Opinion ID: 2633370
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Lay Evidence of Mental Illness

Text: Defendant's cousin, Russell Mathiasch, testified that in the mid-1970's he lived in Texas. Around that time, he helped take defendant to a Veterans Administration hospital in Dallas for treatment for his mental illness, but defendant was turned away for lack of space; later that day, defendant was denied admission at another Veterans Administration hospital in Waco. Defendant then returned home to California. Del Roy Barnett was a coworker and friend of defendant. They often hunted and fished together. When defendant went to Vietnam, he gave Barnett some fishing equipment because he did not expect to return. When defendant returned from Southeast Asia, he was more aggressive and outgoing. He seemed more prone to violence; he was irritable and anxious, and he drank more. He was depressed and had trouble keeping a steady job. Sometimes defendant did not appear to know Barnett was with him; defendant would talk to himself or to unseen people. Barnett thought defendant probably took drugs to stay awake when he drove his truck, but he was not sure. Carl Hogan and Richard Archuleta testified they had been incarcerated with defendant in the Kern County jail, and they saw him talking to himself or to unseen people. Cecil Sneed, another Kern County jail inmate, testified defendant asked him to testify that he had seen defendant talking to imaginary people. However, Sneed had never seen defendant engage in such behavior. Sometime after the encounter, he received a letter from defendant reading: Anyone who hurt my case I would do my best to do them in. Sneed was impeached by evidence that after his testimony he was to be released from jail and given a bus ticket, and by evidence from two other jail inmates, Charles Shannon and Christopher Flores, who testified Sneed was laughing and saying defendant was his meal ticket out of here or words to that effect. Both Shannon and Flores reported seeing defendant awake late at night, pacing and talking to himself.