBS, 
Defendant and Appellant. 
 
S099439 
 
San Luis Obispo County Superior Court 
No. F283378 
 
 
November 21, 2019 
 
Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye authored the opinion of the 
Court, in which Justices Chin, Corrigan, Liu, Cuéllar, Kruger, 
and Groban concurred. 
 
 
1 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
S099439 
 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
A jury convicted defendant Rex Allan Krebs of the first 
degree murder of Rachel Newhouse and Aundria Crawford (Pen. 
Code, § 187),1 one count of kidnapping Newhouse to commit rape 
and one count of kidnapping Crawford to commit rape and 
sodomy (§ 209, subd. (b)), one count of rape by force of Newhouse 
and two counts of rape by force of Crawford (§ 261, subd. (a)(2)), 
one count of sodomy by force of Crawford (§ 286, subd. (c)), and 
one count of first degree burglary (§ 459).  The jury found true 
the special circumstance allegations that defendant committed 
multiple murders, that the murder of Newhouse was committed 
while engaged in kidnapping and rape, and that the murder of 
Crawford was committed while engaged in kidnapping, rape, 
and sodomy.  (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(3), (17).)  Defendant admitted 
prior convictions for rape, sodomy, assault to commit rape, 
residential burglary, and felony grand theft.  The court found 
the prior convictions to be true. 
Following the penalty phase of the trial, the jury returned 
verdicts of death for each of the two murder convictions.  The 
trial court denied defendant’s motion to modify the death 
penalty verdict and his motion for a new trial.  (§ 190.4, subd. 
(e).)  The court sentenced defendant to death for each of the 
murder convictions.  It also sentenced him to a total of 166 years 
                                        
1  
All further statutory references are to the Penal Code 
unless otherwise indicated. 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
2 
to life with the possibility of parole for the other offenses and 
enhancements, a sentence it stayed pursuant to section 654.  
This appeal is automatic.  (§ 1239, subd. (b).)  We affirm the 
judgment in its entirety. 
I.  BACKGROUND 
A.  Evidence at the Guilt Phase  
1.  Investigation prior to defendant’s confession 
Rachel Newhouse, a student at California Polytechnic 
State University at San Luis Obispo, was last seen on November 
12, 1998, at about 11:30 p.m., in Tortilla Flats, a restaurant and 
bar in San Luis Obispo.  Blood drops were found an hour or so 
later on the Jennifer Street Bridge, a pedestrian bridge that 
Newhouse would have crossed if she walked home from Tortilla 
Flats.  Samples taken from blood recovered from the bridge and 
a nearby parking lot matched blood samples from Newhouse’s 
parents. 
Aundria Crawford, a student at Cuesta College who lived 
in San Luis Obispo, spoke with a friend by telephone until 2:46 
a.m. on March 11, 1999.2  Crawford missed an appointment and 
failed to respond to texts on March 11, and an investigation 
begun the next day failed to locate her. 
Defendant’s parole officer, David Zaragoza, thought there 
were similarities between the description in a newspaper article 
of the abduction of Crawford and defendant’s prior crimes.  In 
mid-March, he visited defendant at his residence.  When 
defendant came out to meet Zaragoza, he was walking as if in 
pain, and he was holding his rib area.  Defendant stated that he 
                                        
2  
All further date references are to the year 1999 unless 
otherwise specified. 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
3 
had hurt his ribs when he fell off a wall into some firewood, but 
Zaragoza was suspicious because he did not see any injuries to 
defendant’s hands or arms.  Zaragoza reported his suspicions to 
the lead investigator of the Crawford abduction. 
Two days later, Zaragoza and other agents conducted a 
parole search of defendant’s residence.  Among the items seized 
was an eight-ball keychain.  Zaragoza also found BBs.  One of 
defendant’s parole conditions was that he was not allowed to 
possess objects resembling a firearm.  The next day, Zaragoza 
seized a BB gun at defendant’s place of employment and caused 
defendant to be arrested and transported to the San Luis Obispo 
County jail. 
Larry Hobson, an investigator with the County of San Luis 
Obispo District Attorney’s Office, interviewed defendant a day 
after his arrest.  At this point, defendant had been arrested for 
violating his parole by possessing a simulated firearm and 
drinking alcohol.  When Hobson asked defendant if he had any 
idea why he was being interviewed, defendant stated he 
assumed it related to the disappearance of the two victims, 
because defendant was on parole for rape and had a prior sex 
offense.  He did not recall where he was the day Newhouse 
disappeared.  However, defendant said he stayed home all night 
on March 10, the night of Crawford’s disappearance.  At about 
8:00 a.m. the next day, he walked to a woodpile, and his 
landlord’s daughter, Debra Wright, stopped and talked to him 
briefly.  He said he had slipped on some lattice work and fallen 
into the woodpile, injuring his ribs.  
Defendant denied ever driving down Crawford’s street or 
seeing the victims except on fliers posted around San Luis 
Obispo.  Hobson asked where defendant had acquired the eight-
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
4 
ball keychain found during the parole search, and he said he 
found it on the yard while in Soledad prison in 1996.  In response 
to Hobson’s telling defendant that he might have to question 
him again, defendant said he was willing to do anything to prove 
that he was not responsible for the abductions, and he gave 
Hobson permission to search his vehicle and his residence. 
A few days later, a search of defendant’s truck disclosed 
duct tape, binoculars, and a bottle of stain remover.  Also, some 
of the carpet had been cut out, and one of the jump seats was 
missing. 
In early April, Hobson interviewed defendant a second 
time.  Defendant gave an account of his whereabouts on March 
11 that was partly inconsistent with his prior statements.  When 
asked why someone would identify him or his truck in the 
vicinity of Crawford’s house, he stated he had driven down 
Crawford’s street two or three times.  With respect to the eight-
ball keychain that defendant claimed to have found in 1996, 
Hobson asserted that it had not been manufactured until 1998.  
Defendant responded, “ ‘that’s strange.’ ” 
Five days later, a search of defendant’s home led to the 
discovery of the jump seat from his truck.  The seat had blood 
stains on it. 
On April 21, Hobson interviewed defendant a third time.3  
Defendant again had difficulty recalling what he did on March 
11.  Hobson and defendant discussed defendant’s prior sex 
                                        
3  
In this appeal, defendant challenges the trial court’s 
admission of his various statements made after this interview 
under Miranda v. Arizona (1966) 384 U.S. 436 (Miranda).  We 
discuss the circumstances of the interviews in more detail in 
part II.B.1, post. 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
5 
crimes, and defendant admitted that he fantasized about 
abducting women but claimed to have “worked through” that.  
Hobson then showed defendant the eight-ball keychain and said 
it belonged to Crawford.  Defendant denied the keychain was 
the one that had been found in his home.  Hobson told defendant 
that the police had found the missing jump seat, and that there 
were traces of Newhouse’s blood on it.  Defendant then stopped 
talking for about 15 minutes while Hobson kept up a monologue.  
Hobson asked defendant to take him to the victims, and 
defendant stated he did not want to help Hobson at that time.  
Hobson eventually returned defendant to the county jail. 
2.  Defendant’s confession 
On April 22, Hobson returned to the jail, and correctional 
officers brought defendant to an employee breakroom to meet 
him.  Some minutes into the conversation, defendant asked 
what Hobson wanted him to say, and Hobson said he wanted the 
truth.  Defendant responded, “okay” and said that he wanted to 
talk somewhere else.  Before transporting defendant from the 
jail and after giving him Miranda warnings, Hobson asked 
defendant if he was responsible for the disappearance and death 
of Newhouse and Crawford.  Defendant responded, “yes.”  
Hobson then took defendant to the police department, where the 
ensuing interrogation was recorded.  The jury was shown the 
videotape, during which defendant described what he had done 
to the victims.4 
                                        
4  
Video recordings of interviews conducted on April 22 and 
April 27 were played for the jury, and transcripts of these two 
interviews were provided to assist the jury.  The jury was also 
shown a video recording made on April 22, which depicted 
 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
6 
Defendant stated that starting at about 8:30 p.m. on 
November 12, 1998, he drank six or seven shots of whiskey.  At 
about midnight, he saw Newhouse walking down a street in San 
Luis Obispo.  He told Hobson he had a premonition that 
Newhouse would walk across a bridge, so he parked his truck 
and walked onto the bridge.  As Newhouse walked behind him 
on the bridge, defendant turned around and hit her on the jaw 
with his fist.  When she screamed, defendant picked her up and 
threw her down on her back.  Then he hit her again, knocking 
her unconscious, and dragged her by her hair down the stairs.  
At this point, she was bleeding from the back of her head and 
about her face.  When he reached his truck, he put the still-
unconscious Newhouse behind the front passenger seat in the 
area where the jump seats were located.  He got rope from the 
bed of his truck and tied her hands behind her back.  He then 
drove along railroad tracks for about 200 yards, where he 
stopped and used the same rope to tie her legs.  Finally, he 
reached into her pants, ripped off her panties, stuffed them in 
her mouth, and tied the rope through her mouth. 
Beside the road that led to defendant’s residence was an 
abandoned cabin.  Defendant drove to the cabin, carried 
Newhouse inside, removed her pants, and raped her.  She was 
conscious by this time, and was cursing at him.  After he raped 
her, he re-tied her legs, hogtied her legs to her hands, and 
stuffed her panties back into her mouth.  Then he drove up to 
his residence, leaving Newhouse in the cabin.  He returned to 
the cabin 15 or 20 minutes later and found Newhouse dead.  He 
                                        
defendant pointing out the victims’ burial sites and items at his 
house.  In addition, Hobson testified about his subsequent 
interviews of defendant in late April and early May. 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
7 
told Hobson that when he left her, the rope he had tied around 
her neck was not in a position that would have prevented her 
from breathing.  Hobson asked whether defendant was saying 
that Newhouse’s struggling had caused her strangulation.  He 
responded, “That or her legs relaxed or something, I don’t know.”  
Defendant told Hobson that he panicked, put her body behind 
the cabin, and went home. 
The next morning, defendant drove his truck past a spot 
where he had been cutting wood and dug a grave.  He returned 
home and, at some point, cleaned blood from his truck.  When 
he was unable to remove all of the blood, he cut out portions of 
carpet, threw them in a dumpster, and put the stained jump seat 
in his home.  Sometime between 11:00 p.m. and midnight, he 
put Newhouse’s body in the back of his truck, drove to where he 
had dug a grave, and buried it. 
Turning to the Crawford case, defendant stated that the 
first time he saw her he was driving by her house as she was 
getting out of her car.  He followed her back to the house, got out 
of his truck, and looked at her through a small gap at the bottom 
of the curtains on a window.  He left after a few minutes. 
Over the following days, defendant twice more returned to 
Crawford’s house to watch her.  Each time he was intoxicated.  
Finally, defendant returned for a third time, knowing that he 
was going to abduct her.  Again intoxicated, defendant was not 
certain what time he went to her house, but it could have been 
as late as 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. 
Defendant found a small bathroom window that was not 
latched, removed the screen, and crawled feet first into a shower 
stall.  He hurt his ribs going through the window.  Defendant 
told Hobson that he was “getting ready to go out the bathroom 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
8 
door.  The only thing I’m thinking of is leaving right then” when 
Crawford opened the bathroom door, wearing a T-shirt and 
underwear.  He punched her, knocking her back against the 
wall, and kept punching her, causing her to lose consciousness.  
He hogtied her with a rope he had brought with him and put 
duct tape across her mouth.  He went upstairs and got two 
pillowcases.  Although he was wearing pantyhose over his head, 
he put a pillowcase over Crawford’s head and tied it on so she 
could not identify him.  He put CDs and some of Crawford’s 
clothes in the other pillowcase.  He also took a VCR, videotapes 
of movies, and her keys with the eight-ball keychain, which he 
put in his truck. 
When defendant returned to the house, Crawford had 
regained consciousness and was struggling.  He put her in his 
truck and went back to her house to clean up the blood.  Then 
he drove her to the abandoned cabin, left her on a couch, drove 
home, and drank more whiskey.  As it was starting to get light, 
he drove to the woodpile to chop some wood so that his landlord’s 
daughter, Debra Wright, would see him as she went to work.  
After Wright left, defendant brought Crawford from the cabin to 
his residence.  He removed some of the rope, but he left her 
hands tied together and kept the pillowcase and duct tape in 
place.  He raped and sodomized Crawford on the bed, tied her 
feet back together, went to the kitchen for more liquor and 
coffee, and fell asleep on the couch.  When he woke up an hour 
or so later, he replaced the pillowcase with a bandanna blindfold 
and removed the duct tape.  She asked him why he was doing 
this, asked him to stop, pleaded with him to let her go, and cried.  
He did not say anything to her, and raped her over a coffee table.  
Leaving her hands tied and her legs untied, he clothed her in a 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
9 
sweatshirt and sweatpants he had brought from her home.  He 
put her back in his bed and went to sleep on the couch. 
Defendant was awakened by a noise and saw Crawford 
coming out of the bedroom without the blindfold.  He threw her 
to the floor and strangled her to death with a rope.  He moved 
her body to the bedroom and drank more whiskey.  Then he dug 
a grave in his yard and buried her.  Defendant disposed of 
everything he had taken except the eight-ball keychain, a second 
black sweatshirt, and the CDs.  He threw the VCR and 
videotapes, which were in a garbage bag, near a road and burned 
everything else. 
After confessing, defendant accompanied Hobson and 
others to his home and the locations of the graves and the 
garbage bag that contained the VCR, videotapes, and CDs.  The 
jury was shown a videotape of the trip. 
3.  Exhumations and autopsies 
The victims’ bodies were recovered the day after defendant 
confessed.  Newhouse’s body was found buried about 30 feet 
above the road.  Crawford’s body was found by defendant’s 
residence, buried about two feet deep. 
Dr. George Sterbenz, a forensic pathologist, observed the 
exhumations.  He testified that Newhouse’s body was in an 
advanced state of decomposition.  She had on a shirt that had 
been cut in half up the back, and a bra with shoulder straps 
pulled down from her shoulders.  She had on no other clothing.  
Two areas of her scalp were more decomposed, indicating that 
they had been injured, and dried fluid on top of her head was 
consistent with blood.  Dr. Sterbenz believed the cause of death 
was asphyxiation, but decomposition prevented him from 
determining the specific mechanism by which this occurred.  
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
10 
Decomposition also prevented a determination of whether 
Newhouse suffered any trauma to the vaginal area.  
Crawford’s body was not as decomposed as Newhouse’s 
body, although the level of decomposition precluded a 
determination of whether Crawford’s vaginal or anal area was 
bruised.  Crawford was wearing a black sweatshirt with a Hard 
Rock Cafe logo and black sweatpants.  A blindfold made from a 
bandanna covered her eyes and nose.  A rope circled her neck 
two and one-half times and was also wrapped about her torso 
and extremities.  Two black flex ties were tied around her wrists, 
and a third flex tie connected them and passed through the rope.  
There were two lacerations inside her mouth that were 
consistent with a blow by a fist to the face.  There was also an 
area of bruising on her scalp.  Dr. Sterbenz concluded that her 
cause of death was asphyxia by ligature strangulation.  
4.  Other corroborating evidence 
On April 23, a search of the abandoned cabin close to 
defendant’s residence disclosed a large blood stain on the pad 
underneath the cushions of the couch.  The next day, another 
search of defendant’s home led to the discovery of black flex ties 
that matched the flex ties on Crawford’s wrists.  Searchers also 
discovered some keys about 48 feet from his home.  The keys 
unlocked the doors to Crawford’s house. 
Analyses of blood stains and hair at the Jennifer Street 
Bridge and surrounding areas corroborated defendant’s 
description of his abduction of Newhouse.  Rodney Andrus, the 
assistant director at the Attorney General’s laboratory in 
Fresno, also tested blood stains from the jump seat and the 
couch in the cabin.  He found that their markers were consistent 
with Newhouse’s blood and the blood stains on the bridge. 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
11 
An inspection of Crawford’s home further corroborated 
defendant’s confession.  Items that defendant confessed to 
taking were indeed missing.  The state of the bed also suggested 
that Crawford had gotten out of bed shortly before she was 
abducted.  Blood stains matching Crawford’s were found in the 
bathroom. 
Evidence concerning Crawford’s clothes and belongings 
was also consistent with defendant’s confession.  Crawford’s 
mother, Leslie Crawford, described some of her daughter’s 
belongings, including an eight-ball keychain and a souvenir 
sweatshirt with a Hard Rock Cafe logo which she wore only 
infrequently.  She recalled that her daughter normally wore a 
T-shirt and panties to bed.  A search of Crawford’s house failed 
to find the dark sweatclothes that Crawford’s mother reported 
missing. 
5.  Additional interviews of defendant 
After the interview on April 22, during which defendant 
confessed, Hobson interviewed defendant six more times.  Two 
days after the confession, Hobson interviewed defendant to 
review some of the details of the crimes and his interactions with 
the victims.  Hobson next contacted defendant the following day 
to discuss his childhood and upbringing.  The day after that, 
Hobson met with defendant to talk about defendant’s relatives. 
On April 27, after driving defendant to view the area 
where he abducted Newhouse, Hobson conducted a videotaped 
interview, which was shown to the jury.  Defendant told Hobson 
that Newhouse cursed at him and the more she cursed, the 
angrier he became.  Hobson asked, “When you get mad, what do 
you want to do?”  Defendant responded, “Rape her.”  He stated 
that after he raped her, he was no longer angry, and he denied 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
12 
intentionally tying her so tightly that she would strangle 
herself.  He confirmed, however, that he had tied her differently 
when she was in the truck. 
In contrast to Newhouse, Crawford did not curse at 
defendant; he had placed duct tape over her mouth.  When 
raping Crawford, defendant was acting out a fantasy that 
involved sexual pleasure and dominance.  Control was part of 
the fantasy, and he had used plastic restraints on Crawford 
because they were a better means of control.  He agreed with 
Hobson’s theory that once Crawford saw defendant, “it took 
away the rest of the fantasy and you just knew you had to kill 
her.”  He also agreed that when he hogtied her, he was hoping 
that she would die like Newhouse so he would not have to kill 
her himself, but when she broke a thin rope he had put around 
her feet, he pulled on both sides of the rope around her neck and 
strangled her.  When Hobson pointed out the inconsistency 
between this description and an earlier account in which 
defendant said he hogtied Crawford, left to drink more, and then 
came back and took a small piece of rope and strangled her, 
defendant said his current description was more accurate.  He 
said that if Crawford had not struggled, he would have released 
her that night. 
With respect to defendant’s assertion that he had planned 
to release both of the victims, Hobson asked how he planned to 
avoid being identified as the perpetrator, given that he had not 
used a condom.  Defendant stated that he planned to wash them 
in the bathtub at his home and use a bottle to wash out his 
semen. 
Hobson asked whether defendant committed his first rape 
when he was 21 years old, and defendant said he committed an 
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Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
13 
attempted rape when he was 18, in Sandpoint, Idaho.  The 
victim was a young girl.  By the time he abducted Crawford, his 
fantasies always involved tying his victims up and cutting their 
clothes off.  Torture had never been part of his fantasy, which 
involved only dominance and the ability to have sex repeatedly.  
He was uncomfortable when he killed Crawford; it made him 
feel sick and angry at himself.  When he saw fliers about 
Newhouse or Crawford, he felt sick and sorry for them.  Finally, 
he denied taking a camera from Crawford’s house, and said he 
had not committed any other crimes while on parole.  He also 
denied shooting a person in the chest in Santa Barbara over a 
drug deal before he went to prison.  The transcript of the 
interview included parenthetical statements, added to inform 
the jury that defendant later admitted off-camera to stealing 
Crawford’s camera and shooting a man in Santa Barbara. 
Hobson met again with defendant in the last days of April, 
when they discussed Hobson’s intention to go to Idaho and 
interview defendant’s relatives.  Then in early May, after 
interviewing defendant’s friends and relatives, Hobson met with 
defendant to discuss what Hobson had learned. 
6.  Defendant’s prior sexual assault of Shelley C. 
At trial, the prosecution introduced testimony regarding 
defendant’s prior assault of Shelley C.  Shelley testified that 
early one morning in 1987 when she was living in San Luis 
Obispo County, she woke to a man’s hand over her mouth.  He 
held a knife to her throat and tied her hands behind her back.  
He cut off her clothes, started to gag and blindfold her, but 
stopped when she said she would not say anything or look.  He 
raped and sodomized her and then hogtied her.  When he heard 
Shelley’s roommate’s car, he fled.  There was a strong odor of 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
14 
alcohol on the assailant.  When he was interrogated concerning 
this assault, defendant stated that he wanted counseling, but 
was afraid of the time he would spend in prison.  Defendant 
confessed to the crimes and pleaded guilty to residential 
burglary, rape and sodomy. 
7.  Defense case 
The defense offered no evidence at the guilt phase. 
B.  Evidence at the Penalty Phase 
1.  Defense case 
 
 Defendant introduced extensive evidence at the penalty 
phase.  The evidence falls into two general categories.  In the 
first category is testimony that painted defendant as a 
sympathetic character, a child who was abused by a violent 
father and a person who, despite the abuse suffered, still had a 
moral compass, good personality traits, and the ability to form 
positive relationships.  In the second category is testimony that 
aimed to reduce defendant’s moral culpability.  Defendant 
introduced evidence to show that he suffered from a mental 
illness, one that impaired his ability to control himself, and that 
the various institutions under which he was placed — including 
California’s Department of Corrections — failed to afford him 
any treatment. 
 
Through 
the 
testimony 
of 
his 
mother, 
sisters, 
grandmother, aunts, uncles, stepmother, stepsister, elementary 
school classmates, teacher, principal, neighbor, and others, 
defendant described the serious mental and physical abuse he 
suffered as a child.  Born in 1966 to Connie Ridley and Allan 
Krebs, defendant was the second of four children.  Allan Krebs 
drank, abused drugs, and beat Ridley.  When she left Allan, 
Ridley, then an alcoholic, began living with a man who spanked 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
15 
defendant, forced him to wear soiled underwear on his head, and 
once made defendant go to school in a diaper.  Ridley eventually 
sent defendant back to live with his father.  Allan beat 
defendant, once severely enough to leave “black and blue” marks 
and cuts from the “waistline, all the way down to his ankles.” 
 
In 1981, when defendant was 15 years old, he broke into a 
neighbor’s home and stole a gun and some other items.  As a 
result, defendant was sent to the North Idaho Children’s Home 
(Children’s Home), a “private, nonprofit, residential treatment 
facility.”  Defendant introduced the testimony of several staff 
members from the Children’s Home, who described his good 
behavior while at the facility.  Consistent with the defense 
presentation of defendant as a person capable of empathy for his 
victims and remorse for his actions, a childcare worker from the 
Children’s Home, Scott Mosher, testified that defendant was 
“very remorseful” if he “did something wrong during this period 
of time.”  Toward the end of this testimony, counsel asked 
Mosher whether he felt defendant “should receive the death 
penalty.”  The prosecution objected, and the trial court sustained 
the objection, explaining that Mosher’s opinion lacked relevance 
because Mosher last saw defendant in 1983 and no longer had 
any relationship with him. 
 
When he was at the Children’s Home, defendant dated an 
11-year-old girl, Adonia Krug.  Krug testified that defendant 
“helped [her] through a lot.”  The relationship ended amicably 
when Diana Scheyt, Krug’s mother, told defendant how old Krug 
was.  Scheyt thought defendant had a positive influence on her 
daughter and allowed the two to keep in contact as friends. 
 
In 1984, after defendant turned 18, he assaulted a 12-
year-old girl in Sandpoint, Idaho.  Defendant pleaded guilty to 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
16 
a misdemeanor assault charge and spent three months in the 
county jail for the attack.  The victim, Jennifer E., testified for 
the prosecution during the penalty phase, and the prosecution 
used this incident to cross-examine several witnesses who 
opined that defendant should not receive the death penalty. 
 
During the same year, defendant was convicted of grand 
theft of an automobile.  For this infraction, defendant served a 
prison term at the North Idaho Correctional Institute at 
Cottonwood (Cottonwood).  Defendant presented the testimony 
of a Cottonwood correctional officer who recounted his generally 
positive attitude and good behavior while incarcerated. 
 
Shortly after he was released from prison in 1986, 
defendant went to California to live with his mother and her 
then-husband, John Hollister.  Hollister testified that he and 
defendant had a friendly relationship, and that defendant had a 
girlfriend during this time, Liesel Turner.  According to 
Hollister, defendant and Turner had “[a] good relationship” and 
defendant was “infatuated with her, wanted to impress her.”  As 
described post, the prosecution called Turner as a rebuttal 
witness. 
 
In 1987, defendant was arrested and convicted of the 
attempted rape and rape of two women, A.C. and Shelley C.  
Defendant served his sentence at Soledad prison.  He introduced 
the testimony of three correctional officers who worked at the 
facility.  According to Officer Jeanne Pullano, defendant was “a 
model prisoner.”  Pullano further testified that there was no 
counseling for “sexual predators” available at Soledad at that 
time, and even if there had been, inmates “probably would not 
attend because they would be identified as sex offenders if they 
did” and “child molesters” and “rapists” were “low . . . on the 
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Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
17 
totem pole” “within the prison population.”  The other 
correctional officers offered similar testimony. 
 
In September 1997, defendant was paroled to San Luis 
Obispo County.  Defendant found a job in the surrounding area, 
made friends, and began a relationship with a woman named 
Rosalynn Moore.  Moore testified that defendant treated her 
“fairly 
well.” 
 
In 
particular, 
defendant 
was 
never 
“inappropriately forceful with [her]” “in a sexual way,” and if she 
“didn’t want to do something, he would say okay and . . . that 
was the end of it.” 
 
Three of defendant’s friends testified that they were 
present at a bar called Outlaws in August 1998 when defendant 
got into a fight with a man.  One of the friends, Melissa 
Copeland, said that defendant had gotten into the fight because 
the man had threatened her and defendant “was defending 
[her],” “defending [her] honor.” 
 
Defendant pressed the theme of institutional failure as it 
pertained to his parole.  For example, his counsel drew from 
Parole Officer Zaragoza the statements that (1) although San 
Luis Obispo referred all sex offenders to a “parole outpatient 
clinic,” the program was “more monitoring” than “confidential 
psychotherapy,” and (2) other than the parole outpatient clinic, 
there was no other program “available to parolees of rape 
convictions for their treatment.”  Defendant also introduced the 
testimony of Dr. Randall True, who worked at the parole 
outpatient clinic and saw defendant while he was on parole.  
True testified to the “limited resources” that he had to do his 
work.  In response to the question, “if the resources were 
available — for a person such as [defendant] at the time you saw 
him — what programs would you put him in,” True named a 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
18 
number of treatment programs that defendant, in fact, was not 
afforded.  True admitted, however, that defendant never told 
him that he had fantasies about raping women.  Had defendant 
done so, True would have undertaken additional work. 
 
In addition to the lay witnesses, defendant introduced the 
testimony of two experts, Drs. Craig Haney and Fred Berlin.  
Haney, a psychologist, examined defendant’s background with 
an eye to forming an opinion concerning (1) the “opportunities 
in which [defendant] might have been treated for the problems 
from which he suffered and whether or not there was evidence 
that, in fact, he had been treated,” and (2) the “kind of 
adjustment [defendant] would make . . . under a sentence of life 
in prison without the possibility of parole.”  After interviewing 
defendant and people who knew him, Haney came to the 
following conclusions.  First, defendant has lived “a traumatic 
and traumatically damaging life.”  His manifestations of certain 
“long-lasting problems” were observed throughout his life by 
various people.  Yet, despite the fact that “[o]ftentimes the 
observations 
were 
accompanied 
with 
very 
clear 
recommendations 
that 
[defendant] 
receive 
treatment,” 
defendant “received no psychotherapy, really no psychotherapy 
throughout his entire life, including the ten-year period of time 
during which he was incarcerated in the California Department 
of Corrections.”  Second, defendant was “a person who [would] 
make[] a remarkably good adjustment to institutional settings,” 
including life in prison. 
 
The main defense expert was Dr. Berlin, a board-certified 
psychiatrist who interviewed defendant and “made two 
diagnoses with conviction.”  Berlin first diagnosed defendant 
with sexual sadism, a sexual disorder characterized by “intense, 
recurrent, erotically arousing fantasies and urges [that] are 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
19 
about having sex in a coercive and sadistic fashion rather than 
in a consenting fashion.”  Crucially, Berlin opined that sexual 
sadism impaired defendant’s “ability to be in full control of 
himself.”  In slightly more technical terms, Berlin said that 
sexual sadism caused defendant to be volitionally impaired.  
According to Berlin, sexual sadists, like alcoholics or heroin 
addicts, “on their own, often can’t stop doing it [giving in to their 
urges] because they have an impairment in their ability to be in 
control.”  Like a kleptomaniac who is “driven to repeatedly 
steal,” defendant was driven to engage in his behavior. 
 
Anticipating the prosecution’s argument, Dr. Berlin 
explained that a person suffering from volitional impairment is 
nonetheless able to plan and premeditate his or her actions.  
Berlin also explained that such a person is able to defer his or 
her urges.  A volitionally impaired person could desist from 
acting out his or her urges given sufficient “external controls,” 
for example, those controls that exist in a prison setting.  This 
does not mean that the person has the internal controls 
necessary to control his or her behavior.  Berlin opined that 
sexual sadism is a treatable disorder. 
 
In addition to his diagnosis of sexual sadism, Dr. Berlin 
diagnosed defendant with alcoholism.  Berlin testified that the 
impact of alcoholism “on sexual sadism is like pouring a fuel on 
the fire.”  The witness elaborated that “both because he was 
intoxicated and because he had a disorder that does impair a 
person’s ability to be in full control of himself,” defendant’s 
capacity “to conform his conduct to the requirements of law” was 
“impaired.”  Finally, Berlin considered but did not diagnose 
defendant with antisocial personality disorder. 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
20 
 
At the point in his testimony in which Dr. Berlin discussed 
the ability of a sexual sadist to defer his actions, defense counsel 
attempted to ask the witness about a law in California known 
as the Sexually Violent Predator Act.  The prosecution objected, 
and after an extensive discussion with counsel, the court 
sustained the objection. 
 
On cross-examination, the prosecution attacked Dr. 
Berlin’s opinion that defendant could not control his urges.  For 
instance, the prosecution inquired about a test known as the 
“policeman at the elbow,” which asked whether an individual 
would have acted on his or her impulses if there had been a 
police officer present.  Berlin conceded that “if the policeman 
had come, [defendant] would have stopped and tried not to be 
apprehended.”  However, a police officer was an external control, 
and once that external control was removed, Berlin did not 
“believe for a minute that [defendant] wouldn’t have been driven 
to then seek out somebody else.”  Last, the prosecution asked 
Berlin what defendant did to resist the urge to kidnap 
Newhouse or break into Crawford’s house.  Berlin replied that 
defendant “didn’t say he tried to resist.”  “In fact,” elaborated 
the doctor, “he said that after these urges had come back, and 
he dates it to the incident in which he was in the bar fight [at 
Outlaws], that after fighting so hard for so many years to resist 
it, he kind of became demoralized and gave up and kind of 
stopped fighting as hard as he had previously.” 
2.  Prosecution case 
 
The prosecution presented three types of aggravating 
evidence:  defendant’s prior criminal activities, surviving family 
members’ victim impact statements, and testimony to rebut 
defendant’s mitigating evidence. 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
21 
 
To establish defendant’s prior criminal activities, the 
prosecution introduced evidence of his assaults on Jennifer E. 
and A.C.  Jennifer E. testified that in 1984, when she was 12 
years old, she met defendant.  One night in February 1984, 
Jennifer was downtown with a group of friends that included 
defendant.  At some point, defendant pulled Jennifer “off to one 
side” and tried to kiss her.  She said, “no, I’m only 12.”  When 
she tried to walk away, defendant grabbed her, and they both 
fell to the ground.  Defendant then attempted “to undo his pants 
and [her] pants.”  Jennifer fought to get defendant off, and 
defendant struck her three or four times with a closed fist.  
Eventually, the two rolled over an embarkment, and Jennifer 
was able to get away. 
 
A.C. testified that in 1987, she lived in San Luis Obispo 
County.  On a night in mid-June, she was in bed with her 
daughter when defendant broke into the house and climbed on 
top of her.  Defendant was carrying a knife and a screwdriver.  
A.C.’s daughter cried and screamed.  A.C. asked defendant to 
take her to another room.  When they were walking down the 
hallway, defendant attempted to tie A.C. up and “got really 
upset” when she did not cooperate.  He “hit [her] head against 
the wall.”  When A.C. tried (unsuccessfully) to stab defendant 
with his knife, defendant “got mad . . . and bit [her] finger.”  
Defendant then left.  A.C. later underwent surgery on her finger 
but could not make full use of it again. 
 
To show the impact that defendant’s crimes had on the 
victims’ families, the prosecution introduced the testimony of 
Newhouse’s mother and aunt and Crawford’s mother and 
grandmother.  The family members testified about the victims’ 
lives and plans they had for the future.  They also described the 
devastation brought by the victims’ deaths. 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
22 
 
Finally, the prosecution produced rebuttal testimony.  It 
called Liesel Turner, who was defendant’s girlfriend in 1987.  
Turner testified that she ended the relationship with defendant 
because she did not “feel safe” and gave reasons for her feelings. 
 
In addition, the prosecution rebutted Dr. Berlin’s 
testimony with the testimony of Dr. Park Dietz.  Unlike Berlin, 
Dietz testified that individuals “whose only problem is sexual 
sadism” did not suffer from volitional impairment.  Dietz 
nonetheless afforded a role to mental illness, opining “the reason 
[defendant] behaves in this way toward victims is because he 
has an antisocial personality disorder.”  Finally, Dietz rested his 
conclusion that defendant did not suffer volitional impairment 
on the particular facts of the case.  Specifically, Dietz testified 
that defendant’s decisions to drink, lie to his doctor, “cruise” for 
victims, carry a “rape kit,” and stop resisting his impulses 
showed that his “volitional control was there.”  When asked 
“whether at the time of the offense the capacity of the defendant 
. . . to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law was 
impaired as a result of a mental disease or defect,” Dietz’s 
answer was that defendant’s “decision to stop resisting, to stop 
trying to conform his conduct, is a choice, a bad choice, he made, 
rather than his not having the ability to control himself.” 
II.  DISCUSSION 
A.  Jury Selection Issues 
 
Defendant claims that the prosecutor improperly used his 
peremptory challenges to remove Catholic prospective jurors in 
violation of People v. Wheeler (1978) 22 Cal.3d 258 (Wheeler) and 
People v. Batson (1986) 476 U.S. 79 (Batson).  Although 
defendant argued before the trial court that the prosecution 
wrongfully removed six prospective jurors on the basis of their 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
23 
religious affiliation, Catholicism, defendant’s Batson/Wheeler 
claim on appeal is restricted to the removal of a single 
prospective juror, Juror No. 6.5  For the reasons explained below, 
we reject his claim. 
1.  Background 
Prospective Juror No. 6, along with more than 150 other 
venire members, filled out a written questionnaire and was 
individually questioned by the court and counsel.  Jurors who 
were not excused during the individual questioning were asked 
to return some days later.  Upon their return, the remaining 
jurors were subject to peremptory challenges by the prosecution 
and defense — each of which had 20 such challenges.  In quick 
succession, the parties struck 25 jurors, with the prosecution 
striking Juror No. 6 as his eighth strike.  After the prosecution 
also struck Juror Nos. 122 and 126, the defense raised a 
Batson/Wheeler challenge, arguing that the prosecution had 
improperly removed these three jurors because they were 
Catholic.6  Defense counsel acknowledged that defendant was 
                                        
5  
Batson has been held to preclude the removal of a 
potential juror based solely on the venire member’s religious 
affiliation.  (U.S. v. Brown (2d Cir. 2003) 352 F.3d 654, 667-669; 
see People v. Gutierrez (2017) 2 Cal.5th 1150, 1158 (Gutierrez) 
[“At issue in a Batson/Wheeler motion is whether any specific 
prospective juror is challenged on account of bias against an 
identifiable group distinguished on racial, religious, ethnic, or 
similar grounds”].)  The Attorney General does not contend 
otherwise. 
6  
Defense counsel also mentioned Prospective Juror No. 49 
but admitted that “the record is a little more ambiguous” about 
whether he was Catholic.  The trial court did not inquire about 
this juror much thereafter, and we infer that the court 
determined Juror No. 49 was not Catholic. 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
24 
not Catholic but stressed that he “has received religious 
counseling from a Catholic nun.”   
Before asking the prosecution to give its reasons for 
striking the three jurors, the court made the following 
statement.  “[T]here’s some question as to whether — in the case 
law the record assumes that the finding has been made of a 
reasonable inference if you ask for justification from the other 
party.  And on this record I don’t think I can make a finding that 
there’s a reasonable inference although there does seem to be at 
least the beginnings of a trend.  [¶]  But with three jurors — I 
know there are a lot of Catholics on this panel, just in my 
memory.  I don’t know which numbers they are, but I know there 
are a lot.”  The court then stated, “with that caveat, I’ll ask the 
prosecutor to state what his reasons were for those three jurors.” 
The prosecutor offered his reasons for excusing the venire 
members.  With regard to Prospective Juror No. 6, the 
prosecutor stated that he was concerned with the juror’s stance 
on “psychiatric issues.”  Citing questions from the written 
questionnaire, the prosecutor described the juror’s answers as 
revealing that she “puts faith in psychiatric testing, thinks 
psychology and psychiatry is very useful, and believes it can 
explain a lot about a person.”7  These responses concerned the 
                                        
7  
The questions and answers from the written questionnaire 
the prosecutor referred to are as follows: 
“Q111.   
Are you familiar with psychological testing? 
“A. 
 
[Juror circled “Yes.”] 
“Q. 
 
Which tests? 
“A. 
 
Not sure. 
 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
25 
prosecution because “the defense has hired one of the top 
psychologists in the country, Dr. Fred Berlin.” 
The prosecutor also cited Prospective Juror No. 6’s 
response to Question No. 129 on the questionnaire.  This 
question asks, “Is there any type of information regarding a 
defendant’s background or character that would be important to 
you when choosing between life without parole and death (e.g. 
work record, childhood abuse, brutal parents, alcoholism, 
former good deeds, illnesses, etc.)?”  In response, the juror wrote, 
“childhood abuse, brutal parents, alcoholism, illnesses.”  The 
                                        
“Q. 
 
How do you feel about these tests? 
“A. 
 
It determines what is the true feelings of that 
 
 
 
person.” 
 
“Q113. 
What is your opinion about the use of 
psychology or psychiatry to explain human 
behavior? 
“A. 
 
I think it[’]s very useful.” 
 
“Q114. 
Have you ever studied psychiatry, psychology, 
or any related subjects? 
“A. 
[Juror circled “No.”] 
“Q. 
Do you have an interest in the psychology of 
the mind? 
“A. 
I’m curious to know. 
“Q. 
Have you read articles or watched information 
and/or entertainment programs relating to 
this subject? 
“A. 
Yes. 
“Q. 
What are your general opinions about this 
subject? 
“A. 
I think it can explain a lot about a person.” 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
26 
prosecution noted that childhood abuse, brutal parents, and 
alcoholism were things “we know will be offered in this case” as 
mitigating factors at the penalty phase. 
The court made its ruling after hearing the prosecution’s 
reasons and the defense’s response.  Directing its comments at 
the prosecutor, the court stated, “Actually went a lot further 
than you needed to, but on the basis of this record, I can’t find a 
reasonable inference, as I indicated earlier, based on just three 
jurors.  My feeling was there were probably about 20 [Catholic 
prospective jurors] in the field of 83.  Ms. Ashbaugh’s [one of 
defendant’s attorneys] indicating that there are 18.  [¶]  But in 
any event, it appears that there certainly are secular reasons for 
excusing each of the jurors, and it clearly — in the process that 
we’ve gone through, the record obviously reflects that the 
questionnaire is replete with questions that would give you 
information for preempts on both sides. . . .  [¶]  But, as I say, in 
this case I don’t at this point even find a reasonable inference.  
I only asked for the response just for the record.”  The court 
denied defendant’s Batson/Wheeler motion. 
The defense renewed its motion upon dismissals of more 
prospective jurors, and the court deferred discussion until jury 
selection had finished.  Once both parties had exhausted their 
peremptory challenges, the defense contested the prosecution’s 
excusal of Prospective Juror Nos. 127, 201, and 141.  Juror No. 
141 was the prosecution’s last challenge; the prosecution had 
previously accepted a panel with Juror No. 141 on the panel, but 
after the defense struck another juror, the prosecution exercised 
its two remaining peremptory challenges to strike more jurors, 
including Juror No. 141.  The court heard the parties’ arguments 
regarding the strikes and once again denied the Batson/Wheeler 
motion.  In so ruling, the court stated, “I don’t find a reasonable 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
27 
inference of a group bias, but I did get reasons on the record from 
the prosecutor as to why the excusals were made. . . .  [¶]  And 
the fact that there are . . . two jurors still on the panel who are 
Catholics is of some weight, except that all the challenges have 
been exhausted.” 
Despite the objections raised to the excusals of multiple 
panelists during jury selection, defendant, as noted earlier, now 
challenges the trial court’s ruling only with respect to 
Prospective Juror No. 6.  Because “reviewing courts must 
consider all evidence bearing on the trial court’s factual finding 
regarding discriminatory intent,” we bear the above record in 
mind as we examine defendant’s Batson/Wheeler arguments 
with regard to this single juror.  (People v. Lenix (2008) 44 
Cal.4th 602, 607 (Lenix).) 
2.  Analysis 
 
The framework for analyzing a Batson/Wheeler challenge 
is well established.  The analysis proceeds in three stages.  
“First, the trial court must determine whether the defendant 
has made a prima facie showing that the prosecutor exercised a 
peremptory challenge based on [religious affiliation].  Second, if 
the showing is made, the burden shifts to the prosecutor to 
demonstrate that the challenges were exercised for a [group]-
neutral reason.  Third, the court determines whether the 
defendant has proven purposeful discrimination.”  (Lenix, supra, 
44 Cal.4th at p. 612.) 
 
A 
preliminary 
question 
is 
whether 
defendant’s 
Batson/Wheeler challenge here should be reviewed at the first or 
third stage.  Defendant presses that we should conduct a third-
stage inquiry.  The Attorney General concedes the point, but her 
brief was filed before we decided People v. Scott (2015) 61 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
28 
Cal.4th 363, 391 (Scott).  In Scott, we acknowledged that our 
jurisprudence in distinguishing between a first- and a third-
stage review “has not always been entirely consistent.”  (Id. at 
p. 386.)  We sought to rectify the inconsistency by clarifying that 
“where (1) the trial court has determined that no prima facie 
case of discrimination exists, (2) the trial court allows or invites 
the prosecutor to state his or her reasons for excusing the juror 
for the record, (3) the prosecutor provides nondiscriminatory 
reasons, and (4) the trial court determines that the prosecutor’s 
nondiscriminatory reasons are genuine, an appellate court 
should begin its analysis of the trial court’s denial of the 
Batson/Wheeler motion with a review of the first-stage ruling.”  
(Id. at p. 391.)  Accordingly, if the trial court makes a first-stage 
ruling before the prosecutor states his or her reasons for 
excusing the prospective jurors, an appellate court reviews that 
first-stage ruling.  In contrast, when the trial court listens to the 
prosecutor’s reasons before purporting to rule on the first stage 
inquiry, “we infer an ‘implied prima facie finding’ of 
discrimination and proceed directly to review of the ultimate 
question of purposeful discrimination.”  (Id. at p. 387, fn. 1.) 
 
The trial court here found that defendant did not make out 
a prima facie case of discrimination.  This was what the court 
meant when it said it did not find a “reasonable inference.”  But 
of course, the court said it could not make “a reasonable 
inference” twice, once before inviting the prosecutor to offer his 
reasons and once after hearing those reasons.  If the court’s first 
statement — “on this record I don’t think I can make a finding 
that there’s a reasonable inference” — constitutes a ruling, then 
we should review that first-stage ruling.  On the other hand, if 
the court did not make a ruling until after it heard the 
prosecutor’s reasons — when it stated more definitively that “on 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
29 
the basis of this record, I can’t find a reasonable inference” — 
then we should treat the prima facie case as moot and “instead 
skip to Batson’s third stage.”  (People v. Mills (2010) 48 Cal.4th 
158, 174.)  The record is susceptible of both readings, but the 
ambiguity proves immaterial in this case.  Even were we to 
assume — as defendant urges — that his challenge has arrived 
at the third stage, still we would find against him. 
 
“At the third stage of the Wheeler/Batson inquiry, ‘the 
issue comes down to whether the trial court finds the 
prosecutor’s [group]-neutral explanations to be credible.’ ”  
(Lenix, supra, 44 Cal.4th at p. 613.)  “Review of a trial court’s 
denial of a Wheeler/Batson motion is deferential, examining only 
whether substantial evidence supports its conclusions. . . .  ‘So 
long as the trial court makes a sincere and reasoned effort to 
evaluate the nondiscriminatory justifications offered, its 
conclusions are entitled to deference on appeal.’ ”  (Id. at pp. 613-
614.)  Defendant urges us not to accord deference to the trial 
court’s decision because, in his view, the court did not make a 
“sincere and reasoned effort” to evaluate the prosecutor’s 
reasons.  In particular, defendant faults the court for not 
evaluating “any of the actual reasons given by the prosecutor” 
and instead speaking only in the hypothetical, stating that “the 
questionnaire is replete with questions that would give you 
information for preempts.”  
 
 
Contrary to defendant’s assertion, the trial court’s 
statements indicate it did generally evaluate the prosecutor’s 
proffered reasons — responses on the written questionnaire — 
for excusing the prospective jurors.  As the trial court observed, 
“it appears that there certainly are secular reasons for excusing 
each of the jurors, and it clearly — in the process that we’ve gone 
through, the record obviously reflects that the questionnaire is 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
30 
replete with questions that would give you information for 
preempts on both sides.”  Defendant makes much of the fact that 
the court used the conditional tense, i.e., that it stated the 
questionnaire “would give you information for preempts on both 
sides” and not that the questionnaire did supply information to 
strike the jurors.  But the court’s phrasing is understandable in 
light of the fact that it ruled against defendant at the first stage 
and made a third-stage finding only were it, counterfactually, to 
reach the matter. 
In any event, we find substantial evidence to support the 
trial court’s denial of defendant’s Batson/Wheeler challenge.  The 
prosecutor’s reasons for striking Prospective Juror No. 6 are 
plausible and supported.  The prosecution expected defendant 
to argue — partly through the use of psychiatric testimony — 
that he did not deserve the death penalty because he suffered 
childhood abuse, alcoholism, and mental illnesses.  Juror No. 6 
indicated that she was receptive to such arguments.  It was 
therefore sound trial strategy for the prosecution to have struck 
her.  (See, e.g., Gutierrez, supra, 2 Cal.5th at p. 1168; see also 
People v. Cunningham (2015) 61 Cal.4th 609, 665 [crediting a 
prospective juror’s receptivity to psychological testimony as a 
race-neutral reason for the prosecutor to have struck her when 
the defense was expected to rely heavily on such testimony]; 
People v. Watson (2008) 43 Cal.4th 652, 676-678 [finding no 
Batson/Wheeler error when a juror was struck because she may 
have been “overly sympathetic” to the defendant’s evidence “of 
abuse and neglect during his childhood”].) 
Defendant argues that the prosecution had no genuine 
reason to want to strike a prospective juror who was receptive 
to psychiatry.  Defendant contends that a juror’s attitude to 
psychiatry was a neutral factor, as a psychiatrist was also 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
31 
expected to testify for the prosecution.  But the prosecution 
could have judged that a juror not so inclined to believe in 
psychiatric testimony altogether might be better for its case.  
However correct was its judgment, we see little to suggest that 
it exercised its peremptory challenge improperly.  (See, e.g., 
Gutierrez, supra, 2 Cal.5th at p. 1171.) 
Defendant also argues that the prosecution should not 
have relied on Prospective Juror No. 6’s response to Question 
No. 129 because the question was asked in a leading manner.  
Yet, simply because the juror may not have focused on 
“childhood abuse, brutal parents, alcoholism, [and] illnesses” 
until prompted by the question does not mean her response was 
unreliable.  There is nothing to indicate that the prosecution 
behaved disingenuously in reading the juror’s answer as 
indicating that she was sympathetic to defendant’s case in 
mitigation. 
Other evidence supports the conclusion that the 
prosecutor’s reasons for striking Prospective Juror No. 6 were 
genuinely held.  (See, e.g., People v. Hardy (2018) 5 Cal.5th 56, 
76.)  First, we have the prosecution’s oral examination of the 
juror.  Far from being desultory, the prosecutor during voir dire 
explored the same topics from the questionnaire that ultimately 
motivated him to excuse the juror.  For example, the prosecutor 
asked Juror No. 6 about her “curios[ity] about the criminal 
mind,” and she responded that she wanted an explanation for 
why criminals do what they do and that “childhood abuse or 
brutal parents or alcoholism” could be an explanation for why 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
32 
people commit crimes.8  The juror also confirmed that she 
wanted to know about “abuse or alcoholism, or illness” before 
deciding on the penalty.  The fact that the prosecutor took the 
time to ask Juror No. 6 about areas that concerned him suggests 
that he was not using her written answers as a pretext for 
excluding her. 
Second, we note that two Catholic jurors sat on the jury. 
Of course, the presence of Catholic jurors on the jury is “not 
conclusive” to our inquiry, because the “[e]xclusion of even one 
prospective juror for reasons impermissible under Batson and 
Wheeler constitutes structural error” regardless of how many 
other venire members were not so erroneously excluded.  (People 
v. Turner (1994) 8 Cal.4th 137, 168; Gutierrez, supra, 2 Cal.5th 
at p. 1158; see also People v. Motton (1985) 39 Cal.3d 596, 607-
608; People v. Snow (1987) 44 Cal.3d 216, 225.)  Nonetheless, a 
prosecutor’s acceptance of a jury with members of a group that 
the prosecutor allegedly discriminated against “strongly 
suggests that [bias] was not a motive in his challenge” and, as 
such, is “an appropriate factor . . . to consider” in the 
Batson/Wheeler analysis.  (Lenix, supra, 44 Cal.4th at p. 629; 
Turner, supra, 8 Cal.4th at p. 168; see also People v. Blacksher 
(2011) 52 Cal.4th 769, 802; People v. Jones (2011) 51 Cal.4th 
346, 362-363 (Jones);  People v. Kelly (2007) 42 Cal.4th 763, 780.)  
The trial court did not give this circumstance much weight 
because it thought that the prosecution had run out of 
                                        
8  
The prospective juror went so far as to state that none of 
the people she knew who had been abused as children grew up 
“normal,” as they either “abused their kids or . . . follow[] 
through with how they were raised.”  “In a way,” she said, “it 
seems like they can’t help it because that’s the way they were 
raised, but it’s not an excuse.” 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
33 
peremptory challenges and thus had to accept the jury.  This 
was incorrect.  Prior to exhausting its peremptory challenges, 
the prosecution had accepted the jury with three Catholics on 
the panel.  It was only after the defense struck one more juror 
that the prosecution exercised its two remaining challenges and 
excused another Catholic prospective juror (Prospective Juror 
No. 141).  The fact that the prosecution accepted a panel with 
three Catholic jurors on it when it could have winnowed the 
number to one is another piece of evidence suggesting that the 
prosecutor did not harbor group bias against Catholics. 
Against the substantial evidence supporting the trial 
court’s decision, defendant urges us to undertake a comparative 
juror analysis.  According to defendant, a comparison of 
Prospective Juror No. 6’s answers against those of seated jurors 
shows that the prosecutor’s reasons for excusing Juror No. 6 
were pretextual, as many jurors gave answers similar to those 
of Juror No. 6 but the prosecution did not strike them.  Having 
examined the record ourselves, we do not agree that the seated 
jurors were comparable to Juror No. 6. 
“Comparative juror analysis is evidence that, while 
subject to inherent limitations, must be considered when 
reviewing claims of error at Wheeler/Batson’s third stage when 
the defendant relies on such evidence and the record is adequate 
to permit the comparisons.  In those circumstances, comparative 
juror analysis must be performed on appeal even when such an 
analysis was not conducted below.”  (Lenix, supra, 44 Cal.4th at 
p. 607.)  Because defendant did not attempt such a comparison 
during trial, “the prosecutor was not given the opportunity to 
explain his reasons for dismissing [the challenged jurors] while 
later retaining [the seated jurors].”  (People v. O’Malley (2016) 
62 Cal.4th 944, 977.)  Under such circumstances, we “ ‘must not 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
34 
turn a blind eye to reasons the record discloses for not 
challenging other jurors even if those other jurors are similar in 
some respects to excused jurors.’ ”  (Ibid.; see Jones, supra, 51 
Cal.4th at pp. 365-366.)  Hence, to determine whether the seated 
jurors were truly comparable to the challenged juror, we may 
look at more than just the specific questions from the 
questionnaire that the prosecutor cited in explaining his 
decision to strike Prospective Juror No. 6.  (O’Malley, supra, 62 
Cal.4th at p. 977; Jones, supra, 51 Cal.4th at p. 365 [rejecting 
the defendant’s argument that the court “may not consider 
reasons not stated on the record for accepting other jurors”].)  
Defendant is wrong to suggest otherwise and did not respond to 
the Attorney General’s extensive showing that the unexcused 
jurors were, in many respects, more favorable to the prosecution 
than Juror No. 6. 
Furthermore, the sworn jurors did not give substantially 
the same answers as Prospective Juror No. 6 on the specific 
questions mentioned by the prosecutor.  Defendant strings 
together a number of jurors whose answers were somewhat 
similar to Juror No. 6’s on either the questions about psychiatric 
attitude (Question Nos. 112 and 113 in particular) or the 
question about the important factors in deciding on penalty 
(Question No. 129).  However, just three of those jurors gave 
purportedly similar answers to Juror No. 6 on both sets of 
questions.  Other jurors gave answers similar to those of Juror 
No. 6 on only one of the two areas.  These jurors are thus not 
comparable to Juror No. 6 at the outset.  (See Lenix, supra, 44 
Cal.4th at p. 624 [“Two panelists might give a similar answer on 
a given point.  Yet the risk posed by one panelist might be offset 
by other answers, behavior, attitudes or experiences that make 
one juror, on balance, more or less desirable.”]; id. at p. 631 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
35 
[“Advocates do not evaluate panelists based on a single answer.  
Likewise, reviewing courts should not do so.”].) 
The answers of the remaining three jurors do little to 
strengthen defendant’s case.  Of these jurors, none said — as 
Prospective Juror No. 6 did — that psychological testing 
“determines what is the true feelings of [a] person.”  Unlike 
Juror No. 6, they also did not say that psychology or psychiatry 
is “very helpful” “to explain human behavior.”  Instead, when 
asked for an opinion on “the use of psychology or psychiatry to 
explain [such] behavior,” Juror No. 253 simply said, “I do not 
know what other field deals with human behavior”; Juror No. 
334 gave the circumspect answer of, “It could be reasonable 
depending on how it is presented”; and Juror No. 338 answered 
somewhat ambivalently, “Perhaps to explain the motivational 
factors behind the crime.  Also, to permit introduction of 
mitigating/extenuating circumstances.”  Moreover, these seated 
jurors did not identify specific factors that were important to 
them at the penalty phase.  Juror Nos. 253 and 338 simply said, 
“yes” when asked if there is “any type of information regarding 
a defendant’s background or character that would be important 
to you when choosing between life without parole and death.”  
Juror No. 334 gave the even weaker answer of, “Depend on the 
evidence.”  None of the three jurors singled out “childhood abuse, 
brutal parents, alcoholism, illnesses” as did Juror No. 6. 
The comparative juror analysis, in short, does not 
persuade us that it is more likely than not that the prosecution’s 
reasons for excusing Prospective Juror No. 6 were pretextual.  
Defendant’s other arguments fare no better, and we affirm the 
trial court’s denial of defendant’s Batson/Wheeler challenge. 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
36 
B.  Guilt Phase Issues 
1.  Admission of defendant’s confession 
Defendant contends his confession on April 22, 1999 and 
all subsequent statements should have been excluded because 
his invocation of the right against self-incrimination on April 21 
was not honored and his waiver under Miranda, supra, 384 U.S. 
436 was involuntary.  As explained below, we agree that the 
investigator should have stopped the interrogation on April 21 
sooner than he did but disagree that the failure compels the 
exclusion of the confession obtained on April 22 or thereafter.  
We therefore reject defendant’s claim that the court erred in 
admitting his statements. 
a.  Background 
Before trial began, defendant filed a motion to suppress 
his April 22 confession and all following statements.  At the 
hearing on the motion to suppress, Hobson testified.  Hobson 
stated that he met with defendant for the first time in March 
1999, after defendant had been arrested for violating his parole.  
At that time, defendant was one of 13 to 16 individuals who, 
because of their prior commission of sexual offenses, were being 
questioned regarding the disappearance of the two victims.  
Without giving defendant the warnings required by Miranda, 
Hobson interviewed him for an hour or so.  Defendant told 
Hobson that he knew he would be questioned about the 
disappearance of the two women, and he was willing to 
cooperate in the investigation because he was confident the 
investigation would establish his innocence.  He also told 
Hobson the police could search his vehicles and his house at any 
time, and that he was willing to answer questions that arose in 
the future. 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
37 
In early April 1999, Hobson met again with defendant at 
the San Luis Obispo Police Department.  Hobson asked 
defendant to submit to a polygraph examination, and defendant 
eventually agreed.  The polygraph examiner advised defendant, 
both orally and in writing, of his Miranda rights, and defendant 
signed a statement waiving those rights.  Defendant began the 
polygraph 
examination, 
but 
terminated 
it 
before 
the 
examination was completed. 
After the polygraph examination ended, Hobson again 
talked to defendant.  Hobson asked defendant if he remembered 
the Miranda rights that the polygraph examiner had read him.  
Defendant indicated that he remembered them and stated that 
he was willing to talk to Hobson.  During the 30- to 40-minute 
interview that followed, Hobson asked him again where he was 
on various dates.  Defendant readily answered questions and 
reiterated that he was confident that the investigation would 
clear him of any involvement in the two cases. 
On April 21, 1999, Hobson met defendant at the jail and 
asked if he was still willing to talk and cooperate with the 
investigation.  Defendant said he was.  Hobson transported 
defendant to the police department, where the subsequent 
questioning was recorded.  At the beginning of the interview, 
Hobson asked defendant if he still knew the rights the polygraph 
examiner had read him.  Defendant confirmed that he knew 
those rights, and Hobson stated, “those are the rights that still 
apply here.” 
Defendant was initially cooperative.  However, once 
Hobson began confronting him with physical evidence 
connecting him to the crimes — the eight-ball keychain found in 
defendant’s possession that resembled Crawford’s and the blood 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
38 
found on defendant’s jump seat that matched Newhouse’s — 
defendant lapsed into silence.  During the next 15 or 16 minutes, 
defendant remained silent while Hobson urged him to give an 
account of what happened.  Defendant eventually stated, “Put 
me down in a holding cell and let me think, all right?”  When 
Hobson did not honor the request, defendant said that if Hobson 
“sit[s] there and tr[ies] [to] keep beating on [him],” he was “not 
gonna say nothing.”  After some more back-and-forth, Hobson 
agreed to give defendant a 10-minute break and left. 
Hobson returned approximately five minutes later, telling 
defendant, “we know you did it . . . .  What matters is why you 
did it.”  In response, defendant whispered, “Take me back to 
jail.”  Hobson asked if defendant did not want to help him, and 
defendant confirmed, “Not right now.”  Hobson continued 
talking, and defendant said, “Nothing to say Larry.” 
Hobson then spoke some more.  Defendant indicated for 
the second time that he had “[n]othing to say.”  At this point, 
Hobson agreed to take defendant back to jail, saying that 
defendant should call him when he was ready to talk.  Hobson 
then stated, “I’ll take you back out just like I brought you in.  
You’re on a parole hold,”9 and defendant responded, “I’m on 
parole hold forever.” 
As Hobson and defendant were leaving to return to the 
jail, defendant asked Hobson for a cigarette and for him to drive 
around a while so defendant could smoke.  During the ride, 
Hobson asked defendant more questions.  For instance, when he 
                                        
9  
The transcript included the parenthetical “(Meaning he 
was not being arrested for the murders of Rachel and Aundria)” 
following Hobson’s statement that defendant was “on a parole 
hold.” 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
39 
heard defendant in the back seat crying and mumbling to 
himself, Hobson asked what defendant was thinking.  When 
they arrived at the entrance to the jail facility, Hobson asked 
defendant whether he was willing to take him to the victims.  
Defendant told Hobson to turn into the facility instead, and 
Hobson complied.  As they were walking to the jail, Hobson also 
asked if, in the event Hobson did not hear back from defendant, 
he would be willing to let Hobson return the next day.  
Defendant responded, “ “Maybe I’ll deal with it tomorrow.’ ”  
Their conversation ended at approximately 2:00 or 2:30 p.m. 
At approximately 9:45 a.m. on April 22, Hobson arrived 
uninvited back at the jail facility.  He met with defendant in an 
employee break room, and had defendant brought to him 
without handcuffs or other restraints.  Hobson testified at the 
suppression hearing that he chose the break room instead of the 
police department because he “wanted it to be a noncustodial-
type situation,” where defendant would not “feel any type of 
coercion.”  Once defendant arrived, Hobson began talking, 
observing that the situation with the disappearance of the two 
victims was not going to go away.  Hobson stated that the 
investigation painted a terrible picture, and he wanted to hear 
defendant’s side of the story, which might be different.  
Defendant told Hobson that Hobson was wrong, that “I’m 
nothing but an animal, and I don’t deserve to live.”  Defendant 
also mumbled, “Nothing can justify what I did.”  The first 
statement (“I’m nothing but an animal, and I don’t deserve to 
live”) came within five minutes of Hobson initiating 
conversation with defendant, and the second (“Nothing can 
justify what I did”) followed shortly thereafter. 
When Hobson returned to topics he had broached 
previously, defendant asked Hobson what he wanted defendant 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
40 
to tell him.  Hobson said he wanted the truth.  Defendant 
responded, “Okay.  But I don’t want to talk here.”  Hobson 
agreed to take him to the police department. 
Before transporting defendant from the jail, Hobson 
informed defendant that he “wanted to make sure [defendant] 
understood exactly what we were going to be doing and the 
questions I was going to be asking . . . so we didn’t spend another 
two hours of wasted time.”  Hobson then read defendant his 
Miranda rights, and defendant acknowledged that he 
understood them.  Hobson asked defendant if he was responsible 
for the disappearance and deaths of the two victims, and 
defendant said he was.  Hobson subsequently arranged for 
defendant to be transported to the San Luis Obispo Police 
Department.  The interaction at the jail took “a total of 30 
minutes from the time [Hobson] walked in until the time [he] 
left.” 
Upon arriving at the police department, Hobson advised 
defendant of his Miranda rights for the second time that day 
and asked if he understood them.  Defendant answered in the 
affirmative.  He then provided a detailed confession to the 
crimes as described ante, part I.A.2. 
Hobson followed the same advisement procedure when he 
interviewed defendant on April 27.  During this interrogation, 
Hobson asked defendant if he had “always talked to [Hobson] 
voluntarily.”  Defendant agreed that he had.  Although the 
interview was primarily devoted to obtaining more details about 
the kidnappings and killings of Newhouse and Crawford, 
Hobson also asked defendant toward the end of the 
interrogation what prompted him to confess.  Defendant 
responded, “[c]ause what I did was wrong.”  When asked if 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
41 
anything Hobson told him “convinced [him] that [he] should 
talk,” defendant responded, “[b]lood on my car seat.”  Defendant 
distinguished between the two pieces of physical evidence the 
police had at that time, the eight-ball keychain and the blood.  
With regard to the blood, defendant said he “knew what was 
there” and so knew that the police were not “bluffing.”  He 
confirmed that if all Hobson had was the keychain, he would not 
have confessed. 
After listening to Hobson’s testimony and reviewing the 
taped confessions, the trial court denied defendant’s motion to 
suppress.  In its order, the trial court noted that defendant had 
first been advised of his Miranda rights on April 1 and had 
agreed to discuss the case with Hobson.  It further noted that on 
April 21, defendant said he recalled his rights.  The court found 
that on April 21 “defendant had invoked his right to remain 
silent” but did not resolve when exactly he did so.  The court 
further reasoned that Hobson “stumbled in his attempt to 
honor” defendant’s invocation when Hobson asked defendant at 
the end of the drive to take Hobson to the victims.  However, the 
court concluded that Hobson’s inappropriate “contact was 
terminated at the jail in late afternoon at approximately 4:00 
p.m” when Hobson dropped defendant off.  Furthermore, 
“[d]efendant at that time indicated that he might be willing to 
speak with Hobson the next day:  ‘Maybe.  I’ll deal with it 
tomorrow.’ ”10  Based on these facts, the court concluded that 
                                        
10  
The trial court’s order includes a period after “Maybe.”  
The court reporter transcribed Hobson’s testimony as stating, 
“Maybe I’ll deal with that tomorrow.”  Moreover, Hobson 
testified that their conversation on April 21 ended at 
approximately 2:00 or 2:30 p.m., rather than at 4:00 p.m. as the 
 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
42 
defendant’s “request to cease questioning then was honored 
within the meaning of federal law.” 
Turning to the events of April 22, the trial court rejected 
the Attorney General’s argument that defendant was not in 
custody when Hobson approached him that morning.  Although 
defendant’s jailed status “was due to parole violations,” the court 
found that a reasonable person would believe he was in custody 
“on the case in question.”  As such, defendant was in custody for 
Miranda purposes and “should have been advised of his 
Miranda rights or at least reminded of them by Investigator 
Hobson.”  Because Hobson failed to do so,  the court excluded 
defendant’s inculpatory statements that were made before 
Hobson read defendant his Miranda rights, i.e., the statements 
“I’m nothing but an animal.  I don’t deserve to live” and “Nothing 
can justify what I did.”  The court nonetheless concluded that 
these admissions were voluntary.  
Finally, the trial court found all statements taken after 
Hobson gave defendant his Miranda warnings on April 22 were 
admissible.  It reasoned that Hobson had “obtained implied 
waivers,” and “[t]here is no evidence that defendant’s will was 
overcome.”  We review these findings below. 
b.  Analysis 
 
We begin with the uncontroverted premise that 
statements made by a defendant subject to custodial 
interrogation are inadmissible (for certain purposes) unless the 
defendant was “warned that he has a right to remain silent, that 
                                        
trial court’s order stated.  The Attorney General’s brief quotes 
the reporter’s transcript, with no period after “maybe,” and 
recites that Hobson dropped defendant off at the jail at about 
2:00 or 2:30 p.m. 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
43 
any statement he does make may be used as evidence against 
him, and that he has a right to the presence of an attorney, 
either retained or appointed.”  (Miranda, supra, 384 U.S. at 
p. 444; see Harris v. New York (1971) 401 U.S. 222, 224.)  “The 
defendant may waive effectuation of these rights, provided the 
waiver is made voluntarily, knowingly and intelligently.”  
(Miranda, supra, 384 U.S. at p. 444.) 
 
“On appeal, we review independently the trial court’s legal 
determinations of whether a defendant’s . . . Miranda waivers 
were knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily made [citation], 
and whether his later actions constituted an invocation of his 
right to silence [citation].  We evaluate the trial court’s factual 
findings 
regarding 
the 
circumstances 
surrounding 
the 
defendant’s statements and waivers, and “ ‘ “accept the trial 
court’s resolution of disputed facts and inferences, and its 
evaluations 
of 
credibility, 
if 
supported 
by 
substantial 
evidence.” ’ ”  (People v. Rundle (2008) 43 Cal.4th 76, 115 
(Rundle).) 
 
Independent of whether a defendant’s rights under 
Miranda were observed, his or her statements may not be 
admitted unless they were voluntary.  “The court in making a 
voluntariness determination ‘examines “whether a defendant’s 
will was overborne” by the circumstances surrounding the 
giving of a confession.’ ”  (Rundle, supra, 43 Cal.4th at p. 114.)  
The prosecution bears the burden of proof and must show “by a 
preponderance of the evidence the statements were, in fact, 
voluntary.”  (Ibid.) 
i.  Custody status 
As a threshold matter, the Attorney General argues that 
defendant was not in custody when he confessed and so Miranda 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
44 
has no application.  (People v. Stansbury (1995) 9 Cal.4th 824, 
833 [“ ‘Miranda warnings are required only where there has 
been such a restriction on a person’s freedom as to render him 
“in custody” ’ ”].)  The Attorney General acknowledges that 
defendant was under arrest and held in county jail when Hobson 
questioned him, but maintains that such restriction on 
defendant’s freedom related only to his parole violations.  As 
such, he was not in custody “for Miranda purposes as to the 
Newhouse/Crawford cases at the time he confessed to the 
crimes.”  The trial court rejected this argument, and so do we. 
We recognize that a formal arrest does not always 
constitute custody for Miranda purposes.  (See Maryland v. 
Shatzer (2010) 559 U.S. 98, 112 (Shatzer); Howes v. Fields (2012) 
565 U.S. 499, 509 (Howes).)  In Shatzer, supra, 559 U.S. at page 
112, the high court explained that such an arrest or the 
equivalent restraint in freedom of movement is “only a 
necessary and not a sufficient condition for Miranda custody.”  
In particular, an incarcerated person who is interrogated by the 
police is not necessarily in Miranda custody.  This is because 
such a person is not always exposed to “the coercive pressures 
identified in Miranda.”  (Id. at p. 113; see also Howes, supra, 565 
U.S. at pp. 508-509 [“ ‘custody’ is a term of art that specifies 
circumstances that are thought generally to present a serious 
danger of coercion”].) 
The high court returned to the same theme in Howes.  The 
court began by identifying “three strong grounds” why an 
incarcerated person may not experience the coercive pressure of 
Miranda custody.  (Howes, supra, 565 U.S. at p. 511.)  “First, 
questioning a person who is already serving a prison term does 
not generally involve the shock that very often accompanies 
arrest.”  (Ibid.)  “Second, a prisoner, unlike a person who has not 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
45 
been sentenced to a term of incarceration, is unlikely to be lured 
into speaking by a longing for prompt release.”  (Ibid.)  “Third, 
a prisoner, unlike a person who has not been convicted and 
sentenced, knows that the law enforcement officers who 
question him probably lack the authority to affect the duration 
of his sentence.”  (Id. at p. 512.)  Reviewing the facts of the case 
before it, the court concluded that the prisoner “was not in 
custody within the meaning of Miranda.”  (Id. at p. 517.)  In 
coming to this conclusion, the court took “into account all of the 
circumstances of the questioning” but thought the “[m]ost 
important” factor was that the prisoner had been “told at the 
outset of the interrogation, and reminded thereafter, that he 
could leave and go back to his cell whenever he wanted.”  (Id. at 
pp. 517, 515.) 
This case is different from Shatzer or Howes.  In those 
cases, a person serving a prison sentence was brought in for 
questioning on an unrelated crime.  By contrast, here defendant 
was not serving a term of incarceration when he was questioned, 
and it is difficult to separate his jailed status from the 
investigation into the Newhouse and Crawford murders.  
Although the legal justification for defendant’s detention was a 
parole violation, the impetus for the arrest was the perceived 
similarity between defendant’s prior crimes and Crawford’s 
disappearance.  Moreover, defendant’s interactions with law 
enforcement after his arrest all concerned the Newhouse and 
Crawford investigation.  At the time of his confession on April 
22, defendant had been repeatedly questioned about the 
disappearance of these two women.  With good reason then, 
defendant appeared to have understood that his custodial 
status, although technically a parole hold, was connected to the 
Newhouse and Crawford matters.  This explains defendant’s 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
46 
uncontradicted statement that he was going to be on parole hold 
“forever,” something that seems unlikely were defendant held 
only for drinking alcohol and possessing something that looked 
like a firearm. 
All this matters because, in such circumstances, the 
rationales given in Howes concerning why a person would not 
necessarily feel the coercive pressure of interrogation fall away.  
Unlike the defendant in Howes, defendant was recently arrested 
and presumably still experiencing “the shock that very often 
accompanies arrest.”  (Howes, supra, 565 U.S. at p. 511.)  He 
likely hoped for “prompt release” and so might have been lured 
into speaking.  (Ibid.)  Finally, he might well have thought that 
Hobson had “the authority to affect the duration” of his parole 
hold.  (Id. at p. 512.)  Because law enforcement interest in 
defendant 
appeared 
to 
have 
been 
motivated 
by 
the 
disappearance of the two women, defendant might reasonably 
have thought that if he could convince Hobson he was not 
responsible for what happened to Newhouse and Crawford, he 
might be released.  This explains defendant’s willingness to 
cooperate with the police — including by voluntarily answering 
questions, giving law enforcement permission to search his 
property, and undergoing a polygraph examination. 
Moreover, we find that defendant was, in fact, subject to 
the coercive pressure associated with interrogation.  At no point 
was defendant told that he “could leave and go back to his cell 
[at the county jail] whenever he wanted.”  (Howes, supra, 565 
U.S. at p. 515.)  Indeed, when defendant asked to be taken back 
to jail on April 21, Hobson took some time to accede to the 
request.  Hobson also used the time in the interim to try to elicit 
incriminating responses from defendant — that is, to subject 
him to interrogation.  (See Rhode Island v. Innis (1980) 446 U.S. 
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Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
47 
291, 300-301; Shatzer, supra, 559 U.S. at p. 112 [reasoning that 
“the coercive pressure that Miranda was designed to guard 
against” was the “ ‘danger of coercion [that] results from the 
interaction of custody and official interrogation’ ”, italics 
omitted].) 
 
Considering 
the 
circumstances surrounding 
defendant’s interrogation, we cannot say that a reasonable 
person in his position “ ‘would have felt free to terminate the 
interview and leave.’ ”  (Howes, supra, 565 U.S. at p. 515.)  We 
therefore find that defendant was in custody for Miranda 
purposes when he confessed. 
ii.  Waiver and confession 
We now address the merits of defendant’s claim that his 
confession should have been suppressed.  Because defendant 
seeks to suppress the statements that he gave on April 22 and 
thereafter, we begin with the circumstances most immediately 
surrounding these statements.  The statements — detailed, 
recorded admissions of how defendant kidnapped, raped, and 
murdered Newhouse and Crawford — were taken after Hobson 
advised defendant of his Miranda rights and confirmed that he 
understood them.  As long as defendant validly waived the 
Miranda protection and voluntarily confessed, the statements 
are admissible.  (See Missouri v. Seibert (2004) 542 U.S. 600, 
608-609 (Seibert) [“giving the warnings and getting a waiver has 
generally produced a virtual ticket of admissibility; maintaining 
that a statement is involuntary even though given after 
warnings and voluntary waiver of rights requires unusual 
stamina, and litigation over voluntariness tends to end with the 
finding of a valid waiver”].) 
A valid waiver need not be express, but “may be implied 
from the defendant’s words and actions.”  (People v. Parker 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
48 
(2017) 2 Cal.5th 1184, 1216 (Parker).)  When a suspect “ ‘having 
heard and understood a full explanation of his or her Miranda 
rights, then makes an uncompelled and uncoerced decision to 
talk, he or she has thereby knowingly, voluntarily, and 
intelligently waived them.’ ”  (Id. at p. 1216.) 
There is no question that defendant “heard and 
understood a full explanation” of his rights.  (Parker, supra, 2 
Cal.5th at p. 1216.)  On April 22, Hobson twice read defendant 
his rights, and defendant expressly stated that he understood 
them.  Moreover, defendant “had extensive prior experience 
with the criminal justice system,” having been convicted of 
numerous felonies before being interrogated in this case.  (Ibid.)  
Such familiarity bolsters the conclusion that defendant had “full 
awareness of both the nature of the right being abandoned and 
the consequences of the decision to abandon it.”  (Moran v. 
Burbine (1986) 475 U.S. 412, 421; see also Parker, supra, 2 
Cal.5th at p. 1216 [crediting such prior experience with the 
criminal justice system].) 
Likewise, there is no dispute that defendant spoke to 
Hobson — and so “act[ed] in a manner inconsistent” with the 
exercise of his Miranda rights.  (Berghuis v. Thompkins (2010) 
560 U.S. 370, 385 (Berghuis).)  After being apprised of his rights, 
defendant “proceeded to actively participate in the conversation 
with the detective[] — answering questions, asking for 
clarification, and generally contributing to a discussion he knew 
was being tape-recorded.”  (Parker, supra, 2 Cal.5th at p. 1216.)  
He did not once mention an attorney.  Such conduct suggests 
that defendant “has made a deliberate choice to relinquish the 
protection those rights afford.”  (Berghuis, supra, 560 U.S. at 
p. 385.) 
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49 
We now turn to the question whether the waiver and 
confession were voluntary.  The waiver in this case is inferred 
from defendant’s confession, and defendant maintains that both 
were involuntarily given because he was coerced.  Defendant 
lists a host of “tactics” that he said were “designed to overcome 
[his] decision not to incriminate himself,” including “repeated 
questioning after invocation, lies and misrepresentations 
concerning the evidence, implied promises of leniency and 
benefits, verbal commands to talk, physical touching, and an 
approach of ‘softening-up’ [defendant].” 
Before addressing each of these interrogation techniques, 
we note the following.  First, when asked at the April 27 
interview, defendant agreed that he had “always talked to 
[Hobson] voluntarily,” and that Hobson had “never coerced 
[him], threatened [him], [or] promised [him] anything.”  (See, 
e.g., People v. Spencer (2018) 5 Cal.5th 642, 673 (Spencer) 
[taking account of the fact the defendant “acknowledged at the 
end of the interview that his confession was ‘free and voluntarily 
given’ ” and that “the officers made him no promises and that 
they did not threaten him”]; People v. Dykes (2009) 46 Cal.4th 
731, 753 (Dykes) [similar].) 
Second, and more important, defendant himself identified 
why he confessed.  The reasons did not involve any interrogation 
tactic that he now claims was coercive.  Instead, defendant said 
he confessed because he felt “what [he] did was wrong” and 
because the police had recovered blood from his vehicle’s seat.  
Of all the things Hobson told him, defendant said it was 
Hobson’s disclosure that the police had found blood on his 
truck’s jump seat that “convinced [him] that [he] should talk.”  
Hobson’s statement that the police had found Newhouse’s blood 
on defendant’s jump seat was true and cannot be said to have 
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50 
been coercive.  (People v. Holloway (2004) 33 Cal.4th 96, 115 
(Holloway) [stating that proper questioning “ ‘may include 
exchanges of information, [and] summaries of evidence . . .’ ”].)  
Defendant’s own words thus undermine his claim that he 
involuntarily confessed because of coercion. 
We nonetheless examine seriatim the complained-of 
interrogation techniques.  We do not find that, individually or 
collectively, these techniques served to overbear defendant’s will 
or to render his confessions involuntary.  Defendant first claims 
that Hobson improperly “continu[ed] to attempt to convince 
[defendant] to talk on April 21st after repeated invocations of 
[his] right to remain silent.”  We will return below to the claim 
that defendant “repeated[ly]” invoked his right to remain silent 
on April 21.  For the purpose of determining whether the 
confessions were voluntary, however, it is enough to observe 
that — even assuming Hobson failed to heed defendant’s 
invocations of the right to remain silent on April 21 — that 
failure did not produce the confession on April 22 or the 
statements thereafter.  (See People v. Williams (2010) 49 Cal. 
4th 405, 437 (Williams) [“A confession is not involuntary unless 
the coercive police conduct and the defendant’s statement are 
causally related”].) 
There is no evidence that what Hobson said to defendant 
after he lapsed into silence — the earliest time defendant claims 
he invoked his right against self-incrimination — caused 
defendant to confess.  Hobson had already told defendant about 
the blood found in his truck before defendant stopped 
responding to questions.  Thereafter, Hobson repeated the same 
exhortations to tell the truth that he employed before defendant 
stopped talking.  Defendant was not swayed by what Hobson 
said, telling Hobson that if he “keep[s] beating on me,” “[t]hen 
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I’m not gonna say nothing.  I know me.”  And indeed, defendant 
made no inculpatory statement on April 21.  It was not until the 
following day, after a night away from any importuning by 
Hobson, that defendant made the inculpatory statements. 
In light of these facts, we find that Hobson’s “continuing 
to attempt to convince [defendant] to talk on April 21” did not 
cause defendant to confess and so did not render his confession 
on April 22 or thereafter involuntary.  (See People v. Carrington 
(2009) 47 Cal.4th 145, 172 (Carrington) [“we conclude that 
Sergeant Sherman’s comments did not affect defendant’s 
decision to confess to the murder of Esparza, because she 
maintained her innocence during the remainder of the second 
interview and, during the third interview, revealed that she 
already was aware that [what the sergeant said was false]”]; 
Rundle, supra, 43 Cal.4th at p. 114  [“Coercive police tactics by 
themselves do not render a defendant’s statements involuntary 
if the defendant’s free will was not in fact overborne by the 
coercion and his decision to speak instead was based upon some 
other consideration”].) 
We come to the same conclusion with regard to defendant’s 
assertions that Hobson engaged in “lies and misrepresentations 
concerning the evidence, implied promises of leniency and 
benefits, verbal commands to talk, physical touching, and an 
approach of ‘softening-up’ [defendant].”  Defendant complains 
that Hobson lied to him when he told him that the eight-ball 
keychain had been “ ‘tested’ and found to have been 
manufactured” later than when defendant said he found the 
item.  Defendant, however, expressly disclaimed that the eight-
ball keychain in itself caused him to confess, answering “[n]o” 
when Hobson asked, “What if all I had was the 8 ball? . . .  Would 
you have confessed?”  Moreover, “[t]he use of deceptive 
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52 
statements during an interrogation . . . does not invalidate a 
confession unless the deception is ‘ “ ‘of a type reasonably likely 
to procure an untrue statement.’ ” ’ ”  (Carrington, supra, 47 
Cal.4th at p. 172.)  We do not think that Hobson’s representation 
about the keychain is of such a type.  (See People v. Smith (2007) 
40 Cal.4th 483, 505-506 (Smith) [listing cases in which courts 
have found similar deceptive interrogation tactics permissible].) 
Defendant also claims that Hobson misrepresented that 
“three witnesses will testify” to seeing defendant’s vehicle in 
Crawford’s neighborhood.  Defendant characterizes this as a 
“lie,” because “[n]o such witnesses were ever called.”  Yet, weeks 
before he confessed, defendant himself admitted that he had 
driven down Crawford’s street several times.  Hobson’s 
statement about the three witnesses, whether or not true, thus 
was not likely to procure an unreliable admission.  (Carrington, 
supra, 47 Cal.4th at p. 172.) 
Defendant attempts to bolster his argument about the 
supposed 
misrepresentations 
by 
claiming 
that 
Hobson 
“maximize[d] the psychological effect of his lies by repeatedly 
insisting that he could be trusted.”  We do not find that such 
statements are either inherently coercive or here served to 
undermine defendant’s will.  Certainly, however many times 
Hobson told defendant that he could trust him, defendant was 
not inclined to believe Hobson or confess because of the “lies.”  
We should not forget that defendant was a grown man, 
experienced with the criminal justice system, physically 
healthy, and displaying no indication that he was especially 
susceptible to Hobson’s representations.  As such, defendant 
was rather well placed to resist interrogation.  (See, e.g., Dykes, 
supra, 46 Cal.4th at p. 752.) 
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We are likewise unpersuaded that Hobson “falsely told 
[defendant] that the authorities would give him favorable 
consideration if [he] confessed.”  Hobson told defendant no such 
thing.  The message Hobson conveyed was that both he and the 
district attorney wanted to know defendant’s “story” and why 
defendant did what he did.  Such sentiment cannot fairly be 
taken to imply that the district attorney would give defendant 
favorable treatment.  (See Carrington, supra, 47 Cal.4th at 
p. 174 [finding that the interrogators’ statements “did not 
constitute a promise of leniency” when “[t]he interviewing 
officers did not suggest they could influence the decisions of the 
district attorney, but simply informed defendant that full 
cooperation might be beneficial in an unspecified way”].)  And 
even if what Hobson said might be construed as suggesting that 
defendant’s version of events could make a difference in how he 
was prosecuted, this was not false.  (Holloway, supra, 33 Cal.4th 
at p. 116 [observing that some circumstances “can reduce the 
degree of a homicide or, at the least, serve as arguments for 
mitigation in the penalty phase”].)  In any event, Hobson “did no 
more than tell defendant of the benefit that might ‘ “flow[] 
naturally from a truthful and honest course of conduct.” ’ ”  
(Ibid.)  Such statements did not render defendant’s subsequent 
statements involuntary.  (Id. at p. 115.) 
Defendant also complains that Hobson “physically 
touched [him] and told him that talking to Hobson was 
required.”  We do not see how the physical touching that 
occurred here was improper.  Defendant makes “no claim of 
physical intimidation or deprivation.”  (Holloway, supra, 33 
Cal.4th at p. 114.)  Instead, he objects to the occasional touches 
on his person because they were purportedly “psychologically 
powerful.”  Yet, even if the touches constituted “psychological 
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54 
ploys” and here “establish[ed] a false sense of rapport, intimacy, 
and caring,” we still do not think that they were so coercive as 
to “ ‘tend to produce a statement that is both involuntary and 
unreliable.’ ”  (Smith, supra, 40 Cal.4th at p. 501.) 
In addition, although Hobson said things like, “you got to 
talk to me man,” “[i]t’s not going away,” and, “[w]e have to deal 
with it,” it is clear that that Hobson was not requiring defendant 
talk to him but exhorting him to do so.  Moreover, defendant’s 
conduct indicates that he knew he did not have to talk to 
Hobson.  Even if his refusal to continue answering questions 
was not immediately honored on April 21, still defendant 
managed to stop the interrogation.  He did not begin talking 
again until the next morning, and he did not give a full 
confession until Hobson transported him to a place (from the jail 
to the police station) more to his liking. 
Finally, defendant relies on People v. Honeycutt (1977) 20 
Cal.3d 150 to argue that, because the waiver came on the heels 
of Hobson’s “ ‘clever softening-up’ of [defendant] without 
advising him of his rights,” the waiver was not valid.  In 
Honeycutt, we said that “[w]hen the waiver results from a clever 
softening-up of a defendant through disparagement of the victim 
and ingratiating conversation, the subsequent decision to waive 
without a Miranda warning must be deemed to be involuntary 
. . . .”  (20 Cal.3d at p. 160.)  That holding finds no application in 
this case:  Hobson did not disparage the victims, engage in 
conversations 
that 
could 
be 
fairly 
characterized 
as 
“ingratiating,” or fail to give defendant Miranda warnings 
before he confessed.  Moreover, Honeycutt has been limited to its 
facts.  In People v. Scott (2011) 52 Cal.4th 452, 478, we identified 
“the two salient features of Honeycutt” as involving (1) an 
interrogating officer who had a prior relationship with the 
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55 
defendant and who sought to “ingratiate” himself “by discussing 
‘unrelated past events and former acquaintances’ ” and (2) the 
officer disparaging the victim.  (Id. at pp. 477-478.)  When these 
two features are not present, we found reliance on Honeycutt to 
be “misplaced.”  (Id. at p. 478; see also People v. Michaels (2002) 
28 Cal.4th 486, 511 (Michaels) [rejecting the defendant’s 
reliance on Honeycutt when the facts presented “are not at all 
like Honeycutt, which . . . involved ‘an unrecorded 30-minute, 
pre-Miranda conversation, discussing mutual acquaintances, 
past events and finally the victim’ ”]; People v. Kelly (1990) 51 
Cal.3d 931, 954 [finding Honeycutt “clearly distinguishable” 
when “[n]o misconduct of [the type described in Honeycutt] 
occurred here”].)  It is likewise misplaced in this case. 
iii.  Failure to advise on April 22 
Defendant alternatively argues that we should not focus 
on the confessions obtained after the Miranda advisement on 
April 22 but rather on the events preceding that advisement.  
Specifically, defendant calls our attention to the fact Hobson did 
not initially provide him with Miranda warnings when he 
approached him on April 22.11  Only after defendant made two 
inculpatory statements — “I’m nothing but an animal, and I 
don’t deserve to live” and “Nothing can justify what I did”  — did 
Hobson read him his rights.  Defendant claims that this shows 
that Hobson engaged in an impermissible “question first, warn 
later” technique that renders the warnings ineffective.  As such, 
                                        
11  
Defendant seems to assume that the Miranda advisement 
was necessary on the morning of April 22.  It is not entirely clear 
that this is so, as defendant was reminded of his rights on April 
21 and readvisement the next day may not have been necessary.  
(See, e.g., Williams, supra, 49 Cal.4th at p. 434.)  Nonetheless, 
we engage with defendant’s arguments as he has laid them out. 
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statements made after the warnings must be excluded.  We 
cannot agree. 
Under the high court’s precedent, the mere fact that a 
defendant has made unwarned admissions does not render 
subsequent warned confessions inadmissible.  (See generally, 
Oregon v. Elstad (1985) 470 U.S. 298 (Elstad); Seibert, supra, 
542 U.S. 600.)  In Elstad, supra, 470 U.S. at page 318, the court 
held that “a suspect who has once responded to unwarned yet 
uncoercive questioning is not thereby disabled from waiving his 
rights and confessing after he has been given the requisite 
Miranda warnings.”  Instead, as long as both the initial 
unwarned statement and the subsequent warned statement are 
voluntary, the warned statement may be deemed the product of 
a defendant’s “rational and intelligent choice” to confess and so 
is admissible.  (Id. at pp. 314, 318; see also Williams, supra, 49 
Cal.4th at p. 448 [“Even when a first statement is taken in the 
absence of proper advisements and is incriminating, so long as 
the first statement was voluntary a subsequent voluntary 
confession ordinarily is not tainted simply because it was 
procured after a Miranda violation”].) 
Given that we already found the warned confession in this 
case to be voluntary, we need only examine whether defendant’s 
unwarned statements were also voluntary.  The trial court here 
found “no evidence that defendant’s will was overcome” when he 
made the unwarned statements.  We agree.  The unwarned 
portion of the interview on April 22 was short.  Hobson testified 
that his entire conversation with defendant at the jail lasted no 
more than 15 minutes and defendant made the two inculpatory 
statements within the first five minutes.  During this time, 
defendant was unrestrained and sitting in an employee break 
room.  Prior to defendant’s utterance of the two inculpatory 
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57 
admissions, Hobson’s statements to defendant that most 
directly related to the crimes were “the situation . . . wasn’t 
going to go away” and Hobson “needed him to tell . . . his side of 
the story.”  Consistent with our previous explanation, we do not 
find such statements to be coercive. 
For his part, defendant appeared to have readily 
cooperated.  When Hobson told defendant that he wanted him 
to tell the truth, defendant answered, “Okay,” but requested to 
be taken “someplace else” first.  Hobson then said to defendant 
that before he “transported him back to the police department,” 
he “wanted to make sure he understood exactly what we were 
going to be doing and the questions that I was going to be asking 
him.”  Hobson thereafter advised defendant of his Miranda 
rights, and defendant admitted to being responsible for the 
disappearance and death of Newhouse and Crawford.  Nothing 
about this exchange suggests that defendant’s statements prior 
to receiving the advisement were involuntary.  As such, 
although the unwarned statements must be suppressed (and 
they were), the warned confession on April 22 and subsequent 
statements were properly admitted. 
Defendant, however, argues that Elstad does not apply 
because “Hobson deliberately used a ‘question first,’ warn later 
technique in violation of Missouri v. Seibert.”  In Seibert, the 
high court confronted a situation where the interrogating officer 
“made a ‘conscious decision’ to withhold Miranda warnings.”  
(Seibert, supra, 542 U.S. at pp. 605-606.)  The police officer 
testified that he did so in accordance with “an interrogation 
technique he had been taught:  question first, then give the 
warnings, and then repeat the question ‘until I get the answer 
that [the suspect] already provided once.’ ”  (Id. at p. 606.)  
Another police officer testified that his department “promoted” 
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“the strategy of withholding Miranda warnings until after 
interrogating and drawing out a confession.”  (Id. at p. 609.) 
Under such circumstances, a majority of the high court 
found the warned confession inadmissible.  (Seibert, supra, 542 
U.S. at p. 604 (plur. opn.); id. at p. 618 (conc. opn. of Kennedy, 
J.).)   The court fractured, however, on why that is so.  A 
plurality of four justices explained that “when interrogators 
question first and warn later” (id. at p. 611 (plur. opn.)), the 
later, warned confession is admissible only if  “in the 
circumstances the Miranda warnings given could reasonably be 
found effective.”  (Id. at p. 612, fn. 4 (plur. opn.).)  Under the 
facts of the case, the four justices concluded that the 
circumstances “do not reasonably support a conclusion that the 
warnings given could have served their purpose,” and the 
postwarning statements therefore were inadmissible.  (Id. at 
pp. 616-617 (plur. opn.).) 
Justice Kennedy concurred in the judgment but proposed 
a different rule.  In Justice Kennedy’s view, the plurality’s test 
“cuts too broadly.”  (Seibert, supra, 542 U.S. at pp. 621-622 (conc. 
opn. of Kennedy, J.).)  Justice Kennedy instead “would apply a 
narrower test applicable only in the infrequent case, such as we 
have here, in which the two-step interrogation technique was 
used in a calculated way to undermine the Miranda warning.”  
(Id. at p. 622 (conc. opn. of Kennedy, J.).)  Under that approach, 
where the “deliberate two-step strategy” was not employed, 
“[t]he admissibility of postwarning statements should continue 
to be governed by the principles of Elstad.”  (Ibid.) 
The fractured nature of Seibert has given rise to a debate 
over whether it is the plurality’s opinion or Justice Kennedy’s 
concurrence that provides the controlling standard.  (Compare 
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U.S. v. Ray (6th Cir. 2015) 803 F.3d 244, 272 [“we adopt Seibert 
plurality’s multi-factor test for this Circuit and direct the 
district court to apply this test”] with U.S. v. Capers (2d Cir. 
2010) 627 F.3d 470, 476 [“this Court joined the Eleventh, Fifth, 
Ninth, Third, and Eighth Circuits in applying Justice Kennedy’s 
approach in Seibert”]; U.S. v. Kiam (3d Cir. 2006) 432 F.3d 524, 
532; U.S. v. Mashburn (4th Cir. 2005) 406 F.3d 303, 309 
[“Justice Kennedy’s opinion therefore represents the holding of 
the Seibert Court”]; U.S. v. Courtney (5th Cir. 2006) 463 F.3d 
333, 338; U.S. v. Ollie (8th Cir. 2006) 442 F.3d 1135, 1142; U.S. 
v. Williams (9th Cir. 2006) 435 F.3d 1148, 1157-1158; U.S. v. 
Street (11th Cir. 2006) 472 F.3d 1298, 1313.)  We need not decide 
the matter here, as the result in this case would be the same 
under either approach.  (See U.S. v. Faust (1st Cir. 2017) 853 
F.3d 39, 48, fn. 6 [“Because we find that Faust’s argument fails 
under either [the plurality or the concurrence’s] approach, there 
is no need to address this question here]; U.S. v. Heron (7th Cir. 
2009) 564 F.3d 879, 885 [similar]; U.S. v. Carrizales-Toledo 
(10th Cir. 2006) 454 F.3d 1142, 1151 [similar]; U.S. v. Straker 
(D.C. Cir. 2015) 800 F.3d 570, 617 [similar].) 
Under the plurality’s approach, the relevant inquiry in a 
“question first” scenario is “whether it would be reasonable to 
find that in these circumstances the warnings could function 
‘effectively’ as Miranda requires.”  (Seibert, supra, 542 U.S. at 
pp. 611-612 (plur. opn.).)  In other words, “could the warnings 
effectively advise the suspect that he had a real choice about 
giving an admissible statement at that juncture?  Could they 
reasonably convey that he could choose to stop talking even if he 
had talked earlier?”  (Id. at p. 612 (plur. opn.).)  In making this 
determination, the trial court is to consider a number of factors, 
including “the completeness and detail of the questions and 
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answers in the first round of interrogation, the overlapping 
content of the two statements, the timing and setting of the first 
and the second, the continuity of police personnel, and the 
degree to which the interrogator’s questions treated the second 
round as continuous with the first.”  (Id. at p. 615 (plur. opn.).) 
A consideration of these factors cuts in favor of admitting 
defendant’s confessions.  Although all of the relevant 
questioning here was conducted by a single person (Hobson) 
over the course of a single day (thus satisfying the “continuity of 
police personnel” factor), there was no extended questioning 
before Miranda warnings were given; defendant’s prewarning 
responses, though undoubtedly incriminating, were nonspecific 
and lacking in detail; and, at defendant’s request, there was a 
change of setting before he gave the detailed confession that was 
ultimately used against him at trial.  (Seibert, supra, 542 U.S. 
at pp. 615-616 (plur. opn.).)  Moreover, the conversation that 
preceded the second round of interrogation alerted defendant 
that he had a “real choice” whether to follow up on his earlier 
incriminating statements or “stop talking.”  (Id. at p. 612 (plur. 
opn.).)  Before reading defendant his rights, Hobson informed 
defendant that he “wanted to make sure [defendant] understood 
exactly what we were going to be doing and the questions I was 
going to be asking . . . so we didn’t spend another two hours of 
wasted time.”  Hobson’s statements reasonably signaled to 
defendant that it was up to him whether he wanted to answer 
Hobson’s questions or, alternatively, to “waste” Hobson’s time.  
Under these circumstances, we conclude that the warnings 
“function[ed] ‘effectively’ as Miranda requires.”  (Seibert, supra, 
542 U.S. at pp. 612-613 (plur. opn.).) 
Defendant’s statement was likewise admissible under 
Justice Kennedy’s approach.  According to Justice Kennedy, 
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Seibert does not control unless Hobson employed “the two-step 
interrogation technique . . . in a calculated way to undermine 
the Miranda warning.”  (Seibert, supra, 542 U.S. at pp. 622 
(conc. opn. of Kennedy, J.).)  We find no such deliberateness 
here. 
Although Justice Kennedy “did not articulate how a court 
should determine whether an interrogator used a deliberate 
two-step strategy,” the facts of Seibert and Elstad afford us some 
guidance.  (U.S. v. Williams, supra, 435 F.3d at p. 1158.)  On the 
one hand, we have nothing here like the circumstances of 
Seibert.  There is no evidence that the San Luis Obispo Police 
Department or District Attorney’s Office had a policy of 
“withholding Miranda warnings until after interrogating and 
drawing out a confession,” or that Hobson was following such a 
policy when he interrogated defendant.  (Seibert, supra, 542 U.S. 
at p. 609 (plur. opn.).) 
On the other hand, like the officers in Elstad, Hobson did 
not provide warnings because he failed to “realize that a suspect 
is in custody and warnings are required.”  (Seibert, supra, 542 
U.S. at p. 620 (conc. opn. of Kennedy, J.); Elstad, supra, 470 U.S. 
at pp. 315-316.)  Hobson testified that he did not advise 
defendant of his Miranda rights on April 21 and did not 
immediately provide him with those rights when he approached 
him on April 22 because defendant “was not in custody on the 
. . . disappearance of Rachel Newhouse and Aundria Crawford.  
He was in custody on a parole violation.”  In line with Justice 
Kennedy’s identification of a failure to “realize that a suspect is 
in custody and warnings are required” as a scenario properly 
analyzed under Elstad principles, we find that Siebert does not 
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62 
control here.  (Seibert, supra, 542 U.S. at p. 620 (conc. opn. of 
Kennedy, J.).)12 
Other aspects of Hobson’s conduct persuade us that he did 
not engage in “a two-step questioning technique based on a 
deliberate violation of Miranda.”  (Seibert, supra, 542 U.S. at 
p. 620 (conc. opn. of Kennedy, J.).)  Significantly, Hobson 
advised defendant of his Miranda rights before defendant 
confessed.  (See Bobby v. Dixon (2011) 565 U.S. 23, 31 [“unlike 
in Seibert, there is no concern here that police gave Dixon 
Miranda warnings and then led him to repeat an earlier murder 
confession, because there was no earlier confession to repeat”].)  
Hobson also did not attempt to use defendant’s prewarning 
                                        
12  
Of course, Hobson did provide defendant with Miranda 
warnings on the morning of April 22 after defendant made 
vaguely incriminating statements.  This raises the question of 
whether Hobson thought that defendant’s custody status had 
changed at that point.  On this issue, we note that Hobson did 
not tie his recitation of the Miranda warnings to defendant’s 
custody status.  Instead, he described the sequence of events in 
this way:  After defendant asked to be taken “someplace else,” 
he (Hobson) “told [defendant] before I transported him back to 
the police department I wanted to make sure he understood 
exactly what we were going to be doing and the questions that I 
was going to be asking him so we didn’t spend another two hours 
of wasted time.  [¶]  So at that point I advised Rex Krebs of his 
Miranda rights, as read from the DOJ form, and then I asked 
him the two questions.”  Thus, although Hobson never 
pinpointed the precise moment he believed defendant’s custody 
status changed, the timing of his advisement is consistent with 
the (mistaken) belief that (1) defendant became “in custody” 
after incriminating himself in response to Hobson’s “two 
questions,” or (2) defendant acquired “in custody” status after 
being transported to the police station, when Hobson got to 
“doing” what he was going to do and asking “the questions [he] 
was going to be asking.” 
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statements to induce him to talk after advising him of his rights 
under Miranda.  (Bobby v. Dixon, supra, 565 U.S. at p. 31 [“[n]or 
is there any evidence that police used Dixon’s earlier 
[unwarned] admission to forgery to induce him to waive his right 
to silence later”]; contra, Seibert, supra, 542 U.S. at p. 605 (plur. 
opn.) [interrogating officer “confronted [the suspect] with her 
prewarning statements”].) 
To be sure, Hobson could have read defendant his 
Miranda rights before defendant made inculpatory statements 
or agreed to tell the truth.  Yet simply because an officer could 
have given an advisement earlier is not enough to show that he 
delayed “in a calculated way to undermine the Miranda 
warning.”  (Seibert, supra, 542 U.S. at p. 622 (conc. opn. of 
Kennedy, J.); see People v. San Nicolas (2004) 34 Cal.4th 614, 
637, 639 [no finding of deliberateness despite the officer stating 
“[i]f you want to talk to me, I’ll advise you of your rights” but 
then forgoing the advisement when the suspect indicated that 
he wanted to talk to an attorney first].)  Likewise, that 
advisement did issue after acquiescence to tell the truth does 
not mean that the officer sought to undermine Miranda.  (See 
Williams, supra, 49 Cal.4th at p. 448 [reasoning that the 
principles of Elstad apply even when advisement came only 
after “the defendant’s letting ‘the cat out of the bag’ ”].)  Last, 
even if Hobson had no good reason for failing to give Miranda 
warnings when he first approached defendant on April 22, there 
is no ground to believe Hobson acted deliberately “to obscure 
both the practical and legal significance of the admonition when 
finally given” or that his conduct had such an effect.  (Seibert, 
supra, 542 U.S. at p. 620 (conc. opn. of Kennedy, J.).) 
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In light of the preceding, we find that defendant’s warned 
confessions were properly admitted despite his prior unwarned 
statements. 
iv.  Failure to heed invocation on April 21 
Defendant further argues that the trial court erred in 
admitting the statements he made on April 22 and thereafter 
because Hobson failed to honor defendant’s invocation of his 
right to remain silent on April 21.  We agree that Hobson should 
have stopped his interrogation on April 21 sooner than he did.  
However, in light of the facts that defendant made no 
inculpatory statements on April 21, that Hobson did not 
overcome defendant’s will that day or any time thereafter, that 
Hobson’s failure to honor defendant’s invocation was not 
causally related to defendant’s subsequent decision to confess, 
and that, at the time of his confession on the next day, 
defendant’s right to cut off questioning was honored, we find no 
error in the admission of the confession. 
As the trial court found and the prosecution conceded, 
defendant invoked his right to remain silent on April 21.13  Like 
the trial court, we need not decide the precise moment when 
defendant made his invocation, except to observe that it was 
later than when defendant claims he first asserted his right but 
earlier than when Hobson said he understood defendant to have 
done so. 
                                        
13  
Hobson testified that he thought defendant asserted his 
right to remain silent when he stated near the end of the 
interview on April 21, “Nothing to say.”  The prosecution’s 
opposition to the motion to suppress acknowledged that 
defendant had invoked his right at “the end of the interview.” 
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Defendant did not invoke his right to silence by merely 
saying nothing for 15 minutes while Hobson talked.  Prior to the 
conversation arriving at this point, defendant had waived his 
Miranda rights — first by signing a waiver on April 1 and again 
by talking to Hobson after being reminded of his rights on April 
21.  (See, e.g., North Carolina v. Butler (1979) 441 U.S. 369, 373.)  
Because defendant had previously waived his rights, a 
subsequent invocation must be unambiguous to be effective.  
(E.g., Berghuis, supra, 560 U.S. at pp. 381-382; People v. 
Martinez (2010) 47 Cal.4th 911, 948 (Martinez).)  In essence, he 
needed to say “that he wanted to remain silent or that he did not 
want to talk with the police.”  (Berghuis, supra, 560 U.S. at 
p. 382 [holding that a suspect who did neither of these things 
following an earlier waiver “did not invoke his right to remain 
silent”].)  In the absence of such unambiguous statements, 
Hobson was free to continue questioning defendant.  (Martinez, 
supra, 47 Cal.4th at p. 948 [“ ‘Faced with an ambiguous or 
equivocal statement, law enforcement officers are not required 
. . . either to ask clarifying questions or to cease questioning 
altogether’ ”].) 
Likewise, when defendant requested that Hobson “[p]ut 
me down in a holding cell and let me think,” he did not 
unambiguously invoke his right to remain silent.  Rather, he 
likely “merely asked for a break from questioning.”  (Rundle, 
supra, 43 Cal.4th at p. 116.)  Because defendant was then 
housed at the county jail and so presumably could not be left in 
the police station’s holding cell for long, the request to be put 
back in a holding cell (so he could “think”) is reasonably 
interpreted as a request to be left alone for a moment.  
Interpreted this way, the statement stands in contrast to what 
defendant said when Hobson returned from giving him a five-
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66 
minute break:  “Take me back to jail.”  At that point, defendant 
has arguably indicated that, beyond wanting a temporary break 
from questioning, “he did not want to talk with the police.”  
(Berghuis, supra, 560 U.S. at p. 382.)  And even if this later 
statement was ambiguous in the context of defendant’s previous 
request for a short break (see Williams, supra, 49 Cal.4th at 
p. 429), any ambiguity was resolved when defendant said, for 
the first of two times, “Nothing to say.”  By this point at the 
latest, defendant had unambiguously invoked his right to 
remain 
silent 
and 
Hobson 
should 
have 
stopped 
the 
interrogation. 
 
Hobson did not stop.  Instead, he continued questioning 
defendant until defendant once again asserted that he had 
“nothing to say.”  Hobson testified that he understood defendant 
to have invoked only at this point, when defendant repeated 
himself.  Even with this understanding, however, Hobson asked 
defendant still more questions while transporting him back to 
jail. 
 
Yet, despite the failure to honor defendant’s right to 
remain silent on April 21, Hobson made no contact with 
defendant for the next 18 hours.  Moreover, as the trial court 
found, defendant did not foreclose the possibility of Hobson 
returning the next day.  Indeed, when Hobson returned the 
following morning, defendant showed no reluctance to talk, 
readily answering questions and voluntarily confessing. 
The question is whether Hobson’s failure to honor 
defendant’s invocation to remain silent on April 21 renders 
inadmissible the statements obtained on April 22 and 
thereafter.  In Michigan v. Mosley (1975) 423 U.S. 96, 104 
(Mosley), the high court held “the admissibility of statements 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
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67 
obtained after the person in custody has decided to remain silent 
depends under Miranda on whether his ‘right to cut off 
questioning’ was ‘scrupulously honored.’ ”14  The court did not 
address a situation in which the right to cut off questioning was 
eventually, but not immediately, honored. 
In the years since Mosley was decided, we have never 
found that an initial failure to honor a defendant’s invocation — 
whether of the to remain silent or the right to have counsel 
present — poses a categorical bar to the admission of any 
subsequent statement regardless of the circumstances.  Instead, 
in case after case, we have held that despite the initial failure to 
                                        
14  
California courts initially did not follow Mosley, rejecting 
it in favor of the rule that “after a defendant has once 
demonstrated he does not wish to waive his privilege against 
self-incrimination, the police cannot lawfully subject him to a 
new round of interrogation even if they repeat the Miranda 
warnings.”  (People v. Pettingill (1978) 21 Cal.3d 231, 238, 251.)  
In 1982, however, California voters approved Proposition 8 and 
amended the state Constitution to add a “Right to Truth-in-
Evidence.”  Under this provision, “relevant evidence shall not be 
excluded in any criminal proceeding.”  (Cal. Const., Art. I § 28, 
subd. (f)(2).) 
 
Although we have never expressly held that Proposition 8 
abrogated Pettingill, our cases have clearly nodded in this 
direction.  (See People v. May (1988) 44 Cal.3d 309, 318 [“Given 
the probable aim of the voters in adopting section 28[(f)(2)], . . . 
it is not reasonably likely that the California voters intended to 
preserve, in the form of a ‘statutory’ privilege, a judicially 
created exclusionary rule expressly rejected by the United 
States Supreme Court under the federal Constitution”]; In re 
Lance W. (1985) 37 Cal.3d 873, 889 [similar]; Martinez, supra, 
47 Cal.4th at p. 950 [applying Mosley without mentioning 
Pettingill].)  Perhaps for this reason, defendant does not seek to 
rely on Pettingill, and we accept that the analysis should 
proceed without reference to the Pettingill rule. 
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68 
honor a Miranda invocation, a voluntary confession obtained 
during a subsequent interrogation is admissible.  Thus, in People 
v. Bradford (1997) 14 Cal.4th 1005, 1040-1043 (Bradford), we 
held that a warned confession was admissible despite the fact 
that (1) a day earlier, detectives had persisted in interrogating 
the defendant after he answered, “ ‘No.  I want my lawyer,’ ” in 
response to the questions, “ ‘Do you wish to give up the right to 
remain silent?  Do you want to talk to me about what happened 
last night?’ ” (id. at p. 1025), and (2) the continued questioning 
produced an admission that the defendant killed the victim.  We 
reasoned that suppression was not necessary because the first 
confession was “ ‘unaccompanied by any actual coercion or other 
circumstances calculated to undermine the suspect’s ability to 
exercise his free will’ ” and the second (warned) confession was 
“ ‘knowingly and voluntarily made.’ ”  (Id. at p. 1040.)  We 
likewise did not suppress warned statements in People v. Storm 
(2002) 28 Cal.4th 1007, 1039, despite the police having ignored 
the defendant’s invocation of the right of counsel during an 
interrogation two days earlier.  We reached the same result in 
People v. Sims (1993) 5 Cal.4th 405, 444, even though the police 
there interrogated the suspect despite his clear statement from 
the day before that he “would not waive his [Miranda] rights.”  
(Id. at p. 437.)  In contrast, we suppressed the defendant’s 
confession in a case where we found the police not only 
“intentionally continued interrogation . . . in spite of defendant’s 
invocation,” but also induced an involuntary confession.  (People 
v. Neal (2003) 31 Cal.4th 63, 68, 74.) 
In light of our precedent, we conclude that Hobson’s 
failure to honor defendant’s invocation of the right to remain 
silent on April 21 does not compel the suppression of the 
voluntary, warned statements taken on April 22 and thereafter.  
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69 
Apart from his failure to immediately cease questioning, 
Hobson’s interrogation techniques were not coercive.  In 
addition, no “ ‘other circumstances’ ” existed to “ ‘to undermine 
the suspect’s ability to exercise his free will.’ ”  (Bradford, supra, 
14 Cal.4th at p. 1040.)  Indeed, defendant’s will was not 
overcome on April 21 or at any time thereafter.  Although 
defendant was subdued during the April 21 interrogation and 
cried during the drive back to the county jail, he showed a clear 
ability to exercise his free will, including by stopping the 
interrogation, refusing to incriminate himself, controlling when 
he would be dropped off at the jail (by requesting that Hobson 
drive around so that he could smoke), and directing Hobson to 
turn into the jail despite Hobson’s last request for defendant to 
take him to the bodies.  Likewise, as explained ante, in part 
II.B.1.ii, he exercised his free will when he voluntarily confessed 
on April 22 after receiving his Miranda advisement. 
Nor should we forget that there was a period of about 18 
hours in which defendant was subjected to no questioning after 
invoking his right to remain silent.  (Contra, People v. Peracchi 
(2001) 86 Cal.App.4th 353, 362 [finding that a confession should 
have been suppressed because “[d]espite Peracchi’s invocation of 
his right to remain silent, the officer persisted in asking him 
questions regarding why he did not wish to speak with the 
officers at that time without even a momentary cessation in 
questioning”]; Anderson v. Terhune (9th Cir. 2008) 516 F.3d 781, 
791 [suppressing a confession when the court was “not faced 
with a situation where there was a break in questioning after 
the Miranda invocation”].)  This was substantially longer than 
the two-hour period in Mosley in which the suspect was left 
alone and the court found questioning could be reinitiated.  
(Mosley, supra, 423 U.S. at p. 104.) 
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70 
Finally, even though he did not do so immediately, Hobson 
did honor defendant’s right to cut off questioning.  On April 21, 
Hobson asked if he could return to talk to defendant the next 
day if he did not hear back from him, and defendant replied 
“Maybe I’ll deal with it tomorrow,” or “Maybe.  I’ll deal with it 
tomorrow.”  Whatever defendant’s exact response was, it seems 
that Hobson could reasonably have understood it as conveying 
that he could return the next day — if only to find out whether 
defendant was willing to talk.  When Hobson came to the jail on 
April 22, defendant expressed no desire to remain silent, thus 
indicating that he had decided that he would talk.   
We reject defendant’s reliance on People v. Montano (1991) 
226 Cal.App.3d 914.  In Montano, the court found that 
Montano’s confession was actually coerced.  In that case, not 
only did police officers ignore Montano’s double-digit number of 
invocations, they “aggravated the situation by using their 
common religion to conjure up in defendant’s mind the picture 
of confessing to avoid going to hell.”  (Id. at p. 935.)  Moreover, 
the tactics “succeeded because the officers were not employing 
them on a person who had a history of experience with police 
interrogation or on someone who in the circumstances would 
have unlimited powers of resistance.  At the time of the 
interrogation defendant was 18 years old, having entered the 
country illegally 8 months before.”  (Id. at pp. 935-936.)  In these 
circumstances, Montano’s will was overcome and he “tacitly 
admitted that he alone was responsible for the victim’s murder.”  
(Id. at p. 937.)  In contrast, defendant here was not merely 18 
years old; he did have “a history of experience with police 
interrogation” (id. at p. 935); and he made no admission during 
the interrogation in which he invoked his right to silence.  (Ibid.)  
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
71 
Defendant simply was not coerced, and Montano supplies no 
basis to suppress the confessions at issue here. 
To summarize, defendant was at no time coerced.  He was 
given an 18-hour break from interrogation after invoking his 
right to remain silent; he left open the possibility for the officer 
to reinitiate contact, and upon being contacted, cooperated with 
the interrogation.  When he confessed, his confessions were 
preceded by Miranda warnings that effectively apprised him of 
his rights.  Without suggesting that all of the above must be 
present or that any of those factors is sufficient, we conclude 
that under these circumstances, the trial court did not err in 
admitting the postadvisement confession obtained on April 22 
and thereafter. 
2.  Independent evidence of rape and sodomy of 
Crawford 
 
Defendant next argues his convictions for the rape and 
sodomy of Crawford must be reversed because “insufficient 
evidence aside from [his] confession exists to support” the 
convictions.  Defendant’s argument relies on the corpus delicti 
rule, which “requires corroboration of the defendant’s 
extrajudicial utterances insofar as they indicate a crime was 
committed, and forces the People to supply, as part of their 
burden of proof in every criminal prosecution, some evidence of 
the corpus delicti aside from, or in addition to, such statements.”  
(People v. Alvarez (2002) 27 Cal.4th 1161, 1178, italics omitted 
(Alvarez).)  We find that defendant’s confession was adequately 
corroborated in this case. 
 
“The amount of independent proof of a crime required [to 
satisfy the corpus delicti rule] is quite small.”  (People v. Jones 
(1998) 17 Cal.4th 279, 301.)  The prosecution need not adduce 
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Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
72 
“independent evidence of every physical act constituting an 
element of an offense.”  (Id. at p. 303.)  Instead, it need only 
make “some indication that the charged crime actually 
happened,” so as to ensure “that the accused is not admitting to 
a crime that never occurred.”  (People v. Jennings (1991) 53 
Cal.3d 334, 368 (Jennings).) 
 
In challenging his convictions for the rape and sodomy of 
Crawford, defendant’s sole contention is that there was no 
independent evidence “corroborating that she was in fact 
sexually assaulted.”  He concedes that there was “sufficient 
independent evidence of rape against Newhouse since her body 
was naked from the waist down when found.”  In contrast, he 
asserts there was insufficient evidence as to Crawford because 
“Crawford’s body was fully clothed in sweat pants and a 
sweatshirt.”  The Attorney General disputes that Crawford was 
fully clothed when she was found.  Dr. Sterbenz, the pathologist 
who observed the exhumation of the victims’ bodies, testified 
that Crawford was found “partially clothed,” wearing “black 
sweat pants” and “a black sweatshirt” with “a logo on it for the 
Hard Rock cafe.”  Crawford’s mother testified that her daughter 
normally wore to bed “T-shirt and panties,” items that were 
missing when her body was found.  She also testified that the 
Hard Rock Cafe sweatshirt was a “souvenir-type sweatshirt” 
that her daughter would “just wear . . . for special occasions.” 
 
The testimony reasonably gives rise to the inference that 
Crawford’s body was found “dressed differently” from when she 
was taken from her house.  Crawford was taken from her house 
early in the morning after having gotten out of bed, as 
independently corroborated by the state of her bed and the fact 
that she was talking to a friend by phone until 2:46 a.m. on 
March 11, 1999.  Based on the timing and her mother’s 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
73 
testimony, the jury could have concluded that Crawford was 
wearing underwear and a T-shirt when defendant abducted her.  
Yet, her body was found with no underwear, no T-shirt, and 
clothed in a “special occasion[]” sweatshirt that she did not 
normally wear to bed.  Thus, there was circumstantial evidence 
that Crawford was “ ‘disrobed’ ” and “ ‘covered . . . again’ ” after 
she was kidnapped.  (People v. Ochoa (1998) 19 Cal.4th 353, 
404.)  This evidence suffices to satisfy the corpus delicti of 
rape.15  (Id. at pp. 404-406 [finding the requisite corpus delicti 
for rape when the victim was found with her pants on backwards 
and her sweatshirt inside out, allowing for the inference that 
she was disrobed and reclothed]; see also Alvarez, supra, 27 
Cal.4th at p. 1171 [“[t]he independent proof may be 
circumstantial and need not be beyond a reasonable doubt”].) 
 
Because the People have established the corpus delicti for 
rape, they have also established the corpus delicti for sodomy.  
(See People v. Jones, supra, 17 Cal.4th at p. 302-304 [finding the 
corpus delicti for oral copulation satisfied although there was no 
physical evidence on victim’s mouth because there was semen in 
the victim’s other orifices and “we have never interpreted the 
corpus delicti rule so strictly that independent evidence of every 
physical act constituting an element of an offense is necessary”]; 
accord, Robbins, supra, 45 Cal.3d at p. 886.)  Accordingly, we 
affirm the convictions for the rape and sodomy of Crawford. 
                                        
15  
Because we find “the physical evidence, and reasonable 
inferences drawn therefore, satisfy the corpus delicti rule,” we 
need not decide whether other-crimes evidence, including the 
rape and sodomy of Shelley C. and the rape of Newhouse, also 
establish the corpus delicti with regard to Crawford.  (Jennings, 
supra, 53 Cal.3d at p. 367; cf. People v. Robbins (1988) 45 Cal.3d 
867, 886 (Robbins).) 
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Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
74 
C.  Penalty Phase Issues 
1.  Arguments involving testimony of defendant’s 
volitional impairment 
 
 Defendant makes a series of arguments relating to Dr. 
Dietz’s testimony that sexual sadism does not impair an 
individual’s ability to control his or her behavior.  The gist of 
defendant’s arguments is that the testimony is inconsistent with 
the Sexually Violent Predator Act (SVPA) (Welf. & Inst. Code, 
§ 6600 et seq.) or is demonstrably false as shown by the 
existence of the act.  Defendant also argues that the trial court 
erred by excluding references to the SVPA and by failing to “give 
proper instruction in light of the State’s expert testimony.”  On 
these bases, defendant urges us to reverse the death sentence. 
a.  Background 
 
Despite being an expert for the prosecution, Dr. Dietz 
agreed with Dr. Berlin, the defense expert, on many substantive 
points.  In particular, Dietz agreed with Berlin’s diagnosis of 
defendant as a sexual sadist and an alcoholic.  Dietz also 
“agree[d] entirely” with Berlin that “people do not choose their 
sexual deviations.  They do not choose to become a sexual 
sadist.” 
 
Dr. Dietz, however, disagreed with Dr. Berlin regarding 
his diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder.  In Dietz’s 
opinion, defendant did have antisocial personality disorder.  
Dietz explained the criteria for diagnosing the disorder, and 
cited examples from defendant’s history to show that he met the 
diagnostic criteria. 
 
In addition, although Dr. Dietz agreed with Dr. Berlin’s 
diagnosis of sexual sadism, he offered a different understanding 
of the disorder.  According to Dietz, the sexual disorder 
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75 
“amounts to saying what is it that turns the person on.”  For a 
person who is a sexual sadist, the things that he or she finds 
sexually arousing include “bondage,” “captivity,” dominance, 
“humiliation,” “spanking and whipping,” and “choking and 
strangulation.”  Dietz did not deny that it was “a problem to 
have in life to want to do that to another person.”  He explained, 
however, that “[t]he way that people cope with that problem is 
quite variable.”  Although there were sexual sadists who 
“commit violent crimes in order to fulfill their fantasies,” Dietz 
stressed that “just a tiny group of the sexual sadists . . . ever get 
to that point.” 
 
Crucially, Dr. Dietz disagreed with Dr. Berlin regarding 
whether sexual sadism compromised an individual’s ability to 
control his or her actions.  As Dietz categorically stated, 
“[s]omeone whose only problem is sexual sadism has only one 
fundamental difference from normal people and that is a 
difference in what excites them sexually.  It doesn’t affect how 
they think.  It doesn’t affect their emotions.  It doesn’t affect 
their capacity to control themselves.  It only affects what it is 
that turns them on sexually.” 
 
The prosecution then asked Dr. Dietz about the 
“policeman at the elbow” test.  Dietz responded that “[t]hat’s a 
test . . . long . . . used in the field of forensic psychiatry as a way 
of looking at whether someone has volitional control, do they 
have the free will to conform to the law.”  Dietz, like Berlin, 
stated that “had there been a policeman at [defendant’s] elbow, 
he certainly would not have committed these crimes.”  As such, 
Dietz concluded that defendant “was fully aware that this was 
wrong behavior and capable of stopping it with those kinds of 
external controls.” 
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76 
 
The prosecution then asked Dr. Dietz to evaluate Dr. 
Berlin’s opinion.  In particular, the prosecution asked, “Dr. 
Berlin talked about the sexual sadism and the fantasies almost 
becoming a compulsion.  Is that — is that an opinion that’s 
widely held in your field?”  Dietz answered, “No, it isn’t.  But 
there is a group of people who are not in my field who come at it 
from a Christian counseling point of view who have become very 
fond of the idea of this being an addiction that begins with 
masturbation, exposure to pornography, obscene phone calls.  
And if one doesn’t find some spiritual relief or additional aid, it 
can degenerate into horrible kinds of behavior such as this.  [¶]  
That’s not an accepted medical or psychological view.  It’s the 
fad that’s been around the last ten or fifteen years.  [¶]  And 
that’s like the theory of this being a compulsion.”  When cross-
examined, Dietz nonetheless agreed that “the jury, as part of the 
process of making a decision in this case, should consider and 
listen to Dr. Berlin,” specifically his opinion that “sexual sadism 
. . . opens the door to irresistible impulse.”  “[T]he jury’s got a 
difficult job here,” Dietz explained, and “we’re in an area where 
there are competing points of view.”  Later in his testimony, 
Dietz reiterated that “it’s arguable — that this [sexual sadism] 
affects impulse control.  It’s arguable that you could look at it 
the way Dr. Berlin does.  I respect his opinion, but I disagree 
with him.” 
 
Despite his testimony that sexual sadism does not cause 
volitional impairment, Dr. Dietz acknowledged that a mental 
disorder contributed to defendant’s behavior.  In his opinion, 
however, that mental disorder was antisocial personality 
disorder, not sexual sadism.  As Dietz opined, “I think that the 
reason [defendant] behaves in this way toward victims is 
because he has an antisocial personality disorder.  I think if he 
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77 
were a sexual sadist who didn’t have the — this disorder, he 
wouldn’t be doing these bad acts.”  In response to further 
questioning, Dietz confirmed, “If he were only sexually sadistic 
and did not have any other impairment, he wouldn’t have done 
that [assaulted Jennifer E. or raped Shelley C.].” 
 
Dr. Dietz, like Dr. Berlin, was ultimately asked to opine 
“whether at the time of the offense the capacity of the defendant 
. . . to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law was 
impaired as a result of a mental disease or defect.”  Dietz gave a 
two-part answer.  First, he said that defendant did not suffer 
from a mental disease or defect, as he defined those terms:  
“mental diseases . . . are those conditions that cause a person to 
have a profoundly entirely different view of reality than a 
normal human being” and mental defects referred to “mental 
retardation.”  Second, Dietz said, “even if he did [suffer from a 
mental disease or defect], we have evidence that his volitional 
control was there.”  Dietz then detailed the various decisions 
defendant made that demonstrated he made a choice to rape 
Newhouse and Crawford.  These included “his decision to drink,” 
as “he’s never even attempted rape when he’s sober”; “his 
decision to lie to Dr. True,” telling “Dr. True he wasn’t having 
sexual temptations, that he wasn’t drinking”; the decision to 
“cruise,” or look for victims; the decision to “carry a rape kit, 
which eventually came to include a mask, precut lengths of rope, 
duct tape for gagging the victim . . .”; and finally, the decision, 
“after the fight at Outlaws Bar,” to “stop[] trying to control his 
fantasies and urges and . . . not make the effort anymore to 
resist the urges that he had.”  This last decision, “rather than 
his not having the ability to control himself,” led to the deaths 
of Newhouse and Crawford. 
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78 
b.  Analysis 
i.  Asserted inconsistent theories 
Defendant argues that the prosecution “committed 
prejudicial error by presenting evidence and theories regarding 
volitional impairment [that are] inconsistent with those 
presented by the People in civil commitment cases.”  According 
to defendant, the People’s experts in civil commitment 
proceedings routinely testify that sexual disorders impair a 
person’s ability to control him- or herself.  Yet, the prosecution 
in this case called an expert who said that sexual sadism has no 
such effect.  Defendant contends that this amounts to 
inconsistent prosecutorial theories and the use of such theories 
violated his right to due process under both the United States 
and California Constitutions.16 
Defendant is correct that “[a]t least where the punishment 
involved is death, due process is as offended by the People’s 
inconsistent and irreconcilable attribution of culpability-
increasing acts as by the inconsistent and irreconcilable 
attribution of crimes.”  (In re Sakarias (2005) 35 Cal.4th 140, 
160.)  But he ignores the principle that where “the asserted 
inconsistencies in prosecutorial theory were not the subject of 
                                        
16  
In a cursory manner, defendant also argues that the same 
asserted inconsistencies violated the Eighth Amendment.  
Neither of the cases he cites supports the idea that “the Eighth 
Amendment . . . could be violated when the State takes 
inconsistent positions for tactical advantages in a capital 
sentencing proceeding.”  (See Bradshaw v. Stumpf (2005) 545 
U.S. 175, 187 [stating only that the court “express[ed] no opinion 
on whether the prosecutor’s actions [in arguing inconsistent 
theories about who shot the victim] amounted to a due process 
violation”]; Caldwell v. Mississippi (1985) 472 U.S. 320 [no 
mention of inconsistent theories].) 
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79 
any proceeding in the trial court and, hence, neither the 
inconsistencies nor any explanations the prosecutor may have 
been able to offer appear in the appellate record, any due process 
claim defendant can state should be ‘presented by petition for 
writ of habeas corpus rather than by appeal.’ ”  (People v. 
Sakarias (2000) 22 Cal.4th 596, 635 (Sakarias); see Spencer, 
supra, 5 Cal. 5th at p. 694 [citing cases supporting the 
proposition that “an inconsistent theories claim should be 
brought — not on appeal — but in a habeas corpus petition”].) 
Defendant’s claim thus must be rejected because “the 
asserted inconsistencies . . . were not the subject of any 
proceeding in the trial court.”  (Sakarias, supra, 22 Cal.4th at 
p. 635.)  Defendant concedes he did not argue before the trial 
court that Dr. Dietz’s testimony was inconsistent with the 
SVPA, and our review of the record confirms that to be the case.  
Although defendant alerted the court that he wanted to ask Dr. 
Berlin about the SVPA, the bases on which he sought to 
introduce the testimony were not to show any inconsistencies 
between the SVPA and Dietz’s opinion.  Instead, defendant 
argued that the SVPA was relevant because the program 
showed that (1) a “mental disorder that lead to this lack of 
volitional control was treatable” and (2) defendant’s lack of 
treatment was due to institutional failure. 
 
To be sure, defense counsel mentioned in passing that the 
SVPA “is impeachment of what I believe is Dr. Dietz’s position 
that there is not volitional impairment.”  However, counsel 
never developed this position.  Instead, he pressed the argument 
concerning the treatability of sexual disorders and the issue of 
institutional failure.  Unsurprisingly, the court ruled only with 
respect to these bases for admissibility. 
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In addition, when the court rejected defendant’s 
arguments and so excluded references to the SVPA, it made 
clear that its ruling was tentative.  The court expressly stated 
that it would be willing to reconsider its position.  Despite the 
court’s invitation, however, defendant never brought a motion 
or thereafter called the court’s attention to any purported 
inconsistencies between the SVPA and Dr. Dietz’s opinion.  
Probably for this reason, the record contains no explanation 
from the prosecutor about the asserted inconsistencies.17 
Under such circumstances, we find that “the asserted 
inconsistencies in prosecutorial theory were not the subject of 
any proceeding in the trial court.”  (Sakarias, supra, 22 Cal.4th 
at p. 635.)  We therefore reject defendant’s inconsistent theories 
claim, leaving it to be raised on habeas corpus. 
ii.  Asserted false or misleading testimony 
Similar to his claim that Dr. Dietz’s testimony was 
inconsistent with the SVPA, defendant contends that Dietz’s 
testimony was false, as demonstrated by the existence of the 
SVPA.  Defendant argues the prosecution violated his due 
process rights by relying on and failing to correct such false or 
misleading testimony.  (See, e.g., People v. Morrison (2004) 34 
                                        
17  
Because defendant never raised the argument at trial, he 
never had to explain why the fact that other prosecutors, in 
unrelated civil cases, may call experts to opine that individuals 
suffering from certain mental disorders are predisposed to 
committing criminal sexual acts here amounts to the use of 
inconsistent prosecutorial theories.  (See Welf. & Inst. Code, 
§ 6600 et seq.)  At a minimum, defendant’s theory of a due 
process violation is quite different from the situation we 
confronted in In re Sakarias, supra, 35 Cal.4th 140, and nothing 
we say here should be taken as suggesting that we find them 
similar or endorsing an expansion of In re Sakarias. 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
81 
Cal.4th 698, 716-717.)  Unlike the inconsistent-theories claim, 
we can decide this false-evidence claim on appeal. 
First, we note that the claim is forfeited.  Defendant 
complains that four different statements offered by Dr. Dietz 
were false or misleading.  These include:  (1) “a paraphilia does 
not impair volition”; (2) “Dr. Berlin’s view that it does is 
unaccepted”; (3) “the ‘police man at elbow’ test is the appropriate 
test for volitional impairment”; and (4) “sexual sadism [is] not 
. . . a ‘mental disease or defect.’ ”  Yet, defendant did not object 
to any of this testimony at the time it was offered.  Accordingly, 
the claim that the evidence should not have been introduced or 
that the prosecution violated due process by introducing such 
evidence is forfeited.  (Evid. Code, § 353, subd. (a); People v. 
Hajek and Vo (2014), 58 Cal.4th 1144, 1214 (Hajek and Vo); 
People v. Partida (2005) 37 Cal.4th 428, 436 [“To the extent, if 
any, that defendant may be understood to argue that due 
process required exclusion of the evidence for a reason different 
from his trial objection, that claim is forfeited”].) 
Second, even if we were to overlook defendant’s forfeiture, 
we still would not be convinced that the SVPA shows Dr. Dietz’s 
testimony to be false.  The SVPA is a civil commitment scheme 
that permits the state to involuntarily confine individuals 
proved to be “sexually violent predators.”18  (In re Howard N. 
(2005) 35 Cal.4th 117, 127.)  A “sexually violent predator” is “a 
person who has been convicted of a sexually violent offense 
against one or more victims and who has a diagnosed mental 
disorder that makes the person a danger to the health and safety 
of others in that it is likely that he or she will engage in sexually 
                                        
18  
  Defendant was never found to be a sexually violent 
predator. 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
82 
violent criminal behavior.”  (Welf. & Inst. Code, § 6600, subd. 
(a)(1).))  “Diagnosed mental disorder,” in turn, is defined as “a 
congenital or acquired condition affecting the emotional or 
volitional capacity that predisposes the person to the 
commission of criminal sexual acts in a degree constituting the 
person a menace to the health and safety of others.”  (Welf. & 
Inst. Code, § 6600, subd. (c).)  The SVPA does not specify that 
any particular condition meets this definition.  It makes no 
mention of any sexual disorder, let alone the specific disorder of 
sexual sadism.  The language of the SVPA thus furnishes no 
evidence to suggest that Dr. Dietz’s testimony regarding the 
volitional effect of sexual sadism was false. 
Perhaps for this reason, defendant cites a number of 
“published cases regarding SVP trials.”  We question the value 
of such cases to show that Dr. Dietz’s testimony was false.  First, 
we are aware of no authorities establishing that an expert’s 
testimony is false as a matter of law, just because it purportedly 
conflicts with other expert opinions given in other trials.  Thus, 
the fact that various experts may have offered opinions contrary 
to Dietz’s does not mean these opinions have established that 
any particular disorder precludes a defendant from controlling 
his or her behavior.  Instead, that remained an issue to be 
resolved by the jury upon hearing the opposing experts’ 
testimony.  (Accord, Ake v. Oklahoma (1985) 470 U.S. 68, 81 
[“Psychiatry is not . . . an exact science, and psychiatrists 
disagree widely and frequently on what constitutes mental 
illness, on the appropriate diagnosis to be attached to given 
behavior and symptoms, on cure and treatment, and on 
likelihood of future dangerousness.  Perhaps because there often 
is no single, accurate psychiatric conclusion . . ., juries remain 
the primary factfinders [and] . . . must resolve differences in 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
83 
opinion within the psychiatric profession on the basis of the 
evidence offered by each party.”].) 
Second, the opinions in the cases cited do not conflict with 
Dr. Dietz’s testimony.  Dietz opined that for a person “whose 
only problem is sexual sadism,” the disorder did not impair his 
or her volition.  (Italics added.)  In other words, sexual sadism, 
by itself, does not affect the individual’s capacity to control him 
or herself.  Dietz did not testify that no sexual disorder affected 
an individual’s volition, or that individuals diagnosed with 
sexual sadism and other mental disorders still categorically 
have full control of themselves. 
Yet, defendant would have us read Dr. Dietz’s opinion this 
way.  Defendant complains that the prosecution’s theory at trial, 
as established by Dietz’s testimony, is that “paraphilia does not 
impair volition.”  Paraphilia, or more accurately “paraphilic 
disorders,” is the term psychiatrists use to refer to sexual 
disorders.  The fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical 
Manual of Mental Disorders, the version in use at the time of 
defendant’s trial, discusses nine different paraphilic disorders.  
(Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric 
Association 
(4th 
ed. 
2000) 
pp. 
569-576 
[referencing 
exhibitionism, 
fetishism, 
frotteurism, 
pedophilia, 
sexual 
masochism, sexual sadism, transvestic fetishism, voyeurism, 
and paraphilia not otherwise specified (paraphilia NOS)]; People 
v. Roberge (2003) 29 Cal.4th 979, 983, fn. 1 (Roberge).)  Sexual 
sadism is one of the nine paraphilic disorders; it is one specific 
paraphilia.  Hence, the prosecution’s theory was never that 
“paraphilia,” meaning any and all paraphilic disorders, left a 
person in full control of him- or herself.  Instead, it was that one 
particular paraphilic disorder — sexual sadism — did not 
compromise a person’s ability to control him- or herself. 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
84 
Thus, to the extent that cases applying the SVPA can have 
a bearing on whether Dr. Dietz’s testimony about volitional 
control was false, they must address sexual sadism.  Yet many 
of the cases defendant cited did not involve an individual 
diagnosed with sexual sadism.19  (E.g., Kansas v. Crane (2002) 
534 U.S. 
407, 
411 
(Crane) 
[defendant 
diagnosed 
with 
exhibitionism and antisocial personality disorder]; Kan. v. 
Hendricks (1997) 521 U.S. 346, 354-356 (Hendricks) [defendant 
diagnosed with pedophilia]; People v. Shazier (2014) 60 Cal.4th 
109, 118-121 [defendant variously diagnosed with paraphilia 
NOS, personality disorder NOS, narcissistic traits, or simply 
personality disorder]; People v. Williams (2003) 31 Cal.4th 757, 
761-762 [diagnoses of paraphilia NOS and psychosis NOS]; 
People v. Hurtado (2002) 28 Cal.4th 1179, 1184 [pedophilia and 
antisocial personality disorder]; Albertson v. Superior Court 
(2001) 25 Cal.4th 796, 799 [paraphilia NOS and antisocial 
personality disorder]; Hubbart v. Superior Court (1999) 19 
Cal.4th 1138, 1150 (Hubbart) [paraphilia NOS, with features of 
bondage, “ ‘rape, sodomy and klismaphilia’ ”].)  These cases do 
not help us evaluate the truth or falsity of Dietz’s testimony that 
sexual sadism does not impair volition. 
Nor do cases that feature a combination of diagnoses, of 
which sexual sadism is only one, assist us.  (E.g., People v. Allen 
(2008) 44 Cal.4th 843, 852-854 [“defendant’s mental disorders 
include paraphilia (specifically, an urge for sex with 
nonconsenting 
adults), 
antisocial 
personality 
disorder, 
psychosis, and cocaine dependency”]; Roberge, supra, 29 Cal.4th 
at p. 983 [after changing her mind, one of the People’s experts 
                                        
19  
A majority of the cases cited also postdate defendant’s 
trial. 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
85 
diagnosed the defendant with sexual sadism while the other 
expert diagnosed him with paraphilia NOS and antisocial 
personality disorder]; People v. Leonard (2000) 78 Cal.App.4th 
776, 781 [defendant was diagnosed with “two mental disorders: 
(1) paraphilia, rape, or sexual sadism; and (2) antisocial 
personality disorder”].)  Dr. Dietz testified that individuals 
“whose only problem is sexual sadism” do not suffer from 
volitional impairment.  He offered no categorial opinion 
regarding persons suffering from sexual sadism and other 
mental impediments.  Accordingly, SVPA cases containing 
testimony that a defendant was volitionally impaired and that 
he or she was diagnosed with multiple mental disorders do not 
contradict Dietz’s opinion.20 
We likewise find no evidence to suggest that Dr. Dietz 
testified falsely when he stated that Dr. Berlin’s view was not 
“widely held” within his field.  We simply do not know what were 
the views of psychiatrists on sexual sadism and the ability to 
control oneself.  Dietz himself testified that “ ‘we’re in an area 
where there are competing points of view’ ” and said that 
although he disagreed with it, the jury should consider Berlin’s 
opinion.  Insofar as defendant suggests Dietz’s views must have 
been false, his suggestion relies on the premise that we can treat 
all paraphilic disorders as interchangeable.  Nothing in the 
record or the cases cited allows us to do so. 
                                        
20  
To the extent Dr. Dietz testified that defendant, who he 
diagnosed as suffering from both sexual sadism and antisocial 
personality disorder, was not volitionally impaired, his 
testimony rested on the specific circumstances of defendant’s 
case.  The fact that somebody else suffering from the same 
conditions may be impaired does not demonstrate that Dietz’s 
testimony was false. 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
86 
 
Similarly, we cannot conclude that Dr. Dietz provided 
false or misleading testimony in stating that the “policeman at 
the elbow” test was a test “used in the field of forensic psychiatry 
as a way of looking at whether someone has volitional control.”  
True:  We have interpreted the SVPA’s requirement of a 
“condition affecting the emotional or volitional capacity” (Welf. 
& Inst. Code, § 6600, subd. (c)) to mean a condition that “causes 
serious difficulty in controlling violent sexual impulses,” and not 
one as to which “such control is impossible.”  (People v. Superior 
Court (Ghilotti) (2002) 27 Cal.4th 888, 921, fn. 12; see People v. 
Williams, supra, 31 Cal.4th at p. 776; Crane, supra, 534 U.S. at 
pp. 411-412.)  Yet, Dietz was never asked to apply this particular 
standard of volitional impairment.  He also did not say that the 
“policeman at the elbow” test showed that defendant had little 
difficulty in controlling his behavior.  Instead, Dietz testified 
that the test indicated defendant “was fully aware that this was 
wrong behavior and capable of stopping it with those kinds of 
external controls.”  This was entirely consistent with Dr. 
Berlin’s testimony. 
 
Finally, we reject defendant’s argument that Dr. Dietz 
“falsely and misleadingly suggested that only severely psychotic 
or severely retarded persons could have the requisite ‘mental 
disease or defect’ to establish volitional impairment under the 
statutory mitigating factor (h)” of section 190.3.  Dietz never 
mentioned section 190.3, factor (h), or urged the jury to accept 
the idea that “only severely psychotic or severely retarded 
persons could have the requisite ‘mental disease or defect’ to 
establish volitional impairment.”  Indeed, given the extensive 
testimony of Berlin and Dietz, no rational jury could have drawn 
this conclusion.  Berlin and Dietz argued at length about 
whether sexual sadists suffered from volitional impairment, but 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
87 
the argument never pivoted on whether sexual sadism was or 
was not a severe psychosis or a form of intellectual disability.  
Dietz did not opine that defendant could control himself because 
he suffered from neither severe psychosis nor serious 
intellectual disability.  Rather, he testified that defendant did 
not suffer from a mental disease or defect but even if he did, his 
behavior showed that his volitional capability was intact.  The 
testimony did not mislead the jury in the way defendant 
suggests. 
 
In sum, we find that Dr. Dietz did not testify falsely and, 
as such, the prosecution did not violate due process by failing to 
“correct” his testimony. 
iii.  Exclusion of testimony concerning the 
SVPA 
Defendant next contends the trial court’s exclusion of 
testimony regarding the SVPA violated his Sixth Amendment 
right to fully and fairly cross-examine Dr. Dietz and his Eighth 
Amendment right to produce mitigating evidence. 
We begin with the Eighth Amendment claim.  The 
“ ‘Eighth Amendment requires that the jury be able to consider 
and give effect to’ a capital defendant’s mitigating evidence.”  
(Tennard v. Dretke (2004) 542 U.S. 274, 285.)  “Thus, a State 
cannot bar ‘the consideration of . . . evidence if the sentencer 
could reasonably find that it warrants a sentence less than 
death.’ ”  (Ibid.)  Despite this constitutional proscription, “the 
trial court still ‘ “determines relevancy in the first instance and 
retains discretion to exclude evidence whose probative value is 
substantially outweighed by the probability that its admission 
will create substantial danger of confusing the issues or 
misleading the jury.” ’ ”  (People v. Williams (2006) 40 Cal.4th 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
88 
287, 320; see also Romano v. Oklahoma (1994) 512 U.S. 1, 12; 
People v. McDowell (2012) 54 Cal.4th 395, 431; People v. Loker 
(2008) 44 Cal.4th 691, 731.)  A trial court’s decision to exclude 
asserted mitigating evidence is reviewed for an abuse of 
discretion.  (E.g., People v. McDowell, supra, 54 Cal.4th at 
pp. 433-434; People v. Salcido (2008) 44 Cal.4th 93, 162; People 
v. Williams, supra, 40 Cal.4th at p. 320.) 
Here, the trial court excluded references to the SVPA 
when it rejected both of defendant’s bases for admissibility.  The 
court found that the SVPA was irrelevant to the issue of 
institutional failure because defendant was, correctly, found 
ineligible for confinement as a sexually violent predator (SVP).  
Because defendant was not an SVP, he could not rely on the 
SVPA to argue that the penal system should have afforded him 
treatment available to those confined under the terms of the 
statute.  The court distinguished defendant’s case from People 
v. Mickle (1991) 54 Cal.3d 140, 193 (Mickle), in which we held 
that evidence that a defendant “had sought and/or been denied 
treatment which might have controlled the same dangerous 
personality disorder that purportedly contributed to the instant 
crimes” was “relevant and admissible.” 
We agree that Mickle does not control the case before us.  
In Mickle, the excluded evidence concerned “the state’s 
‘improper’ diagnosis and treatment” of the defendant.  (Mickle, 
supra, 54 Cal.3d at p. 193.)  In this case, the SVPA has no 
bearing on whether the state improperly diagnosed and treated 
defendant, given that defendant was not entitled to any care 
under the statute. 
 
Moreover, even if the trial court erred by excluding 
testimony about the SVPA for the purpose of establishing 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
89 
institutional failure, the error was harmless under any 
applicable standard.  (People v. Williams, supra, 40 Cal.4th at 
p. 320.)  Multiple witnesses testified regarding the failure to 
provide appropriate care.  Two correctional officers from Soledad 
prison told the jury that there was no counseling for “sexual 
predators” available at the prison and, even if there were, 
inmates probably would not attend out of a concern for their 
safety.  Officer Zaragoza likewise said that San Luis Obispo 
County afforded paroled sex offenders no “confidential 
psychotherapy.”  The only treatment parolees like defendant got 
was from the outpatient clinic, and Dr. True, the doctor in 
charge of that clinic, testified that he had very limited resources.  
True further testified had resources been available, he would 
have placed defendant in a number of additional treatment 
programs.  A different expert, Dr. Haney, opined that defendant 
“received no psychotherapy, really no psychotherapy throughout 
his entire life” despite clear signs that he needed treatment.  
Defense counsel also emphasized institutional failure as a 
mitigating 
factor 
in 
closing 
argument. 
 
Under 
such 
circumstances, “[n]o prejudice occurred.”  (Mickle, supra, 54 
Cal.3d at p. 194.) 
The trial court also disallowed testimony about the SVPA 
for the purpose of bolstering Dr. Berlin’s testimony that sexual 
sadism was a treatable condition.  In so doing, the court 
exercised its broad discretion under Evidence Code section 352, 
finding the SVPA’s probative value to be “very limited” and 
“substantially outweighed by . . . consumption of time.”  The 
court explained that the probative value of the statute was low 
because the SVPA “wasn’t passed to treat [offenders].”  Although 
treatment is mandated under the SVPA (Welf. & Inst. Code, 
§ 6606, subd. (a)), an individual may be involuntarily committed 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
90 
even when treatment is neither expected to be “successful” nor 
“potentially successful.”  (Id. subd. (b) [“Amenability to 
treatment is not required for a finding that any person is a 
person described in Section 6600, nor is it required for treatment 
of that person.  Treatment does not mean that the treatment be 
successful or potentially successful . . . .”]; Hubbart, supra, 19 
Cal.4th at p. 1167; accord, Hendricks, supra, 521 U.S. at p. 366; 
People v. McKee (2010) 47 Cal.4th 1172, 1195.)  Accordingly, 
when treatment is understood to mean effective treatment or 
treatment that is at least “potentially successful,” the probative 
value of the statute to show treatability is indeed limited.  (Welf. 
& Inst. Code, § 6606, subd. (b).)  Moreover, the court correctly 
noted that testimony about the SVPA would have resulted in 
“consumption of time, which would be required to basically 
educate the jury as to how the SVP[A] came about, what the 
requirements are, what the purpose of the statute is,” etc.  We 
therefore cannot say that the trial court abused its discretion in 
excluding the evidence. 
In addition to treatability and institutional failure, 
defendant claims that he “clearly” advanced another theory of 
admissibility at trial:  “to support Dr. Berlin’s testimony and 
prove that a paraphilia, and more specifically sexual sadism, 
was generally accepted by state experts, jurists and prosecuting 
attorneys nationwide to be the type of disorder that is capable 
of impairing volitional control.”  Defendant overstates how 
“clearly” he argued this basis for admitting evidence of the 
SVPA.  But even assuming that he preserved the claim and the 
trial court erred in excluding the evidence, any error was 
harmless.  Dr. Dietz himself stated that “we’re in an area where 
there are competing points of view.”  He told the jury “it’s 
arguable — that this [sexual sadism] affects impulse control.  
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
91 
It’s arguable that you could look at it the way Dr. Berlin does.”  
Dietz informed the jury that he respected Berlin’s opinion and 
said it should consider Berlin’s testimony that “sexual sadism 
. . . opens the door to irresistible impulse.”  Given Dietz’s on-
point testimony about the credibility of his opponent’s view 
regarding volitional impairment and sexual sadism, exclusion of 
testimony about the SVPA — a statute that does not even 
mention sexual sadism — did not result in prejudice. 
We 
next 
examine 
defendant’s 
Sixth 
Amendment 
argument that the exclusion of testimony concerning the SVPA 
violated his right to fully and fairly cross-examine Dr. Dietz.  To 
prevail on his claim (assuming he has preserved it for review), 
defendant must show that had Dietz been confronted with the 
evidence, “the ‘cross-examination would have produced “a 
significantly 
different 
impression 
of 
[the 
witness’s] 
credibility.” ’ ”  (People v. Dement (2011) 53 Cal.4th 1, 
52 (Dement); People v. Linton (2013) 56 Cal.4th 1146, 1188 
(Linton); People v. Quartermain (1997) 16 Cal.4th 600, 623-624.) 
We do not think that introduction of testimony about the 
SVPA would have significantly affected the jury’s impression of 
Dr. Dietz’s credibility.  The witness was thoroughly cross-
examined, including by being confronted with his own affidavit 
from a prior case.  In the affidavit, Dietz attested that sexual 
sadism (1) “open[ed] the door to irresistible impulse testimony 
from some experts”; (2) was “arguably the basis for a finding of 
extreme emotional distress where the offender feels impelled by 
strong sexual urges to commit the offense”; and (3) was a 
disorder “ ‘for which specific treatments are available . . . that 
can reduce or eliminate dangerousness.’ ”  When so confronted, 
Dietz not only acknowledged that he held those opinions, but 
also said that he had changed his mind only on “one point,” no 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
92 
longer taking “the position that treatment can eliminate 
dangerousness.”  Accordingly, Dietz was impeached by his own 
testimony on precisely those points on which defendant claims 
the SVPA was relevant.  Further impeachment with testimony 
concerning the SVPA would not have “produced ‘ “a significantly 
different impression of [his] credibility.” ’  ”  (Dement, supra, 53 
Cal.4th at p. 52; accord, People v. Smith (2015) 61 Cal.4th 18, 
59-60 [explaining that there was no error when the court 
excluded certain expert testimony after it “issue[d] a narrow 
ruling” that still permitted testimony “in some areas”].) 
  Defendant also complains that the restriction on his 
ability to confront Dr. Dietz damaged his own expert’s 
credibility.  For the same reason given in our discussion of 
defendant’s Eighth Amendment claim, we do not find that had 
testimony regarding the SVPA been admitted, the jury would 
have received a “ ‘ “significantly different impression” ’ ” of Dr. 
Berlin’s credibility.  (Dement, supra, 53 Cal.4th at p. 52.) 
In sum, we find no error in the exclusion of testimony 
about the SVPA.  When we have assumed error, the error was 
harmless. 
iv.  Imposition of the death penalty upon 
persons with a mental disorder that reduces 
their volitional control 
Defendant contends imposition of the death penalty on 
persons with a mental disorder that reduces their volitional 
control to such a degree that they can be subject to civil 
detention is excessive 
under the 
Eighth Amendment.  
Defendant’s argument relies on Atkins v. Virginia (2002) 536 
U.S. 304, 321 in which the high court held that “death is not a 
suitable punishment for a mentally retarded criminal.”  
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Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
93 
Defendant urges us to extend the rationale of Atkins to mentally 
disordered criminals, making such offenders categorically 
ineligible for the death penalty.  We have considered such 
invitations before and have consistently declined them.  (E.g., 
People v. Powell (2018) 5 Cal.5th 921, 962-963 (Powell); People 
v. Ghobrial (2018) 5 Cal.5th 250, 275-276; People v. Mendoza 
(2016) 62 Cal.4th 856, 908-911 (Mendoza); People v. Boyce 
(2014) 59 Cal.4th 672, 719-722; Hajek and Vo, supra, 58 Cal.4th 
at pp. 1250-1252.)  Defendant advances no persuasive reason for 
us to reconsider our position, notwithstanding his assertion of 
“a recent trend by state legislatures to view sexually violent 
offenders’ crimes as the product of a non-psychotic mental 
disorder which nevertheless impairs their volitional control.”  
The same trend was in effect when we decided the line of cases 
above, including cases from just a year ago. 
Consistent with our precedent, we reject defendant’s 
claim.  “We leave it to the Legislature, if it chooses, to determine 
exactly the type and level of mental impairment that must be 
shown to warrant a categorical exemption from the death 
penalty.”  (Hajek and Vo, supra, 58 Cal.4th at p. 1252.) 
v.  Jury instruction regarding lack of volitional 
control 
Defendant contends the trial court erred in failing to give 
an instruction defining the term “mental disease or defect.”  
Following the language of section 190.3, factor (h), the court 
instructed the jury that it should consider “whether or not at the 
time of the offense the capacity of the defendant to appreciate 
the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the 
requirements of law was impaired as a result of mental disease 
or defect or the effects of intoxication.”  Defendant argues the 
court had a duty to supplement this instruction on its own 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
94 
motion and instruct the jury as to the meaning of the term 
“mental disease or defect.”  Without such an instruction, “the 
jury . . . may have accepted Dietz’s testimony and wrongly 
ascribed a restrictive meaning to the statutory phrase ‘mental 
disease or defect’ and therefore concluded that [defendant’s] 
paraphilic disorder did not qualify under factor (h).” 
We are not convinced that the trial court was obliged to 
define “mental disease or defect” in the absence of a party’s 
request.  A court’s duty to define statutory terms “arises where 
the terms have a technical meaning that is peculiar to the law.”  
(People v. Howard (1988) 44 Cal.3d 375, 408.)  In contrast, 
“[w]hen a word or phrase ‘ “is commonly understood by those 
familiar with the English language and is not used in a technical 
sense peculiar to the law, the court is not required to give an 
instruction as to its meaning in the absence of a request.” ’ ”  
(People v. Estrada (1995) 11 Cal.4th 568, 574 (Estrada).)  We 
have never held that as used in section 190.3, factor (h), the 
phrase “mental disease or defect” carries a technical, legal 
meaning requiring clarification on the court’s own motion.  To 
the contrary, “ ‘[t]he language of a statute . . . is generally an 
appropriate and desirable basis for an instruction, and is 
ordinarily sufficient when the defendant fails to request 
amplification.’ ”  (Estrada, supra, 11 Cal.4th at p. 574.)  
Defendant attempts to persuade us otherwise by citing cases 
that deal with the term “mental disease or defect” in the context 
of legal insanity.  (In re Ramon M. (1978) 22 Cal.3d 419, 424-
428; People v. Weaver (2001) 26 Cal.4th 876, 968-969.)  Those 
cases are clearly inapposite because legal insanity is a technical, 
legal concept. 
Moreover, defendant’s argument is not really that the 
term “mental disease or defect” has some meaning other than 
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95 
that “ ‘ “commonly understood by those familiar with the 
English language.” ’ ”  (Estrada, supra, 11 Cal.4th at p. 574.)  
Instead, it is that because a witness in this case has supplied a 
definition for the term, the jury may be misled into adopting that 
definition rather than using “the meaning that might be 
ascribed to the same terms in common parlance.”  (Id. at p. 575.)  
Hence, defendant’s argument is really that the court should 
have given an instruction to dissipate any potential confusion 
caused by this particular witness’s testimony.  At most, this 
amounts to an argument for a pinpoint instruction to “relate 
particular facts to a legal issue in the case.”  (People v. Saille 
(1991) 54 Cal.3d 1103, 1119.)  Such instructions “are not 
required to be given sua sponte.”  (Ibid.) 
In any event, even assuming the court should have 
instructed the jury on its own motion, the failure to do so was 
harmless.  As discussed earlier, no reasonable juror could have 
drawn from the testimony of Drs. Berlin and Dietz the 
conclusion that “only severely psychotic or severely retarded 
persons could have the requisite ‘mental disease or defect’ to 
establish volitional impairment.”  The prosecution’s closing 
argument bolsters the point.  In discussing section 190.3, factor 
(h), the prosecutor made no mention of whether defendant was 
or was not psychotic or intellectually disabled.  Instead, he 
argued that defendant did not suffer “sexual compulsion.”  The 
prosecutor referred to Dr. Dietz’s testimony, stating “Dr. Dietz 
. . . said that [defendant] makes his choices.”  “But,” said the 
prosecutor, “you know you don’t need an MD to know that. . . .  
You should know that as well.”  The prosecution thus exhorted 
the jury to rely on its own experience, not any definition supplied 
by Dietz (which was not even mentioned).  Read as a whole, the 
testimony and arguments are entirely inconsistent with the 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
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96 
possibility that the jury may have been “misled about the nature 
of the statutory mitigating factor.” 
Finally, even if the jury was somehow misled about section 
190.3, factor (h), it could still consider defendant’s sexual 
sadism, antisocial personality disorder, and any other diagnosis 
of a mental condition under the section 190.3, factor (k), the 
“catchall” factor.  (Accord, People v. Smith (2005) 35 Cal.4th 334, 
353 [“even though [section 190.3] factor (d) refers to ‘extreme’ 
emotional or mental disturbance, evidence of mental disorder of 
less extreme character is admissible under factor (k)”].)  No 
reversible error occurred. 
2.  Restriction on testimony that witnesses believed 
defendant should not be executed 
Defendant contends the trial court erred in limiting 
testimony from some witnesses who would have testified that 
they believed defendant should not be executed.  The court 
allowed defendant’s mother, sister, former girlfriend (Adonia 
Krug), the mother to his son (Rosalynn Moore), and a spiritual 
advisor to respond to the question whether each thought 
defendant should receive life in prison instead of death.  Each 
gave the unsurprising answer that she thought defendant 
should live.  However, when defendant asked the same question 
of Mosher, a staff member at the Children’s Home where 
defendant was sent when he was 15, the prosecution objected 
and the court sustained the objection.  The court based its ruling 
on the fact Mosher last saw defendant in 1983 and no longer had 
a significant relationship with him.  The defense then made an 
offer of proof that Mosher, other staff members at the Children’s 
Home, and Scheyt — the mother of the girl defendant dated in 
1981 — would have testified that they thought defendant should 
not receive the death penalty.  The court affirmed its ruling as 
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to all of these witnesses.  Accordingly, although Mosher, other 
members of the Children’s Home, and Scheyt testified to 
defendant’s various positive characteristics and their high 
opinions of him, they did not say whether they believed 
defendant’s life should be spared. 
“[E]vidence that a family member or friend wants the 
defendant to live is admissible to the extent it relates to the 
defendant’s character . . . .”  (People v. Smith, supra, 35 Cal.4th 
at p. 367.)  To be admissible, the witness must “have a 
significant relationship with the defendant.”  (Ibid.)  We have 
not, however, considered whether a person whose significant 
relationship with the defendant ended more than a decade 
before the event for which the defendant is on trial must be 
allowed to give an opinion regarding whether he or she wants 
the defendant to live.  (Cf. People v. Smith, supra, 35 Cal.4th at 
pp. 366-367 [finding that an educational therapist who had a 
significant relationship with the defendant until three years 
before his crime should have been allowed to testify that she did 
not want him executed]; Mickle, supra, 54 Cal.3d at p. 194 
[finding that the opinion of a close family friend that the 
defendant’s life should be spared was relevant and admissible]; 
People v. Heishman (1988) 45 Cal.3d 147, 180, 194 (Heishman) 
[holding that a former wife who had a daughter with the 
defendant six years before the crimes in question should have 
been allowed to say whether she thought the death penalty was 
appropriate for him].)  We need not reach the issue here because, 
even assuming that the trial court should have permitted people 
who knew defendant as a teenager to opine that his character 
was such that he should live, the exclusion of the testimony was 
harmless. 
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Multiple people pleaded with the jury to spare defendant’s 
life.  His mother, sister, a childhood girlfriend (who kept in 
contact with defendant), the mother of his child, and a spiritual 
advisor all said that they wanted him to live.  Moreover, the 
witnesses who were not allowed to give their opinion regarding 
the penalty nonetheless offered “direct evidence of defendant’s 
character” and their testimony was “generally so supportive of 
defendant that it is very unlikely that any juror would infer that 
[they] would want to see him put to death.”  (People v. Smith, 
supra, 35 Cal.4th at p. 368; Heishman, supra, 45 Cal.3d at 
p. 194.)  Under such circumstances, “it is not reasonably possible 
that the jury would have returned a different penalty verdict” 
had it heard these witnesses say that defendant should not be 
executed.  (People v. Ervin (2000) 22 Cal.4th 48, 103; see People 
v. Smith, supra, 35 Cal.4th at p. 368; Heishman, supra, 45 
Cal.3d at p. 194.) 
3.  Testimony of a former girlfriend concerning her 
relationship with defendant 
Defendant contends the trial court abused its discretion by 
admitting testimony concerning why his relationship with 
former girlfriend Liesel Turner ended.  Over a defense objection, 
the court allowed Turner to testify as follows.  Although the 
relationship was initially “very nice, very romantic,” Turner 
eventually became frightened of defendant.  Defendant told 
Turner that his former girlfriend “had been raped and murdered 
and that he had committed a crime so that he could get put in 
jail so that he could go kill the person that had raped and 
murdered her.”  When Turner stated defendant told her he had 
killed the person, the court interrupted.  The court instructed 
the jury that Turner’s statements that defendant murdered 
someone “are admissible just to show why someone reacted to 
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those statements.  It’s not admitted to show that what’s in the 
statement is true. . . .  There’s not going to be any evidence that 
what [defendant] said is, in fact, true, in fact, occurred.  The 
reason the statement is admissible is just to show why Ms. 
Turner reacted to it.”  Turner continued testifying, stating that 
she eventually ended her relationship with defendant because 
she “didn’t feel safe.” 
Before the trial court, defendant argued that Turner’s 
entire testimony was improper because it exceeded the scope of 
permissible rebuttal.  The trial court rejected the argument, 
finding that the testimony served two purposes:  (1) to rebut 
“character” testimony that defendant “does have the good 
quality that he can have a good relationship with women,” as 
defendant’s prior girlfriends (Krug and Moore) testified; and (2) 
to rebut testimony from witnesses who said defendant’s 
relationship with Turner was “good.” 
The court’s reasoning is sound and supported by the 
record.  Defendant had elicited statements from four women — 
Krug, Moore, Krug’s mother, and a friend (Jaime Prisco) — to 
establish that he had good intimate relationships with women.  
In addition, he drew from two witnesses the testimony that 
defendant and Turner had a “good” relationship.  Hence, to the 
extent that Turner’s testimony showed that she became afraid 
of defendant and broke up with him because she “didn’t feel 
safe,” the testimony tended to rebut the impression that 
defendant’s relationship with women in general — and Turner 
in particular — was as good as defendant’s witnesses had 
suggested.  “ ‘ “The admission of rebuttal evidence rests largely 
within the sound discretion of the trial court and will not be 
disturbed on appeal in the absence of ‘palpable abuse.’ ” ’ ”  
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(People v. Smith, supra, 35 Cal.4th at p. 359.)  We find no such 
abuse here. 
Defendant further argues that even if Turner’s testimony 
was relevant, it should have been excluded under Evidence Code 
section 352.  We agree Turner’s statement that defendant told 
her he killed a person to avenge a girlfriend’s death had the 
potential to create undue prejudice.  However, the court 
properly instructed the jury that the statement was not 
admitted for its truth (to show that defendant did kill someone 
for revenge) but only to explain Turner’s state of mind (to 
explain why she became afraid of defendant).  “Absent some 
showing to the contrary, we presume the jury followed the 
court’s instructions.”  (People v. Merriman (2014) 60 Cal.4th 1, 
48-49 (Merriman).)  Defendant has not made such a showing, 
despite arguing it was impossible for the jury to believe that 
Turner was afraid of defendant without also believing that 
defendant “did in fact plot and engage in murder.”  A boast that 
one has killed a person is disturbing in and of itself, even if it 
was an empty boast intended to “impress” a girlfriend.  The trial 
court did not abuse its discretion by determining that, being 
admitted for a limited purpose, the probative value of Turner’s 
statement was not substantially outweighed by the danger of 
undue prejudice. 
4.  Admission of photograph of defendant 
Defendant contends the trial court abused its discretion by 
admitting in the penalty phase a photograph of him, shirtless 
and flexing.  The prosecution authenticated the photograph as 
having been taken in February 1999, after defendant killed 
Newhouse but before he killed Crawford.  The court allowed the 
prosecution to admit the photograph as an exhibit and to display 
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it to the jury during closing argument.  Because defendant had 
presented testimony and otherwise argued that he showed 
remorse after his arrest, the court admitted the photograph as 
evidence tending to suggest that the remorse was not genuine.  
As the court stated, “here one of the main mitigating factors 
that’s being argued is remorse. . . .  I think it would be a 
reasonable inference for the jury to look at this photograph and 
decide that his remorse didn’t begin until he was arrested” and 
so was “self-serving.”  The court acknowledged that the 
photograph was “ambiguous,” or capable of giving rise to more 
than one inference, but found that its admission would not be 
“overly prejudicial,” because the adverse inference was not “an 
unfair [one] to draw.” 
On appeal, defendant raises the same arguments that 
were rejected at trial.  He first asserts the photograph had no 
relevance pertaining to remorse (or the lack thereof) because 
“[r]emorse is a complex, changing state of mind, and is not 
something that can be proved to be absent or present merely by 
a picture.”  Defendant’s argument misses the mark.  Under 
Evidence Code section 210, relevant evidence is evidence 
“having any tendency in reason to prove or disprove any 
disputed fact that is of consequence to the determination of the 
action.”  (Italics added.)  Accordingly, to be relevant and 
admissible, the photograph did not need to “prove[]” “a complex, 
changing state of mind”; it needed only to have a “tendency” to 
do so.  (Ibid.)  In this case, the photograph tended to corroborate 
evidence introduced at the guilt phase that defendant appeared 
“in a good mood,” “joking around,” and “happy” in March 1999, 
shortly after he killed Crawford and before he was arrested.  As 
such, it gave rise to a “reasonable inference . . . that 
[defendant’s] remorse didn’t begin until he was arrested.”  This, 
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in turn, suggested that defendant’s “displays of remorse and acts 
of contrition” were not genuine and therefore should be afforded 
little value in mitigation.  (See, e.g., Hajek and Vo, supra, 58 
Cal.4th at p. 1239.)  The trial court did not abuse its 
“considerable discretion” in finding the photograph relevant.  
(Merriman, supra, 60 Cal.4th at p. 74.) 
Second, defendant argues that the photograph should 
have been excluded under Evidence Code section 352.  
Specifically, he asserts that (1) “the court erred by failing to 
weigh prejudice against probative value” because it mistakenly 
treated the photograph as “ ‘circumstance of the crime’ ” 
evidence under Penal Code section 190.3, factor (a); and (2) 
properly weighted, the photograph should have been excluded 
because it was unduly prejudicial. 
We do not think the trial court failed to weigh the value of 
the evidence against the risk of undue prejudice.  “[A] court need 
not expressly weigh prejudice against probative value or even 
expressly state that it has done so, if the record as a whole shows 
the court was aware of and performed its balancing functions 
under Evidence Code section 352.”  (People v. Taylor (2001) 26 
Cal.4th 1155, 1169 (Taylor); see People v. Riel (2000) 22 Cal.4th 
1153, 1187-1188.) 
In this case, “the record as a whole” does so show.  (Taylor, 
supra, 26 Cal.4th at p. 1169.)  Before admitting the photograph, 
the trial court heard argument from both sides outside of the 
presence of the jury.  The court subsequently stated, “on the 352 
issue, . . . I think 352 is different in the penalty phase than it is 
in the guilt phase.  And I think the penalty phase, you go to the 
cases which deal with the victim impact evidence.  And 
obviously . . . some evidence presented in the penalty phase [is] 
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emotional or . . . prejudicial and, in some cases overly so.”  
“Ultimately,” concluded the court, “the court’s direction has been 
that you need to discern whether [the evidence at issue] would 
divert the jury’s attention from [its] duty in the penalty trial and 
whether it would do so in a way that is unfair. [¶] . . .  The real 
test for rebuttal evidence simply is[,] is it proper rebuttal.  And 
. . . my judgment is the only way to — for 352 to exclude it at 
that point would be if it would unfairly  — be unfair in the sense 
that it would divert the jury’s attention from [its] ultimate duty.”  
The court thereafter admitted the photograph. 
Given this record, we cannot say that the court failed to 
perform its duty under section 352 of the Evidence Code.  The 
trial court “held an extensive hearing outside the jury’s presence 
to determine whether to admit the photograph[]” (Taylor, supra, 
26 Cal.4th at p. 1169) and its statements during that hearing 
showed that it understood that it could exclude the photograph 
on section 352 grounds if the photograph “would divert the jury’s 
attention from [its] ultimate duty.”  Although the court also 
mentioned “cases which deal with the victim impact evidence,” 
it is clear that the court did not confuse the photograph with 
victim impact evidence or apply some standard of prejudice that 
was unique to such evidence.  Considered as a whole, the record 
does not support defendant’s claim that the trial court 
mistakenly treated the photograph as Penal Code section 190.3, 
factor (a)’s “circumstances of the crime” evidence. 
Regarding the issue of prejudice, defendant contends the 
photograph was the prosecution’s “most potent weapon,” as 
shown by the fact that the prosecutor displayed an enlarged 
image of the photograph for about 18 minutes during its hour-
long closing argument.  He also makes much of the trial court’s 
remark that the prosecution “use[d] the photo effectively in 
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argument.”  Using a photograph to cast doubt on defendant’s 
supposed remorse may have been effective, but there is nothing 
improper about effective argument, or argument that 
capitalized on the probative value of a piece of evidence.  Put 
differently, frequent use of a piece of evidence to undermine a 
defendant’s attempt at mitigation does not equate to undue 
prejudice.  (See, e.g., People v. Daveggio and Michaud (2018) 4 
Cal.5th 790, 824 [“ ‘ “ ‘ “Evidence is not prejudicial, as that term 
is used in a section 352 context, merely because it undermines 
the 
opponent’s 
position 
or 
shores 
up 
that 
of 
the 
proponent” ’ ” ’ ”].)  Having examined the photograph ourselves 
and reviewed the record for the way in which it was used, we 
find the court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the 
image.  (See, e.g., Michaels, supra, 28 Cal.4th at p. 532.) 
5.  Admission of evidence that defendant lied about 
shooting a person 
 
To support his diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder, 
Dr. Dietz recounted various instances in defendant’s history in 
which 
he 
had 
displayed 
the 
diagnostic 
criterion 
of 
“deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying.”  Defendant now 
complains about one such instance of deceitful conduct as 
relayed by Dietz. 
The incident involved a shooting of a man in Santa 
Barbara in 1987.  During his April 27, 1999 interview, Hobson 
asked defendant, “Just before you went to prison in ‘87, 
somebody called Crime Stoppers, San Luis Obispo here, and 
identified you as shooting somebody in the chest in Santa 
Barbara three times over a drug deal.  Wasn’t you?”  Defendant 
answered, “Shoot somebody in the chest three times, no.  Wasn’t 
me.”  After the tape recorder was turned off, however, defendant 
admitted that he had shot a man in the leg that year.  Hobson 
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documented the admission in a report, which was provided to 
Dr. Dietz.  The doctor, in turn, told the jury that defendant “was 
asked about whether he had shot a man in Santa Barbara,” and 
after having “said no, he hadn’t done it,” “he subsequently 
admitted to Investigator Hobson that he had been the guy that 
shot a man in the leg in Santa Barbara in 1987.”  On cross-
examination, defense counsel suggested that Dietz did not know 
whether defendant really shot a person in 1987.  Dietz agreed 
but countered that “[w]hether he lied when he said he didn’t 
[shoot a person] or lied when he said he did, one of them’s a lie.” 
On appeal, defendant accuses Dr. Dietz of having 
improperly “vouched” to the jury that defendant in fact shot a 
man three times in the chest.  We disagree.  In his testimony, 
Dietz said that after having first denied the incident, defendant 
“subsequently admitted” that he “shot a man in the leg in Santa 
Barbara in 1987.”  Dietz never said that defendant shot 
somebody in the chest three times.  More to the point, the 
incident was relevant to the doctor’s opinion insofar as the 
inconsistency between the denial and the admission showed 
that defendant was being deceitful in his interview with Hobson.  
The actual details of how defendant shot the person — and 
indeed whether defendant shot a person in Santa Barbara in 
1987 at all — were immaterial. 
In short, Dr. Dietz’s testimony could not reasonably be 
understood as vouching that defendant shot a person three 
times in the chest, and the prosecution did not commit 
misconduct in presenting his testimony. 
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6.  Suggestion that defendant was convicted of sexual 
assault relating to the Jennifer E. incident 
a.  Background 
 
Connie Ridley, defendant’s mother, testified that her son 
should be spared the death penalty because “until the last few 
years, [he] has hurt no one.”  The prosecution sought to impeach 
this assertion with pretrial statements Ridley made to its 
investigators.  According to an investigator’s report, Ridley had 
said that defendant “got into a lot of serious trouble with the law 
as he was growing up.  He was convicted of a sexual assault 
while in Sandpoint and was sent to the Cottonwood facility.”  
The defense objected to Ridley being confronted with her 
statements, pointing out that defendant did not “go to 
Cottonwood for [the Sandpoint assault],” having instead “spent 
a couple of months in county jail.” 
 
The assault the parties were referring to concerned 12-
year-old Jennifer E.  The parties agreed that defendant pleaded 
to a misdemeanor assault charge and was sentenced to the local 
jail for the incident.  The trial court nonetheless allowed Ridley 
to be impeached with her pretrial statements, reasoning that if 
she “had knowledge of — of a sexual assault that he had been 
convicted of and, she believes, sent to prison,” then “even though 
those aren’t the facts, . . . it directly impeaches her testimony” 
that he “hasn’t hurt anyone up until the past few years.”  In 
accordance with the court’s ruling, the prosecutor asked Ridley, 
“Did you tell Investigator Hanley and Investigator Hobson . . . 
that your son, Rex, got into a lot of serious trouble with the law 
as he was growing up?”  Ridley answered yes, and the prosecutor 
followed up with, “Okay.  And that’s when you told them that he 
was convicted of a sexual assault while in Sandpoint and was 
sent to the Cottonwood facility?”  Ridley again answered, “Yes.” 
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The 
prosecution 
likewise 
cross-examined 
several 
witnesses by referring to Ridley’s pretrial statement that 
defendant “was convicted in Sandpoint Idaho of a sexual 
assault.”  Although these witnesses were examined before 
Jennifer E. took the stand, Jennifer did testify.  She told the jury 
that one evening in February 1984, she found defendant on top 
of her, trying to unzip her and his pants after she told him that 
she did not want to have sex with him.  As she continued to 
struggle, defendant punched her “hard” “on the forehead, the 
eye area, and . . . on the jaw.”  The defense disputed few of the 
details of the assault, simply drawing out that alcohol had been 
involved. 
b.  Analysis 
 
Defendant asserts the prosecutor committed misconduct 
by “insinuat[ing]” to the jury during cross-examination that 
defendant was convicted of yet another sexual assault in 
addition to those relating to Shelley C., A.C., and the two 
murder victims in this case.  We reject the claim. 
 
It is well established that a prosecutor may not “ ‘ask 
questions of a witness that suggest facts harmful to a defendant, 
absent a good faith belief that such facts exist.’ ”  (People v. 
Bolden (2002) 29 Cal.4th 515, 562.)  Under this standard, the 
prosecution did not commit misconduct in questioning 
defendant’s mother.  As the trial court explained, the 
prosecution did not pose the complained-of question to Ridley to 
suggest that defendant was convicted of a sexual assault and 
sent to Cottonwood prison.  Instead, he was asking her that 
question to establish an inconsistency in her testimony:  that 
she believed her son, at 18, was sent to prison for sexual assault 
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and yet still maintained that “until the last few years, [he] has 
hurt no one.” 
 
A different analysis is called for when the prosecution 
asked other witnesses about Ridley’s statement.  With these 
witnesses, the prosecution was not seeking to establish 
inconsistencies, but rather implying the truth of its questions:  
that defendant’s mother believed he was convicted of a sexual 
assault because he was, in fact, convicted of such an assault.  At 
no point during trial, however, did the prosecution imply that 
the sexual assault conviction was some conviction other than 
that relating to Jennifer E.  And Jennifer E.’s testimony — 
largely uncontradicted by the defense — indicated that 
defendant sexually assaulted her.  Defendant struck Jennifer 
while trying to undo her pants after she refused to have sex with 
him.  Under such circumstances, it is hardly misleading to call 
defendant’s act a sexual assault.  Indeed, all witnesses who 
referred to the Jennifer E. incident described it as a sexual 
assault of some sort.  Defendant himself admitted in his 
interview with Hobson that he attempted to rape a “young girl” 
when he was 18.  Dr. Berlin, the main defense expert, similarly 
testified that “[a]t the age of 18, [defendant] . . . forced himself 
sexually upon a young lady.” 
 
To the extent that defendant now claims that he was not 
convicted of sexual assault, he seems to be drawing a hyper-
technical distinction:  that his conviction for misdemeanor 
assault, which stemmed from sexual assaultive conduct, was 
different from “a conviction of sexual assault.”  We are not 
convinced that the distinction, if it exists, is meaningful.  
Whether or not defendant was convicted of the specific crime of 
sexual assault, he was convicted for conduct that any reasonable 
jury would think of as sexual assault.  As such, the prosecutor’s 
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questions did not result in prejudice.  (E.g., People v. 
Cunningham (2001) 25 Cal.4th 926, 1019.) 
7.  Prosecutor’s remarks in opening and closing 
statements 
 
Defendant argues that the prosecutor committed multiple 
instances of misconduct in his opening and closing remarks.  
“ ‘ “As a general rule, a defendant may not complain on appeal 
of prosecutorial misconduct unless in a timely fashion — and on 
the same ground — the defendant made an assignment of 
misconduct and requested that the jury be admonished to 
disregard the impropriety.” ’ ”  (People v. Covarrubias (2016) 1 
Cal.5th 838, 894 (Covarrubias).) 
 
Except as noted below, defendant failed to object to the 
comments of which he now complains.  Because an objection and 
request for an admonishment would not have been futile, 
defendant has forfeited his claims.  (E.g., People v. Clark (2011) 
52 Cal.4th 856, 960 (Clark); Spencer, supra, 5 Cal.5th at p. 683; 
cf. People v. Bandhauer (1967) 66 Cal.2d 524, 530 [permitting 
the defendant to raise the issue of prosecutorial misconduct for 
the first time on appeal when the ground for objection was not 
“apparent” until it was “too late to cure the error by 
admonition”].)  And, forfeiture aside, we find no merit to 
defendant’s arguments. 
a.  Use of the word “animal” and “argumentative 
attacks” 
 
Defendant begins by complaining that the prosecution 
called him an “animal.”  In its opening statement, the 
prosecution recounted the incident with A.C.  After describing 
how defendant broke into A.C.’s house, struggled with her down 
the hallway, and banged her head on the wall, prosecutor said, 
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“finally this animal bites her on the finger so bad he cuts the 
tendons in her finger.” 
“Argument may include opprobrious epithets warranted 
by the evidence.  [Citation.]  Where they are so supported, we 
have condoned a wide range of epithets to describe the egregious 
nature of the defendant’s conduct,” including “ ‘monstrous,’ ” 
“ ‘ “perverted murderous cancer,” ’ ” “ ‘ “human monster,” ’ ” and 
“ ‘mutation.’ ”  (People v. Zambrano (2007) 41 Cal.4th 1082, 1172 
(Zambrano).)  No one disputes that defendant bit A.C..  
Accordingly, an isolated reference to defendant as an “animal” 
who bit his victim does not amount to misconduct.  
 
Defendant further objects to “argumentative attacks” on 
his trial counsel.  As part of his opening statement, the 
prosecutor highlighted defendant’s criminal record and said, in 
light of such record, it was “absolutely amazing” that defense 
counsel would “want . . . you to give him a break.”  The 
prosecutor also emphasized the expected victim impact 
statements.  Referring to the defense attorney who argued that, 
by confessing, defendant “was the one who helped bring closure” 
to the victims’ families, the prosecutor said, “[s]he doesn’t 
understand this.  There has been no closure for these families.”  
We fail to see any misconduct.  “When the comments are 
considered in context, there is no likelihood that the jury would 
have understood the comments as anything beyond criticism of 
defense counsel’s tactical approach in argument and the defense 
view of the evidence in the case, as is allowed.”  (Linton, supra, 
56 Cal.4th at p. 1206.) 
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b.  Comments on defense mitigation strategy, 
experts, and counsel 
 
Defendant complains that the prosecutor improperly 
denigrated his mitigation strategy, expert witnesses, and trial 
counsel.  Defendant’s strategy at the penalty phase was to offer 
evidence of his childhood abuse, mental illness, and the failure 
of various institutions to treat him.  The prosecution previewed 
this strategy by telling the jury, “[t]he evidence you will be 
presented with from these defense attorneys will try to blame 
everybody but their client.  They’ll call it an explanation, but it’s 
really a blame game.  They’re going to blame the State of Idaho.  
They’re going to blame the State of California. . . .  Mostly 
they’re going to blame [defendant’s] father.”  The prosecutor 
returned to the same theme in closing argument, arguing that 
defense was “trying to deflect . . . responsibility” and instead 
“lay some kind of a guilt trip on you for what their client truly 
deserves.”  The prosecutor also characterized the defense as 
offering an “ ‘abuse excuse.’ ” 
 
We find no misconduct.  The thrust of the prosecutor’s 
argument was that defendant alone was responsible for his 
crimes and could not shift the blame onto others, even if he did 
suffer abuse, mental disorder, and lack of treatment.  There is 
nothing “deceptive” or “reprehensible” about such an argument.  
(E.g., People v. Gonzales (2011) 51 Cal.4th 894, 947 (Gonzales).)  
“Prosecutors may attack the defense case and argument.  ‘Doing 
so is proper and is, indeed, the essence of advocacy.’ ”  (People v. 
Thornton (2007) 41 Cal.4th 391, 455 (Thornton).)  Likewise, the 
prosecutor’s use of pungent language, calling defense strategy a 
“blame game,” “guilt trip,” or “abuse excuse,” does not rise to the 
level of misconduct.  (E.g., ibid. [no misconduct in the 
prosecutor’s suggestion that “defendant was relying on an 
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112 
‘abuse excuse’ ”]; People v. Davis (1995) 10 Cal.4th 463, 539 
(Davis) [no misconduct when the prosecutor said the defense 
strategy was “ ‘to attack and smear everybody they could in the 
hopes of somehow deflecting or diffusing blame’ ” and  “ ‘to try 
to lay a guilt trip on you’ ”].) 
 
As part of the same argument, defendant also objects to 
the prosecutor’s attacks on the credibility of Drs. Berlin and 
Haney.  Defendant did not lodge specific objections against these 
statements.21  And even if he did, “ ‘harsh and colorful attacks 
on the credibility of opposing witnesses are permissible.’ ”  
(Clark, supra, 52 Cal.4th at p. 962.)  So, too, are remarks “to 
expose bias in the witness[es] by showing [their] propensity to 
advocate for criminal defendants even in extreme cases.”  
(Zambrano, supra, 41 Cal.4th at p. 1165.)  Accordingly, none of 
the prosecutor’s remarks amounts to misconduct. 
 
Finally, defendant accuses the prosecutor of having 
impugned the integrity of defense counsel.  In his closing 
argument, the prosecutor posed the rhetorical question, “You 
think they just pick these witnesses out of a hat?  You think a 
lot of this defense was orchestrated?”  Later, referring to the fact 
that Dr. Haney sat in on an interview that Dr. Berlin conducted 
with 
defendant, 
the 
prosecutor 
said, 
“What 
kind 
of 
professionalism is that?  . . .  [¶]  Why did they do that?  Was it 
to get all the ducks in a row?” 
                                        
21  
Defendant did object when the prosecutor said “to show 
you how absolutely ridiculous the defendant’s psychology team 
is, we will present Dr. Park Dietz.”  The objection, however, was 
on the ground that the prosecution should not be able to 
“reference . . . any rebuttal evidence . . . in opening statement,” 
an objection entirely different from the argument now raised on 
appeal. 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
113 
 
It is true that “[a] prosecutor is not permitted to make 
false or unsubstantiated accusations that counsel is fabricating 
a defense or deceiving the jury.”  (Clark, supra, 52 Cal.4th at 
p. 961.)  In context, however, the prosecutor’s statement that the 
“defense was orchestrated” does not appear to rise to an 
insinuation of deceit.  The prosecutor contrasted “orchestrated” 
with “pick[ing] . . . witnesses out of a hat.”  So by saying that the 
defense was “orchestrated,” the prosecution seemed to mean 
that it was carefully crafted, or presented with a deliberate 
selection of witnesses.  Of course, there is nothing untoward in 
a careful selection of witnesses.  But then it is not misconduct 
either to tell the jury that as the opposing party was deliberate 
and selective in its presentation, the jury should be aware of the 
fact and judge the case accordingly.  (Accord, Davis, supra, 10 
Cal.4th at pp. 538-539 [rejecting the claim that the prosecution 
accused the defense of “manipulating witnesses and suppressing 
testimony of uncooperative witnesses” when it suggested that 
the defendant’s brother, unlike his sisters, did not testify 
because “ ‘he knew what they wanted and wasn’t willing to do 
it’ ”].) 
 
Likewise, the statement that the defense witnesses 
interviewed defendant together “to get all the ducks in a row” 
was not misconduct.  The prosecution implied that the defense 
coordinated its experts but stopped short of insinuating that the 
experts lied.  In any event, the comment was brief and 
interposed in the middle of a lengthy closing argument.  It did 
not result in prejudice. 
c.  Asserted statement of personal belief 
 
Defendant asserts the prosecutor improperly injected his 
personal belief by beginning his closing statement with the 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
114 
following:  “While some of us have been working on this case for 
over two years now . . . you, too, have now devoted a significant 
portion of your lives to this case. . . .  [¶]  You realize now what 
so many of us have realized for a long time.  You realize now you 
have been in the presence of one of the most cruel, calculating, 
and brutal individuals on the planet, Rex Allan Krebs.” 
 
Prosecutors may not “base argument on facts not in 
evidence” or otherwise seek to “ ‘ “bolster their case ‘by invoking 
their . . . depth of experience, or the prestige or reputation of 
their office.’ ” ’ ”  (Mendoza, supra, 62 Cal.4th at p. 906; Linton, 
supra, 56 Cal.4th at p. 1207.)  Here, the prosecutor did not do 
either of those things.  At closing argument, after the jury has 
heard all the evidence, the prosecutor urged it to “realize” that 
defendant was a most “cruel, calculating, and brutal 
individual[].”  Although the prosecutor indicated that by coming 
to such a realization, the jury would be agreeing with the 
prosecution’s poor opinion of defendant, it nowhere suggested 
that the prosecution formed that opinion based on “ ‘ “evidence 
available to the government, but not before the jury.” ’ ”  (Linton, 
supra, 56 Cal.4th at p. 1207.)  Nor did it imply that the jury 
should adopt the prosecution’s view because of its “ ‘ “ prestige, 
reputation, or depth of experience.” ’ ”  (Ibid.)  Accordingly, there 
was neither impermissible vouching nor reliance on evidence 
outside the record. 
d.  Asserted mischaracterization of Drs. Berlin and 
Haney’s testimony 
 
Defendant raises additional issues relating to the 
prosecutor’s characterization of Drs. Berlin’s and Haney’s 
testimony.  With regard to Berlin, defendant objects to the 
portion in the prosecutor’s closing argument in which he said:  
“the defense attorney[] seeks out Dr. Berlin from across the 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
115 
country.  Can’t find somebody in California.  Can’t even find 
somebody west of the Rockies.  Gets Dr. Berlin from across the 
country to travel to California.” 
 
Generally, “prosecutors have wide latitude to discuss and 
draw inferences from the evidence presented at trial.”  
(Thornton, supra, 41 Cal.4th at p. 454.)  In this case, no one 
disputed that Dr. Berlin was affiliated with Johns Hopkins 
University and so was “from across the country.”  The 
implication of the prosecution’s statements goes further than 
that, however.  By remarking that “the defense . . . can’t . . . find 
somebody west of the Rockies” and had to go “across the country” 
to “seek[] out Dr. Berlin,” the prosecution implied that Berlin’s 
views were idiosyncratic, not shared by anyone “west of the 
Rockies.”  Yet Dr. Dietz — the prosecution’s own witness — 
testified that although he and Berlin disagreed, “we’re in an 
area where there are competing points of view” and Dietz 
respected his colleague’s opinion.  The prosecution also 
represented during voir dire that Berlin was “one of the top 
psychologists in the country.”  As such, there is some tension 
between the prosecutor’s closing argument and what he and his 
expert had said elsewhere. 
 
Nonetheless, even assuming the prosecutor overstepped 
his bounds, any error is not prejudicial.  The jury was told of Dr. 
Berlin’s credentials, that he was “an associate professor at the 
John[]s Hopkins University,” “an attending physician at the 
John[]s Hopkins’s Hospital,” “the founder of the John[]s Hopkins 
Sexual Disorders Clinic,” and the director for a national 
institute on sexual trauma.  In addition, the jury knew that 
Berlin had published in peer reviewed journals, spoken to 
judges, appeared before senators, and been certified by 
numerous professional boards.  It also knew that Berlin did the 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
116 
same residency at Johns Hopkins and served on the same “DSM 
publication committee” as Dr. Dietz.  In addition, the jury heard 
a direct rebuttal to the charge that the defense “couldn’t find a 
doctor west of the Rockies.”  As defendant’s attorney stated, “We 
went to John[s] Hopkins.  They went looking for the best guy 
they could find.  We went looking for the best guy we could find.  
They’re both from John[s] Hopkins.” 
 
Finally, the court instructed the jury regarding expert 
testimony.  It twice told the jury to “consider the qualifications 
and believability of the witness” as well as the underlying bases 
for their opinions.  The instructions for the jury to focus on the 
relevant matters, combined with the rebuttal revealing the 
tenuous ground on which the prosecution asserted that Dr. 
Berlin’s opinion could not be found “west of the Rockies,” 
eliminated any reasonable possibility that the jury would have 
been persuaded to reach a different penalty verdict absent the 
prosecutor’s challenged comments. 
 
With regard to Dr. Haney, defendant is correct that the 
prosecution misstated the record when it said, “He called him 
the ‘Hole Boy.’ ”  The term “hole boy” or “hole kid” referred to the 
period of time that defendant spent in isolation during his stay 
at Cottonwood prison.  Defendant had represented to Haney 
that he did a significant amount of time in isolation, going so far 
as call himself the “Hole Kid.”  But it was defendant who gave 
himself that name; Haney did not call defendant the “hole kid” 
or “hole boy.” 
 
It is clear, however, that the misstatement does not 
warrant reversal of the death judgment.  The moniker “hole boy” 
or “hole kid” was relevant to the prosecution’s argument insofar 
as it tended to show that Dr. Haney was biased; after all, he 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
117 
knowingly depended on defendant — a witness with a motive to 
lie — to supply his social history.  To the extent that defendant 
indeed lied about how much time he spent in isolation, the 
prosecution’s point was valid.  The fact that Haney did not call 
defendant a “hole boy” had little significance. 
e.  Exhortation for the jury to be “outraged” 
 
Finally, defendant urges us to find misconduct in a 
comment the prosecutor made toward the end of his closing 
statement.  “Justice,” said the prosecutor, “is not served until 
the citizens of our community, jurors and citizens alike, are as 
outraged by what Rex Krebs did as the families of his victims.”  
“[P]rosecutorial references to community vengeance, while 
potentially inflammatory, are not misconduct if they are brief 
and isolated, and do not form the principal basis for advocating 
the death penalty.”  (Zambrano, supra, 41 Cal.4th at p. 1178.)  
The brief comment here does not amount to error. 
8.  Order to submit to psychiatric examination by 
prosecution expert 
 
Over defense objection, the trial court ordered defendant 
to be examined by Dr. Dietz.  Defendant refused and was not 
examined, a fact Dietz disclosed during his testimony.  The 
prosecution also mentioned defendant’s refusal to be examined 
in closing argument, stating, “the defendant will spend days 
talking to Dr. Berlin . . . but when the Court orders the 
defendant to talk to Dr. Dietz . . . the defendant refused.  
Where’s the fairness in that?  Who’s looking for the truth?” 
 
On appeal, the Attorney General concedes that the court 
erred in ordering defendant to be examined by Dr. Dietz.  (See 
Verdin v. Superior Court (2008) 43 Cal.4th 1096, 1109 (Verdin) 
[“any rule that existed before 1990 suggesting or holding a 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
118 
criminal defendant who places his or her mental state in issue 
may thereby be required to grant the prosecution access for 
purposes of a mental examination by a prosecution expert was 
superseded by the enactment of the criminal discovery statutes 
in 1990”]; Gonzales, supra, 51 Cal.4th at p. 927, fn. 15 [applying 
Verdin retroactively].)22  The Attorney General argues, however, 
that the error did not cause prejudice.  We agree. 
This case is much like People v. Wallace (2008) 44 Cal.4th 
1032, 1087-1088 (Wallace), where we found the Verdin error 
harmless.  As in Wallace, the prosecution expert here “did not 
rely on defendant’s refusal to participate in the court-ordered 
examination” to criticize his opponent’s conclusions.  (Id. at 
p. 1087.)  Moreover, “the brutality of defendant’s crimes . . . 
weighs heavily in aggravation.”  (Ibid.)  Such factors, along with 
the fact that the defense provided the jury with an explanation 
of why defendant refused to be examined by Dr. Dietz (because 
he would have examined defendant with an opinion already 
formed), lean against a finding of prejudice. 
Of course, there are differences between this case and 
Wallace as well.  In Wallace, the jury “heard [from yet another 
expert for whom no Verdin error occurred] that the reliability of 
the defense expert testimony was questionable.”  (Wallace, 
supra, 44 Cal.4th at p. 1087.)  Furthermore, the prosecutor in 
Wallace did not remark on the defendant’s refusal to be 
examined.  Nonetheless, these differences do not persuade us to 
                                        
22  
“Shortly after Verdin, the Legislature amended section 
1054.3 to expressly authorize courts to compel a mental 
examination by a prosecution-retained expert. (See § 1054.3, 
subd. (b), as amended by Stats. 2009, ch. 297, § 1.)  But because 
this case predates that amendment, Verdin applies.”  (People v. 
Banks (2014) 59 Cal.4th 1113, 1193 (Banks).) 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
119 
a different conclusion.  The jury here did not hear from another 
prosecution expert, but it did hear details supporting Dr. Dietz’s 
testimony from both defendant and his expert.  Dietz testified 
that defendant’s choices showed that he did not suffer from 
volitional impairment.  Defendant’s confessions then supplied, 
in vivid detail, the choices he made, and Dr. Berlin confirmed 
that defendant consciously stopped resisting his impulses after 
a bar fight.  As for the prosecutor’s brief comments in closing 
argument highlighting defendant’s refusal to submit to an 
interview with Dietz, they do not provide a basis to reprise all of 
defendant’s arguments about opposing party’s supposed 
“venomous treatment of the defense experts.”  With few 
exceptions, we have found that the prosecution conducted itself 
within the bounds allowed by law.  Under the totality of the 
circumstances, “it is not reasonably possible that [in the absence 
of the Verdin error] the jury would have returned a penalty 
verdict of life without parole . . . rather than death.”  (Wallace, 
supra, 44 Cal.4th at pp. 1087-1088.) 
9.  Instructions relating to section 190.3 
 
Defendant raises two arguments regarding the pattern 
instructions the jury received concerning the aggravating and 
mitigating factors under section 190.3.  We reject both claims. 
a. Mitigating circumstance 
Using CALJIC No. 8.85, the trial court told the jury:  “In 
determining which penalty is to be imposed on defendant . . . 
[y]ou shall consider, take into account and be guided by the 
following factors . . . .”  The court then instructed the jury on the 
various factors enumerated in section 190.3, including, as is 
relevant here, factors (d) and (h).  The court thus instructed the 
jury that it should consider “[w]hether or not the offense was 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
120 
committed while the defendant was under the influence of 
extreme mental or emotional disturbance” and “[w]hether or not 
at the time of the offense the capacity of the defendant to 
appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his 
conduct to the requirements of law was impaired as a result of 
mental disease or defect or the effects of intoxication.” 
Defendant first argues that the pattern instructions above 
improperly informed the jury that “any listed factor could be 
considered as aggravation.”  Specifically, defendant contends 
that if a jury finds that a defendant did not act “under the 
influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance” or was 
not impaired in his “capacity . . . to appreciate the criminality of 
his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of 
law,” then because of the “whether or not” language of the 
instruction, the jury will interpret the absence of such 
mitigating factors to be an aggravating circumstance.  We have 
repeatedly rejected such argument.  (E.g., People v. Miracle 
(2018) 6 Cal.5th 318, 354 (Miracle); People v. Wall (2017) 3 
Cal.5th 1048, 1073; Banks, supra, 59 Cal.4th at pp. 1207-1208; 
People v. Cook (2006) 39 Cal.4th 566, 618 [“CALJIC No. 8.85’s 
use of the phrase ‘whether or not,’ is not an invitation to jurors 
who find ‘a factor not proven’ to then ‘use that factor as a factor 
favoring imposition of the death penalty’ ”]; People v. Sapp 
(2003) 31 Cal.4th 240, 315.)  We once again reject it here. 
To the extent defendant attempts to rely on other 
instructions to bolster his argument, we find the effort 
unpersuasive.  For instance, defendant points to statements the 
court made to certain jurors during voir dire.  These earlier 
statements do not help defendant, as the jury was instructed to 
“[d]isregard all other instructions given . . . in other phases of 
th[e] trial” before entering penalty deliberation. 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
121 
Similarly, the fact that the court gave a jury instruction 
patterned on CALJIC No. 8.88 adds little to defendant’s claim.  
This instruction defined “[a]n aggravating factor [a]s any fact, 
condition or event attending the commission of a crime which 
increases its guilt or enormity.”  Defendant asserts that under 
this definition, the jury may have considered his mental illness 
and intoxication — the same circumstances mentioned under 
section 190.3, factor (h) — as aggravating because they were 
“fact[s], condition[s], or event[s] attending the commission of the 
crime.” 
We agree that the jury may indeed have drawn this 
conclusion, but find no impropriety thereby.  Both parties here 
agreed that defendant’s alcohol use and mental disorder 
(whether it be sexual sadism, as claimed by the defense, or 
antisocial personality disorder, as argued by the prosecution) 
were drivers behind his abductions, rapes, and ultimately, 
murders of Newhouse and Crawford.  As such, defendant’s 
intoxication 
and 
mental 
disorders 
were 
relevant 
to 
“circumstances of the crime of which the defendant was 
convicted in the present proceeding and the existence of any 
special circumstances found to be true.”  (§ 190.3, factor (a).)  
Hence, the jury may properly have considered them 
aggravating, even though they “also bear[] upon a mitigating 
factor” listed in section 190.3.  (People v. Smith, supra, 
35 Cal.4th at p. 356.) 
Put differently, although impairment as a result of a 
mental disorder or intoxication is always mitigating, the mere 
presence of a mental disorder or intoxication is not.  In cases 
where a mental disorder and/or drunkenness relate to the 
circumstances of the crime, they may be aggravating and it is 
not error to allow the jury to consider them as such.  (See People 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
122 
v. Smith, supra, 35 Cal.4th at p. 356 [“evidence of mental illness 
. . . is admissible in the prosecution’s case-in-chief [as an 
aggravating circumstance] if, as here, it relates to an 
aggravating factor listed in section 190.3”].) 
In sum, we reject defendant’s claim that the pattern 
instructions improperly allowed the jury to consider any strictly 
mitigating circumstance as aggravating. 
b. Vagueness 
 
Defendant argues that section 190.3, factor (h) is 
unconstitutionally vague.  Specifically, he contends the 
instruction is infirm because (1) it fails to define the phrase 
“mental disease or defect” and (2) it does not adequately explain 
“the concept of volitional capacity impairment conveyed by the 
phrase ‘capacity . . . to conform his conduct to the requirements 
of the law was impaired.’ ”  We disagree. 
 
Defendant’s argument about the term “mental disease or 
defect” in section 190.3, factor (h) is, by and large, a reprisal of 
his contention that the trial court needed to define the term on 
its own motion.  Defendant once again asserts that the phrase 
is not “ ‘commonly understandable’ ” given Dr. Dietz’s 
testimony.  However, as we have earlier explained, although 
Dietz espoused a narrow definition of “mental disease or defect,” 
the testimony, arguments, and instructions considered in their 
entirety did not preclude the jury from treating defendant’s 
mental conditions as mitigating.  Accordingly, even assuming 
that the instruction was vague, no prejudicial error occurred. 
 
We further reject defendant’s argument concerning the 
asserted vagueness of the phrase “the capacity of the defendant 
. . . to conform his conduct to the requirements of law was 
impaired as a result of mental disease or defect.”  (§ 190.3, subd. 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
123 
(h).)  Defendant claims that such language is vague because 
“[w]hen a person ‘gives in’ to an impulse, urge, craving or desire 
which is associated with a mental illness, and commits a crime,” 
it is not clear whether “the act of ‘giving in’ or acting on the urge 
properly [is] considered an act of free will, or . . . an act 
evidencing an impaired capacity to control one’s behavior.”  Yet, 
if this is the difficulty, then defendant’s argument boils down to 
nothing more than that the jury had a difficult job to do.  It fell 
upon the jury to sift between competing testimony, theories, and 
arguments to draw its own conclusion about whether 
defendant’s actions evidenced “an impaired capacity to control 
one’s behavior” or the choice not to resist evil impulses.  This is 
a factual question on which no instruction of law could have 
provided the answer.  The factor is not vague just because its 
application to specific facts is an irreducibly difficult task.  
(Accord, Tuilaepa v. California (1994) 512 U.S. 967, 977 
[“difficulty in application is not equivalent to vagueness”].) 
10.  Constitutionality of California’s death penalty 
scheme 
Defendant argues California’s death penalty scheme is 
unconstitutional, although he concedes that we have repeatedly 
rejected such arguments.  Because defendant advances no 
persuasive reason for us to revisit the issues, we continue to hold 
as follows. 
“California’s death penalty laws adequately narrow the 
class of murderers subject to the death penalty.”  (Powell, supra, 
5 Cal.5th at p. 963.) 
The death penalty statute is not unconstitutional despite 
not requiring “findings beyond a reasonable doubt that an 
aggravating circumstance (other than Pen. Code, § 190.3, factor 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
124 
(b) or (c) evidence) has been proved, that the aggravating factors 
outweighed the mitigating factors, or that death is the 
appropriate sentence.”  (People v. Rangel (2016) 62 Cal.4th 1192, 
1235.) 
“Because capital defendants and noncapital defendants 
are not similarly situated, California does not deny capital 
defendants equal protection by providing certain procedural 
protections to noncapital defendants but not to capital 
defendants.  [Citation.]  In particular, written findings by a jury 
recommending a death sentence are not required.”  (Spencer, 
supra, 5 Cal.5th at p. 695.) 
Section 190.3, factor (a) is not unconstitutionally 
overbroad, arbitrary, capricious, or vague as applied.  (Miracle, 
supra, 6 Cal.5th at p. 353.) 
Intercase 
proportionality 
review 
is 
not 
required.  
(Mendoza, supra, 62 Cal.4th at p. 916.) 
The use of unadjudicated criminal activity as an 
aggravating factor under section 190.3, factor (b) does not 
violate constitutional mandates.  (Merriman, supra, 60 Cal.4th 
1, 106.) 
The trial court “was not required to instruct the jury that 
the statutory mitigating factors were relevant solely to 
mitigation, and the court’s instruction directing the jury to 
consider ‘whether or not’ certain mitigating factors were present 
did not invite the jury to use the absence of such factors as an 
aggravating circumstance, in violation of state law and the 
Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.”  (Powell, supra, 5 Cal.5th 
at p. 964.) 
“Prosecutorial discretion and the absence of standards for 
deciding whether or not to seek the death penalty in an eligible 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
125 
case” 
do 
not 
render 
California’s 
death 
penalty 
laws 
unconstitutional.  (Merriman, supra, 60 Cal.4th at p. 107.) 
The death qualification process of jurors does not violate 
the 
United 
States 
Constitution 
or 
international 
law.  
(Covarrubias, supra, 1 Cal.5th at p. 868.) 
Victim impact evidence “is admissible as a circumstance 
of the crime under section 190.3, factor (a).”  (Spencer, supra, 
5 Cal.5th at p. 676.)  The use of such evidence is neither 
“nonstatutory” nor “unrestricted.” 
The imposition of the death penalty under California’s law 
does not violate international law or prevailing norms of 
decency.  (Clark, supra, 52 Cal.4th at p. 1008.) 
The delay in executing a condemned inmate does not 
violate the Eighth Amendment.  (People v. Ochoa (2001) 
26 Cal.4th 398, 462-464.)  The rarity of executions does not 
result in arbitrary results.  (People v. Seumanu (2015) 
61 Cal.4th 1293, 1371-1375.)  Contrary to the argument raised 
in defendant’s supplemental brief, the Governor’s moratorium 
on the death penalty does not compel the court to reexamine 
these holdings.  (Governor’s Exec. Order No. N-09-19 (Mar. 13, 
2019) [stating that the order “does not . . . alter any current 
conviction or sentence” and likewise “does not[] create any rights 
or benefits . . . enforceable at law”].) 
 
 
PEOPLE v. KREBS 
Opinion of the Court by Cantil-Sakauye, C. J. 
 
126 
III. DISPOSITION 
The judgment is affirmed in its entirety. 
 
CANTIL-SAKAUYE, C. J. 
 
We Concur: 
 
 
CHIN, J. 
CORRIGAN, J. 
LIU, J. 
CUÉLLAR, J. 
KRUGER, J. 
GROBAN, J. 
 
 
See next page for addresses and telephone numbers for counsel who argued in Supreme Court. 
 
Name of Opinion People v. Krebs 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Unpublished Opinion 
Original Appeal XXX 
Original Proceeding 
Review Granted 
Rehearing Granted 
 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Opinion No. S099439 
Date Filed: November 21, 2019 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Court: Superior 
County: San Luis Obispo 
Judge: Barry T. LaBarbera 
 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Counsel: 
 
Neil B. Quinn, under appointment by the Supreme Court, for Defendant and Appellant. 
 
Kamala D. Harris and Xavier Becerra, Attorneys General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney 
General, Pamela C. Hamanaka, Assistant Attorney General, Keith H. Borjon, Sharlene A. Honnaka, A. 
Scott Hayward and Kenneth C. Byrne, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Counsel who argued in Supreme Court (not intended for publication with opinion): 
 
Neil B. Quinn 
Attorney at Law 
300 Douglas Street 
Ojai, CA 93023 
(805) 646-5832 
 
Kenneth C. Byrne 
Deputy Attorney General 
300 South Spring Street, Suite 1702 
Los Angeles, CA 90013 
(213) 269-6008