Opinion ID: 1144098
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: failure to give instructions limiting the effect of incriminating statements made to the examining psychiatrists

Text: (11a) Relying on In re Spencer [(1965)] 63 Cal.2d 400 [46 Cal. Rptr. 753, 406 P.2d 33], Cantrell contends the trial court committed prejudicial error in failing, sua sponte, to instruct the jury [that] the psychiatrists' testimony, relating the incriminating statements he made to them, should not be regarded as proof of the facts disclosed by the statements. At page 412 the court in Spencer stated: If defendant does specifically place his mental condition into issue at the guilt trial, then the court-appointed psychiatrist should be permitted to testify at the guilt trial, but the court should instruct the jurors that the psychiatrist's testimony as to defendant's incriminating statements should not be regarded as proof of the truth of the facts disclosed by such statements and that such evidence may be considered only for the limited purpose of showing the information upon which the psychiatrist based his opinion. Spencer does not hold the court must give the limiting instruction concerning psychiatric testimony, sua sponte. Here it was Cantrell, not the People, who offered the psychiatric testimony, and it was his attorney who elicited the incriminating statements from the medical experts. He made no request to limit the testimony at the time it was offered and made no tender of the instruction he now claims should have been given. (12) Although in criminal cases the court must instruct the jury on its own motion as to applicable general legal principles, even though the parties fail to propose such instructions, the court need not render particular instructions as to specific points unless the parties request them or they are essential to a fair trial. ( People v. Morse [(1964)] 60 Cal.2d 631, 656 [36 Cal. Rptr. 201, 388 P.2d 33, 12 A.L.R.3d 810]; see also People v. Hood [(1969)] 1 Cal.3d 444, 449 [82 Cal. Rptr. 618, 462 P.2d 370].) (11b) The incriminating statements Cantrell made in the course of the psychiatric examinations, related by the psychiatrists in their testimony at the trial, were basically the same incriminating statements he had made to Stringer and Officer Ring. They were already properly before the jury, and a limiting instruction would have had little or no effect. Under these circumstances, the failure to give the instruction did not deprive Cantrell of a fair trial. In the absence of a request, the court was under no duty to instruct the jury concerning the limited effect of the incriminating statements disclosed by the psychiatrists' testimony. [2] (See People v. White [(1958)] 50 Cal.2d 428, 430 [325 P.2d 985].)