Opinion ID: 844229
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Failure to Record Entirety of Interview

Text: Defendant contends admission of statements he made to Detective McMahon in the interview of January 7, 1999, violated his due process rights under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution because McMahon did not tape-record the entire interview or the entirety of the January 6 interview. “Defendant argues due process requires application of a blanket rule requiring that all interrogations, including the Miranda warnings and waivers, be tape-recorded to facilitate later determinations of voluntariness. He cites Stephan v. State (Alaska 1985) 711 P.2d 1156 in support. While we have no wish to discourage law enforcement officials from recording such interrogations, we have already found that such a blanket rule is not required to protect the due process rights of those being interrogated (People v. Holt (1997) 15 Cal.4th 619, 663-665 [63 Cal.Rptr.2d 782, 937 P.2d 213]), and defendant fails to raise any argument convincing us that Holt was incorrectly decided.” (People v. Gurule (2002) 28 Cal.4th 557, 602-603.) As we explained in People v. Holt, supra, 15 Cal.4th at page 664, federal due process is violated only when the government in bad faith fails to preserve evidently exculpatory evidence. (See Arizona v. Youngblood (1988) 488 U.S. 51, 56-58; People v. Webb (1993) 6 Cal.4th 494, 519.) Defendant takes issue with Detective McMahon’s suppression hearing testimony that he does not tape-record the beginning of a suspect’s interview because “when you begin talking with somebody, you place a tape recorder right in front of their face, they have a tendency to clam up,” asserting that many police departments have hidden recording systems. Defendant’s skepticism about McMahon’s motives, however, falls well short of a showing the detective acted in bad faith. No violation of defendant’s due process rights is established. 13 III. Sufficiency of Evidence for Personal Use Finding The guilt phase jury found true several allegations that defendant personally used a deadly weapon in the commission of the various crimes of which he was convicted. These findings were, pursuant to sections 667.61, 12022 and 12022.3, used to determine and enhance defendant’s state prison sentence. The jury was instructed, with regard to the personal use allegations, that the only weapon to be considered was the stake or stick with which the victim had been beaten and sexually penetrated. We agree with defendant that the evidence was insufficient to support the findings he personally used the stake or stick in the crimes he committed against Sigler. In his testimony and in statements to the police and others, defendant admitted helping wrestle the victim to the ground and move her over the fence onto the freeway embankment, raping her, kicking or stomping on her head or upper body, and moving her body after the attack. The victim’s beating and penetration with the wooden stake, however, defendant attributed to Hardy and Armstrong, and no other statements or testimony from percipient witnesses was introduced at defendant’s trial. Sigler’s DNA was found on defendant’s boots and pants, and shoe prints at the scene were similar to those of defendant’s boots, but no physical evidence tied defendant specifically to the stake, which police did not recover. Even viewing the trial evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution and presuming every fact the jury could reasonably deduce from that evidence (People v. Maury (2003) 30 Cal.4th 342, 403; People v. Ochoa (1993) 6 Cal.4th 1199, 1206), we find nothing from which a rational trier of fact could have found beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant personally wielded the stake in the attack on Sigler. No witness testified defendant used the stake, no out-of-court statements to that effect were introduced, and no physical evidence indicated he had used it. The evidence leaves it entirely possible defendant used the stake in 14 attacking Sigler, but does not support a finding of such use beyond a reasonable doubt. The Attorney General argues the jury could infer defendant’s personal use of the stake from his other violent criminal acts committed in concert with Hardy and Armstrong. To do so, however, would go beyond deduction to speculation. That defendant kicked and raped the victim could lead a rational trier of fact to suppose he may also, like his companions, have beat her with the stake, but not to infer beyond a reasonable doubt that he did so. IV. Jury Instructions on Torture and Related Offenses Defendant contends the jury instructions on torture and related offenses and allegations were prejudicially flawed in several respects. A. Instruction on Torture as a Predicate Felony for First Degree Felony Murder In its instructions on felony murder as a theory of first degree murder, the trial court included torture (along with robbery, kidnapping, rape, and sexual penetration by foreign object) as a possible predicate felony upon which a guilty verdict could be based. As the Attorney General concedes, this was error, as torture in violation of section 206 was not added to section 189’s list of predicate felonies for first degree murder until 1999, after Sigler’s murder. (Stats. 1999, ch. 694, § 1, p. 5054.)3 3 Torture as a predicate for first degree felony murder is distinct from first degree murder as a killing “perpetrated by means of . . . torture” (§ 189), a theory on which the jury was also instructed. “The elements of first degree murder by torture are: ‘(1) acts causing death that involve a high degree of probability of the victim’s death; and (2) a willful, deliberate, and premeditated intent to cause extreme pain or suffering for the purpose of revenge, extortion, persuasion, or another sadistic purpose. [Citations.]’ (People v. Cook (2006) 39 Cal.4th 566, 602 [47 Cal.Rptr.3d 22, 139 P.3d 492].) The prosecution need not establish that (footnote continued on next page) 15 We agree with the Attorney General that the error was harmless because the jury necessarily convicted defendant of first degree murder on other, proper felony-murder theories. The jury found true special circumstance allegations that defendant murdered Sigler while engaged in the commission of robbery, kidnapping, rape, and foreign object rape. Because a killing in commission of any of these offenses constitutes first degree murder under section 189, it follows the jury must unanimously have found defendant guilty of first degree murder on the valid theory the killing occurred during the commission of these felonies. (See People v. Haley (2004) 34 Cal.4th 283, 315-316; People v. Marshall (1997) 15 Cal.4th 1, 38.) The erroneous instruction thus did not affect the verdict and was, on any standard of prejudice, harmless. B. Instructions on Intent to Inflict Pain Defendant contends the instructions erroneously allowed the jury to reach guilty verdicts on the offenses of torture and first degree murder on a theory of murder by torture, and a true finding on the torture-murder special circumstance, without finding defendant had personally intended to inflict extreme pain and suffering on the victim. The trial court instructed on the crime of torture (§ 206) through CALJIC No. 9.90, telling the jury that crime required proof that “[a] person inflicted great bodily injury” on the victim and that “[t]he person inflicting the injury did so with specific intent to cause cruel or extreme pain and suffering for the purpose of (footnote continued from previous page) the defendant intended to kill the victim (ibid.), but must prove a causal relationship between the torturous acts and the death [citation].” (People v. Jennings (2010) 50 Cal.4th 616, 643.) 16 revenge, extortion, persuasion, or for any sadistic purpose.”4 Defendant is correct this instruction, by itself, does not require a finding that an aider and abettor to the torture personally harbored the specific intent that the torturer cause extreme pain to the victim. The court’s instruction defining aiding and abetting (CALJIC No. 3.01), however, explained that defendant was liable on that theory only if he acted “[w]ith knowledge of the unlawful purpose of the perpetrator” and “[w]ith the intent or purpose of committing or encouraging or facilitating the commission of the crime.” And while the court did instruct on the natural and probable consequences extension of accomplice liability (see People v. McCoy (2001) 25 Cal.4th 1111, 1117), telling the jury defendant was guilty of certain charged offenses if they were the natural and probable consequences of a target offense in which defendant might be found complicit, torture was not among the charged offenses listed in this instruction.5 The combination of instructions on torture and aiding and abetting thus ensured defendant could not be found guilty of torture as an aider and abettor without proof he knew and shared the actual torturer’s specific intent to inflict extreme pain and suffering on the victim. (McCoy, at p. 1118.) The instruction on first degree murder perpetrated by torture (CALJIC No. 8.24), similarly to the instruction on the offense of torture, required a finding that 4 The instruction closely reflects the language of section 206. 5 Defendant points out that in argument to the jury the prosecutor incorrectly included torture as one of the charged crimes to which the jury could apply the natural and probable consequences rule and that in her rebuttal argument the prosecutor suggested the intent to cause pain, required for torture, could have been held by “defendant or his accomplices.” Defendant did not object to these statements at trial, however, and does not contend on appeal that they constituted prosecutorial misconduct. 17 “[t]he perpetrator” of the murder acted with the “intent to inflict extreme and prolonged pain” on the victim (see fn. 3, ante). Again, however, the aiding and abetting instruction (CALJIC No. 3.01) supplemented this direction by explaining an aider and abettor must know of the direct perpetrator’s unlawful purpose and must act with the intent of furthering the perpetrator’s crime. Perhaps a juror could have read the inclusion of murder in the list of charged crimes subject to the natural and probable consequences rule as suggesting defendant could be guilty of murder by torture if he intentionally assisted Hardy or Armstrong in one of the listed target crimes, regardless of defendant’s personal intent regarding the victim’s torture, though such a convoluted interpretation of the instructions seems unlikely. In any event, such reasoning would appear consistent with the natural and probable consequences rule itself, which extends accomplice liability to the perpetrator’s reasonably foreseeable crimes regardless of whether the defendant personally harbored the specific intent required for commission of the charged, nontarget offense. (See People v. McCoy, supra, 25 Cal.4th at p. 1118, fn. 1; People v. Prettyman (1996) 14 Cal.4th 248, 261.) Nor did the court err in instructing on proof of defendant’s intent to inflict pain on the victim with respect to the torture-murder special circumstance. The instruction explicitly required a finding “defendant” intended to inflict extreme pain and suffering on the victim, precluding the jury from resting a true finding on the theory that only Hardy or Armstrong actually intended to torture Sigler. 6 6 Again, defendant did not object to the prosecutor’s statement to the contrary in jury argument and does not now contend it was misconduct. 18 C. Instruction on Personal Intent to Kill Under the Torture-murder Special Circumstance The court did err, however, in its instructions on intent to kill as related to the torture-murder special circumstance. That charge is not one of the felony-murder special circumstances set out in section 190.2, subdivision (a)(17). Rather, as set out separately in subdivision (a)(18) of the same statute, the torturemurder special circumstance requires proof “[t]he murder was intentional and involved the infliction of torture.” Under subdivision (c) of section 190.2, a defendant who aided and abetted the murder but was not the actual killer is generally eligible for capital punishment only if he or she acted with the intent to kill. The exception in subdivision (d) of the same statute, allowing a true finding for a nonkiller defendant who acts as a “major participant” in a predicate felony and with “reckless indifference” to human life, applies only to the felony-murder special circumstances listed in section 190.2, subdivision (a)(17) and not to the torture-murder special circumstance set out in subdivision (a)(18). The trial court therefore erred in including torture in the list of felonies on which the jury could base a felony-murder special circumstance under section 190.2, subdivision (a)(17), and as to which the jury needed to find only that defendant, if not the actual killer, acted as a major participant and with reckless indifference to human life. This instruction (CALJIC No. 8.80.1 (1997 rev.)) was proper as to the charged felony-murder special circumstances based on the predicate felonies of robbery, kidnapping, rape, and foreign object rape (see § 190.2, subd. (a)(17)(A)-(C), (K)), but incorrectly described the mental state element of the torture-murder special circumstance (id., subd. (a)(18)), which requires the intent to kill, regardless of whether the defendant personally killed the victim or assisted an accomplice in doing so. 19 We are unable to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt (People v. Jennings, supra, 50 Cal.4th at pp. 676-677; People v. Williams (1997) 16 Cal.4th 635, 689) that the court’s instructional error, the omission of an intent-to-kill requirement for an accomplice’s liability under the torture-murder special circumstance, was harmless. The verdict form for the offense of murder asked the jury to make one of two findings, that defendant was “A. The Actual Killer; or [¶] B. An Aider and Abettor and had the intent to kill; or was a Major Participant and acted with reckless indifference to human life.” The jury selected finding B. The jury thereby showed its reliance on an aiding and abetting theory. At the same time, the jury made no finding—it was asked to make none—as to whether defendant aided and abetted his accomplices’ fatal acts with the intent to kill or merely with reckless indifference to the victim’s life.7 No other instructions supplied the missing element. As previously discussed, the standard instruction on aiding and abetting (CALJIC No. 3.01) was given, but it expressly related to “the commission of a crime,” not the truth of a special circumstance allegation; the jury was not likely to read it as displacing the instruction that expressly defined the required mental state for aiding and abetting acts constituting a special circumstance (CALJIC No. 8.80.1), which erroneously told them the torture-murder special circumstance, like the felony-murder special circumstances, could be found true even if defendant acted only with reckless indifference to human life. An instruction on the torture-murder special 7 As to the torture-murder special circumstance itself, the jury found, in the ungrammatical and confusing language provided on the verdict form, “that the defendant, KEVIN DARNELL PEARSON, committed the murder of PENNY SIGLER was intentional and involved the infliction of torture.” This falls short of a finding defendant personally intended to kill Sigler. 20 circumstance (CALJIC No. 8.81.18) required the jury to find “[t]he murder was intentional,” but not necessarily to find defendant personally harbored the intent to kill. The instructional conflation of the torture-murder special circumstance (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(18)) with the felony-murder special circumstances (id., subd. (a)(17)) carried over to the jury arguments. The prosecutor’s summation reinforced the instruction’s erroneous aspect. In describing “the special circumstance rule,” the prosecutor told the jury they should find a special circumstance true if they found defendant had the intent to commit or aid and abet the commission of any of several felonies, including torture, and acted as an aider and abettor in the killing (she conceded it was unproven defendant was the actual killer) with either the intent to kill or reckless indifference to human life. Defense counsel’s jury argument did nothing to explain the difference between torture and other felonies in this respect. Nor do we agree with the Attorney General that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt because the evidence of defendant’s intent to kill was overwhelming. While the evidence was legally sufficient to support a finding defendant intended to kill the victim had the jury made such a finding, the defendant’s intent was subject to substantial factual dispute at trial. Given the evidence of defendant’s intoxication and the conflicting narratives, in testimony and prior statements, of what defendant personally did to the victim, it was a live issue for the jury whether he acted with the intent to kill her or merely with reckless indifference to her life, the distinction erroneously blurred in the instruction. We cannot say beyond a reasonable doubt that the jury, if correctly instructed, would have found defendant acted with the intent to kill. The torture-murder special circumstance must therefore be vacated. The error does not, however, require reversal of the judgment of death, because 21 numerous special circumstance findings remain, unaffected by the instructional error. “There is no likelihood that the jury’s consideration of the mere existence of the torture-murder special circumstance tipped the balance toward death.” (People v. Mungia (2008) 44 Cal.4th 1101, 1139.) In a later part of the discussion, however, we conclude the penalty judgment must be reversed because of error in death-qualifying the jury. (See pt. IX., post.) V. Instructions on Felony-murder Special Circumstances On the charged special circumstances of murder in the commission of robbery, kidnapping, rape, and foreign object rape (see § 190.2, subd. (a)(17)(A)- (C), (K)), the jury was correctly instructed through CALJIC No. 8.80.1 on defendant’s required mental state as an aider and abettor of the murder. Defendant complains, however, that the proper effect of this instruction was “neutralized” by the giving of an additional instruction on the same charges, a version of CALJIC No. 8.81.17 that told the jury the felony-murder special-circumstance allegations required proof “[t]he murder was committed while the defendant was engaged in or was an accomplice in the commission of” the listed predicate felonies, without any mention of a requirement that defendant, if an aider and abettor in the murder, intended to kill the victim or acted in reckless disregard of her life, as required under CALJIC No. 8.80.1. Defendant contends that because of CALJIC No. 8.80.1’s length and complexity, and the CALJIC No. 8.81.17 version’s relative shortness and simplicity, the jury was likely misled about the mental state required of a defendant who was not the actual killer. We disagree. The instructions did not conflict, and CALJIC No. 8.80.1, while somewhat complicated, was not “impenetrable” or “unintelligible,” as defendant suggests. The jury was not likely to understand the simpler CALJIC No. 8.81.17 as negating or displacing CALJIC No. 8.80.1, but rather as 22 supplementing it. As the Attorney General suggests, the two instructions, read together, outline respectively the relationship of the murder to the predicate felony (CALJIC No. 8.81.17) and the mental state required for either an actual killer or an aider and abettor in the murder (CALJIC No. 8.80.1). The instructions as a whole posed no reasonable likelihood (People v. Kelly (1992) 1 Cal.4th 495, 525) of jury confusion on the point defendant identifies. VI. Failure to Instruct on Voluntary Intoxication in Relation to the Specific Intent to Torture The offense of torture (§ 206) requires that the perpetrator act with “the intent to cause cruel or extreme pain and suffering for the purpose of revenge, extortion, persuasion, or for any sadistic purpose . . . .” As the Attorney General acknowledges, this mental state element describes a specific intent rather than general criminal intent. (People v. Burton (2006) 143 Cal.App.4th 447, 451-452.) At defense request, the trial court instructed the jury, through CALJIC No. 4.21.1, that they were to consider evidence of defendant’s voluntary intoxication in deciding whether defendant possessed a required specific intent. The court’s instruction, however, expressly applied only to the charged offenses of murder, robbery, and kidnapping for rape.8 Defendant contends the omission of torture from this list of specific intent offenses on which his voluntary intoxication could be considered was prejudicial error. Although a trial court has no sua sponte duty to give a “pinpoint” instruction on the relevance of evidence of voluntary intoxication, “when it does 8 Without discussion of the point, counsel for both parties agreed with the trial court’s statement, during discussion of jury instructions, that only these three offenses involved specific intent, while the remaining counts charged general intent crimes. 23 choose to instruct, it must do so correctly.” (People v. Castillo (1997) 16 Cal.4th 1009, 1015.) We apply the “reasonable probability” test of prejudice to the court’s failure to give a legally correct pinpoint instruction. (People v. Hughes (2002) 27 Cal.4th 287, 362-363.)9 No such reasonable probability of prejudice appears here. While there was evidence defendant had consumed alcohol and smoked marijuana at Gmur’s house during the evening before the attack on Sigler, and some evidence defendant was intoxicated when he left Gmur’s house, the jury necessarily determined any such intoxication did not prevent defendant from forming the specific intent to permanently deprive Sigler of her property or the specific intent to rape her, mental states the jury was instructed were required for conviction of robbery and kidnapping for rape, respectively. They reached these conclusions despite being instructed, through CALJIC No. 4.21.1, to consider voluntary intoxication on the question of whether defendant held these specific intents. That a more fully instructed jury would nonetheless have determined defendant was too intoxicated to intend causing Sigler extreme pain and suffering when he participated or assisted in kicking and stomping on her, raping her, and sexually penetrating her repeatedly with a wooden stake is very unlikely. The brutal beating and foreign object rape defendant and his companions inflicted on the victim would obviously cause her great pain, a fact of which even an intoxicated assailant could hardly be unaware. Indeed, defendant testified he knew the victim was in pain during the 9 The failure to give a fully inclusive pinpoint instruction on voluntary intoxication did not, contrary to defendant’s contention, deprive him of his federal fair trial right or unconstitutionally lessen the prosecution’s burden of proof. (See People v. Saille (1991) 54 Cal.3d 1103, 1117-1120 [voluntary intoxication as negating specific intent sets out neither a defense nor a general principle of law on which instruction must be given sua sponte].) 24 assault as she pleaded for help in a voice “like a gurgle.” We see no reasonable probability the jury, if instructed to consider evidence of intoxication on the question, would have found other than it did on defendant’s intent to cause the victim extreme pain and suffering. Defendant points out the torture count was also omitted from instructions on concurrence of act and specific intent (CALJIC No. 3.31) and on proof of specific intent by circumstantial evidence (CALJIC No. 2.02). These additional asserted errors, defendant argues, closed “every doorway” against the jury’s consideration of voluntary intoxication on the question of defendant’s intent to cause the victim extreme pain. Our conclusion on prejudice is unchanged, however. Even had the doorway been fully opened to a determination that defendant’s voluntary intoxication prevented him from forming the specific intent to cause the victim extreme pain, it is not reasonably likely the jury would have walked through it. VII. Instructions Affecting Requirement of Proof Beyond a Reasonable Doubt Defendant contends standard instructions given on consideration of circumstantial evidence (CALJIC Nos. 2.01, 2.02, 8.83, 8.83.1) and other standard instructions on weighing and assessing evidence on various issues (CALJIC Nos. 1.00, 2.21.1, 2.21.2, 2.22, 2.27, 2.51, 8.20) unconstitutionally vitiated the requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt (on which the jury was properly instructed through CALJIC No. 2.90) by suggesting factual questions were to be resolved on the basis of merely reasonable interpretations of the evidence or by the preponderance of evidence. We have repeatedly rejected these contentions, and defendant adds nothing to warrant reexamining our conclusions. (See, e.g., People v. Moore (2011) 51 Cal.4th 386, 414-415; People v. Brasure (2008) 42 Cal.4th 25 1037, 1058-1059; People v. Kelly (2007) 42 Cal.4th 763, 792; People v. Nakahara (2003) 30 Cal.4th 705, 713-714.)