Opinion ID: 2359622
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Defendant's Mitigation Evidence

Text: Defendant called James Esten, a correctional consultant, to testify about defendant's prison record and the type of confinement that would be imposed upon him were he sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. Defendant was classified as a grade A inmate, which is the most restrictive custody available to inmates. Supervision of inmates so classified is constant and direct. Defendant was housed at San Quentin in a building called North Segregation, which is a desirable housing unit. The commission of any infraction by an inmate would lead to his removal from that building. Esten testified that defendant had had no disciplinary actions in his 24 years of imprisonment on death row in San Quentin, and he had remained housed in the North Segregation building that entire time. In Esten's experience, it was highly unusual for an inmate to have such a clean record. Esten testified further that, if defendant were sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, he would be transferred to a level 4 maximum security prison like Pelican Bay State Prison. The grade A classification requires a nearly perfect disciplinary record. Inmates who failed to maintain such records would be downgraded to grade B, a classification that carried far fewer privileges than grade A. Death row inmates are reviewed for reclassification every 120 days. Defendant had maintained his grade A classification during the entire 24 years of his imprisonment. Esten testified it was very hard for an inmate to maintain that rating for so long a period. The classification committee had described defendant as cooperative, and noted his involvement in self-help, improvement academic programs, and Bible studies. The committee had commended defendant for his positive attitude. One of defendant's projects was described by James Moyers, a psychotherapist holding a degree in religious studies with a focus on early Christianity, who testified as an expert in religious studies, the Bible and psychotherapy. Moyers talked about defendant's 1983 religious conversion after which he embarked on a project to blend the four Gospels into a single narrative, a process called Gospel harmony. According to Moyers, defendant had, by the time of trial, produced three versions of the document. In order to perform this task, defendant immersed himself in dictionaries and Bible commentaries, and had to learn[] something about phrasing, [and] basic grammar. In addition, defendant was working under the adverse conditions of death row. Although the first version was for his own use, subsequent versions were distributed in the United States and Europe. Moyers described defendant's Gospel harmonies as very coherent and very easily understood. He testified that defendant's dedication to this project was evidence that his religious conversion was authentic. Evidence was also presented about defendant's family history of mental illness and his use of the drug phencyclidine, known by its street name as PCP. Defendant's sister-in-law, Susan Murtishaw, who was married to defendant's younger brother, Steven, testified about her observations of the family's mental health issues. In addition to Steven, defendant has two older brothers, Gerald and Ronald, and a younger sister, Beverly. Susan Murtishaw testified that defendant's mother, Carol, and all his siblings had suffered from depression, stress and anxiety, and defendant's mother and his brother Ronald had been hospitalized because of their psychological issues. Both Carol and Steven also took medication for their depression and anxiety. Susan Murtishaw told the jury that defendant had always been kind to her, and that, at the time of his arrest, he was married to a woman who had three children, and he had worked to support his family. Dr. Terence McGee, a physician specializing in addiction medicinethe study and treatment of people who use drugs and alcohol to the point of causing problems for themselves and othersalso testified on defendant's behalf. Based on his interview with defendant and review of relevant documents from the family and other physicians, Dr. McGee described defendant as someone who has been abusing drugs since he was seven or eight years old and who came from a quintessentially dysfunctional family full of drug abuse, alcohol abuse, and schizophrenia. He testified that defendant had an enormous appetite for any sort of drug which would seem to remove him from his abjectly miserable situation. According to McGee, defendant also suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder. He described a number of manifestations of the disorder he had observed in defendant. McGee testified that [e]veryone in [defendant's] family has got mental disorders, with the exception of the oldest brother. He noted that defendant's mother had been hospitalized in a state-run psychiatric hospital a number of times, and one of his brothers had also been hospitalized for schizophrenia. Addressing defendant's drug and alcohol consumption, McGee testified that defendant admitted to using alcohol, barbiturates, cocaine, marijuana and LSD. He told McGee that he had consumed 11 beers on the day of the shooting and had also taken [p]ills and he thinks PCP. McGee opined that, after talking to defendant about the murders, it was his subjective opinion that defendant did not remember whether or not he committed the crimes. McGee thought that defendant's use of PCP may have affected his ability to remember the events surrounding the shootings because the drug creates an amnesic effect. He also testified that the combination of alcohol and PCP had a synergistic effect that could also explain memory loss and aggressive behavior. Describing defendant as one of the strangest people I have ever met, McGee ultimately opined that, on the day of the shootings, defendant did not have any ... control over what he was doing, particularly given if PCP and alcohol [are] factored in. Also testifying on defendant's behalf was Dr. Stephen Pittel, a forensic psychologist, academician and director of research at a drug and alcohol abuse treatment facility. Based on his extensive review of declarations from defendant's family members and other experts who had examined defendant, from the transcripts of defendant's earlier trials, and from interviews with defendant and family members, Pittel provided a social history of defendant as well as expert testimony about defendant's use of PCP. Pittel confirmed that defendant's mother, brothers Ronald and Steven, and sister Beverly had all been hospitalized for mental illnesses that included bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and seasonal affective disorder. Defendant's mother in particular had a significant history of mental illness, which included bipolar episodes during which she would just disappear, sometimes for weeks at a time. In addition to mental illness, there was also a history of serious drug abuse in defendant's family. In short, Pittel described defendant's family as the mother of all dysfunctional families. With respect to defendant's substance abuse history, Pittel echoed McGee's testimony that defendant was an early abuser of alcohol and drugs; by the time he was 14 he was drinking about a 12 pack of beer a day, and sniffing gasoline. Ultimately, PCP became his drug of choice. According to Pittel, PCP causes a breakdown in the transmission from muscle receptors in the skin that are [giving] feedback to your brain, so that the person loses all sense of their body in relationship to their mind. PCP causes users to often seem impervious to pain because they are not experiencing any sensations. The drug also causes a psychosis that can persist for as long as two or three months after the drug is ingested. This drug-induced psychosis is characterized by extreme disorientation, often by visual and auditory hallucinations, and by a total loss of contact with reality. In addition to the family history of mental illness and his own substance abuse, defendant also had a history of head injuries. These included being hit over the head by a bottle of wine, falling off the back of a car, swimming into a pane of glass, and having a two-by-four board broken over his head. At least two of these incidents had rendered him unconscious, one of them for a day and a half. According to Pittel, the effects of these head injuries may have enhanced the effect of any drugs that defendant took. Citing evidence in the transcripts he had reviewed, Pittel opined that defendant was under the influence of alcohol and PCP on the day of the murders, and that he had also suffered some brain damage as a result of his history of head injuries. Thus, in his opinion, defendant was mentally impaired at the time he committed the murders.