Opinion ID: 1316209
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Intent to inflict extreme pain

Text: Defendant next argues that any inference of an intent to cause extreme pain is speculative and unsupported by the record. According to defendant, no evidence bearing on the requisite mental state exists aside from the condition of the victim's body. The argument seems to be that since multiple stab wounds can be as consistent with a rash explosion of violence as with an intent to inflict cruel suffering, the evidence is insufficient to sustain the torture-murder special-circumstance finding. However, as we have explained in rejecting similar claims in other cases, the trier of fact may find intent to torture based on all the circumstances surrounding the charged crime, including the nature and severity of the victim's wounds and any statements by the defendant revealing his state of mind during the crime. ( People v. Crittenden, supra, 9 Cal.4th 83, 141, 36 Cal.Rptr.2d 474, 885 P.2d 887 [torture-murder special circumstance]; People v. Proctor (1992) 4 Cal.4th 499, 531, 15 Cal.Rptr.2d 340, 842 P.2d 1100 [same]; see People v. Raley (1992) 2 Cal.4th 870, 888, 8 Cal.Rptr.2d 678, 830 P.2d 712 [first degree torture murder]; People v. Pensinger (1991) 52 Cal.3d 1210, 1239, 278 Cal.Rptr. 640, 805 P.2d 899 [same].) Contrary to what defendant suggests, there was sufficient evidence that he committed the crime with a sadistic intent to cause the victim to suffer pain in addition to the pain of death. ( People v. Davenport, supra, 41 Cal.3d 247, 271, 221 Cal.Rptr. 794, 710 P.2d 861.) For background purposes, we note the evidence established the following chain of events: Muck was murdered during the course of a robbery, the object of which was money located in the Aztec Liquor Store. Entry of the store for this illicit purpose occurred around closing time, after money had been transferred from the register to the top chamber of the safe. Using his own knives and stepping in the victim's blood, defendant stabbed Muck 37 times over a 15- to 30-minute period on the floor of the storage room near the safe. With apparent difficulty, defendant and a third person then moved the safe from the store to defendant's garage on Bates Street. There, the safe was forced open after defendant and his friends devoted substantial time and effort to the project. At trial, defendant admitted receiving money from the top and bottom chambers of the safe. Heinkel believed both compartments contained $1,200. Based on this chronology, and consistent with the prosecution's closing argument, the jury could infer that defendant intentionally tortured Muck to gain entry to the safe and easy access to the cash while inside the store, and that Muck was killed after he failed to comply. Defendant's postcrime statements to various witnesses indicated that Muck was stabbed because he did not cooperate with demands made during the robbery (if he would have did what I told him I wouldn't have had to stab him so many times), and because he did not open the safe (the stupid son-of-a-bitch should have opened the safe). Other evidence established that Muck could not extract money from the top chamber of the safe because he did not know the combination. Also, since money was present in the bottom chamber when the safe was finally opened in defendant's garage, an inference was raised that Muck refused access to this compartment even though he knew the combination. The painful series of flank wounds could readily be viewed as one means by which defendant sought to compel Muck to open the safe. As we have explained, autopsy and crime scene evidence suggests that these particular wounds were administered methodically rather than in a blind fury; that they were not inflicted with lethal intent or towards the end of the attack; and that the victim was alive and rendered incapable of resisting at the time. The jury could conclude that defendant repeatedly stabbed Muck in the flank as part of a calculated and cruel attempt to extract money from the safe before leaving the store, and before intentionally killing him as a potential witness to the robbery. (E.g., People v. Crittenden, supra, 9 Cal.4th 83, 108-109, 141, 36 Cal.Rptr.2d 474, 885 P.2d 887 [evidence of torturous intent supplied by nonfatal premortum cuts inflicted on one victim as part of apparent effort to compel a second victim to execute a check payable to defendant].) We therefore reject defendant's complaint about the sufficiency of the evidence of intent to torture.