Opinion ID: 1275251
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Failure to Instruct on Effect of Intoxication.

Text: (20a) Defendant contends the trial court committed reversible error by failing, despite defense counsel's request, to instruct the jury both that intoxication can negate the mental state required for first degree murder and on the lesser included offense of voluntary manslaughter due to diminished capacity and heat of passion. [8] At the time of these offenses, diminished capacity, if it negated premeditation and deliberation, precluded conviction of first degree murder; if it also negated malice aforethought, it reduced the homicide from murder to manslaughter. ( People v. Cruz (1980) 26 Cal.3d 233, 242 [162 Cal. Rptr. 1, 605 P.2d 830].) Voluntary intoxication, as well as mental illness, was recognized as a cause of diminished capacity. ( People v. Saille, supra, 54 Cal.3d at p. 1110.) (21) A trial court must instruct on a lesser included offense, whether or not so requested, whenever there is evidence sufficient to deserve consideration by the jury, i.e., evidence from which a reasonable jury composed of reasonable persons could have concluded a lesser offense, rather than the charged crime, was committed. ( People v. Wickersham (1982) 32 Cal.3d 307, 325 [185 Cal. Rptr. 436, 650 P.2d 311], disapproved on other grounds in People v. Barton (1995) 12 Cal.4th 186, 200-201 [47 Cal. Rptr.2d 569, 906 P.2d 531].) The determination whether sufficient evidence supports the instruction must be made without reference to the credibility of that evidence. ( People v. Mayberry (1975) 15 Cal.3d 143, 151 [125 Cal. Rptr. 745, 542 P.2d 1337].) (20b) The record contains some evidence defendant was under the influence of alcohol and fatigued at the time of the offenses. Defendant arose on the morning of December 31, 1980, and ran errands before going to work at Gallo Glass Company for his usual 4 p.m. to midnight shift. After finishing work for the evening, defendant caught a ride to the disco, arriving about 12:30 a.m. From then until about 3:30 a.m., defendant served champagne to his customers. He poured himself a drink shortly after his arrival and continued to drink throughout the night, consuming champagne, brandy and malt liquor. He felt tired and noticed the effects of the alcohol, although he did not consider himself intoxicated. When defendant left the disco about 7 a.m., he visited nearby Tolden's Pool Hall, where he had another drink. He then drove home, a distance of four or five blocks. He unloaded certain items from his car and poured himself another glass or two of champagne. At this point, he had been up continuously since being awakened the previous day, and was tired. After drinking the glass or two of champagne, defendant went into his bedroom and began to play with his daughters. He was unclear as to what he might have done between having the drinks and entering the bedroom. He testified he did not intend to fall asleep in the bedroom, but soon did. He acknowledged feeling the effects of being up that many hours and drinking, of being aware of tiredness, and being under the influence of alcohol. While asleep, defendant testified he thought he heard someone call his name, but did not know whether he was dreaming. When he finally awoke he did not know how long he had been asleep; he believed he had been home only a short while. When he emerged from the bedroom, he was immediately taken to the police station, where he kept going to sleep and waking up, going to sleep and waking up, going to sleep and waking up. Officer Bratcher, who arrested defendant, described him as dazed, in a state of shock. Bratcher testified defendant did not appear to be in a normal behavior at the time of his arrest. Almost three hours after defendant's arrest, a blood test revealed his blood-alcohol level to be .10 percent. As the trial court recognized, defendant's blood-alcohol level would have been higher at the time of the crimes. Criminalist Steven Glass testified that, at the level at which defendant's blood-alcohol tested, defendant's ability to drive a car would be impaired. In denying the requested instructions, the trial court observed there was no evidence defendant was anywhere close to being grossly intoxicated, and that a .10 percent blood-alcohol level, standing alone, gave rise to nothing more than speculation as to intoxication. Evidence of gross intoxication, as such, however, is not a prerequisite to the giving of the instructions; what is required is evidence from which a reasonable jury could conclude defendant's mental capacity was so reduced or impaired as to negate the required criminal intent. ( People v. Flannel (1979) 25 Cal.3d 668, 684 [160 Cal. Rptr. 84, 603 P.2d 1].) We conclude the evidence did not require the giving of the requested instructions on intoxication. Although the offenses were committed after defendant had gone virtually without sleep for approximately 24 hours, and after he had drunk an unspecified number of alcoholic drinks over a period of some hours, evidence of the effect of defendant's alcohol consumption on his state of mind is lacking. One arresting officer testified that in his opinion defendant was sober when taken into custody. Although another officer testified defendant seemed dazed, this falls short of a reasonable basis for concluding defendant's capacity to entertain the mental state required for murder was diminished. Defendant's blood-alcohol content, tested about three hours after the shootings, suggested some impairment, as might have rendered him an unsafe driver, but the record does not support a conclusion that at the time of the offenses defendant was unable to premeditate or form an intent to kill. Accordingly, because no reasonable jury would have so found, the trial court did not err in refusing the requested instruction. (See People v. Avena (1996) 13 Cal.4th 394, 414-416 [53 Cal. Rptr.2d 301, 916 P.2d 1000].) (22) Defendant also argues the trial court erred in refusing his request for an instruction on manslaughter based on sudden quarrel or heat of passion. Defendant cites no substantial evidence in the record supporting such a request, but instead argues the absence of persuasive evidence as to motive should have compelled the giving of the instruction. The trial court did not err in refusing the heat of passion instruction. Annette May's testimony that Cynthia Marshall said, Why, George? or George, why? shortly before shots were fired simply fails to support an inference defendant and his wife suddenly quarreled. Alvin Green's testimony, that at some point before the crimes defendant was concerned Cynthia was planning to leave him, fails to demonstrate defendant was under the heat of passion at the time of the offense. Even if defendant's statement to Green could be said to reflect heat of passion, a point we need not decide, the interval between defendant's statement to Green and the crimes clearly would have permitted defendant to cool down. We are directed to no authority that the existence of marital problems, without more, warrants a heat of passion instruction. Absent from this case is any evidence even remotely similar to the provocative conduct by the victim in People v. Berry (1976) 18 Cal.3d 509, 513-514 [134 Cal. Rptr. 415, 556 P.2d 777], where we held it error not to give a heat of passion instruction. In that case, the victim wife had engaged in a two-week pattern of sexually arousing the defendant husband and taunting him into jealous rages over her love for another man, conduct we concluded would stir such a passion of jealousy, pain and sexual rage in an ordinary man of average disposition as to cause him to act rashly from this passion. ( Id. at p. 515.) In contrast, here the relations between defendant and his wife, according to his own testimony, were generally smooth and harmonious.