Court Opinion

ID: 9782198
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 18:06:01.537884+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:34:51.816987
License: Public Domain

KENNARD, J., Concurring and Dissenting.
I agree with the majority’s reversal of the judgment of death because of the trial court’s error in denying defendant’s motion for self-representation at the penalty phase of the trial; and I agree with vacating as duplicative one of the two multiple-murder special-circumstance findings. I disagree, however, with the majority’s affirmance of the judgment as to guilt, and in particular with the affirmance of the two convictions for murder in the first degree and the remaining multiple-murder special-circumstance finding. I would vacate those convictions and that finding because of the trial court’s prejudicial error in allowing the prosecutor to ask a defense expert witness, Dr. William Vicary, a forensic psychiatrist, whether he thought there was substantial evidence to support a “psychiatric defense” to the charges in this case. Dr. Vicary’s opinion was inadmissible under Penal Code section 29, and its admission resulted in substantial prejudice to defendant on the first degree murder charges and the associated special circumstance allegation, requiring reversal.
*435I
On March 31, 1985, in three separate incidents spanning less than two hours, defendant shot four men, killing two of them. Defendant was then 43 years old, and he was self-employed doing construction work, distributing soft drinks through vending machines, and buying and selling various items.
Defendant spent the afternoon immediately before the shootings at a bar in Long Beach, where he unsuccessfully attempted to cash some checks and to sell a number of gold chains that he said were then on a ship in the harbor. Throughout the afternoon, defendant drank heavily.
In the first incident, defendant went to an apartment building in Long Beach around 6:00 p.m. looking for Roberto Martinez, whom defendant suspected of stealing some equipment from him. Benjamin Alcala, who had seen defendant once before but had never met him, told defendant that Martinez was not home. Defendant retrieved a gun from his car and shot Alcala in the upper back. Alcala survived.
Defendant then drove his pickup track about a mile to an industrial area in Wilmington where he had briefly worked the year before for a business called Hammett Vacuum Service. There he found Calvin Ferguson, who was working on his own track. Defendant yelled to Ferguson, who walked toward defendant’s track. Within a minute, defendant shot Ferguson in the head, killing him.
Defendant drove forward around 100 feet and stopped. Vicente Perez pulled his car alongside defendant’s track. The vehicles were facing in opposite directions with the two driver’s side doors next to each other. Defendant leaned out of his track, extended his arm, and shot Perez through the neck, killing him.
Shortly after 7:00 p.m., defendant arrived at the door of Eugene Layton’s home in Long Beach. Layton had purchased roofing gravel, used refrigerators, and soft drinks from defendant. Layton’s 13-year-old son answered the door and called Layton, who invited defendant in. As they were walking through the house, defendant pulled a gun and said, “You’re dead, Gene, you’re dead.” Defendant fired, hitting Layton twice in the chest. Layton pushed defendant into a china cabinet, smashing the glass, and he managed to take defendant’s gun away and to cut defendant’s throat with a piece of broken glass. Paramedics arrived and took both Layton and defendant to the hospital. At 7:40 p.m., immediately after the shootings, defendant’s blood-alcohol level was 0.154 percent, a level that would cause serious impairment of mental functioning.
*436Testifying in his own behalf at the guilt phase of the trial, defendant admitted shooting all four victims. He said he shot Alcala because he believed Alcala was lying when he told defendant that Roberto Martinez was not at their residence. Defendant did not explain why he shot Calvin Ferguson, and he claimed not to remember what Ferguson said to him. Defendant admitted that he intended to kill Vicente Perez, but he testified he did not know why he did it. Defendant said he went to Layton’s house to collect money from him on behalf of some people to whom Layton allegedly owed $500,000.
n
Penal Code section 29 provides: “In the guilt phase of a criminal action, any expert testifying about a defendant’s mental illness, mental disorder, or mental defect shall not testify as to whether the defendant had or did not have the required mental states, which include, but are not limited to, purpose, intent, knowledge, or malice aforethought, for the crimes charged. The question as to whether the defendant had or did not have the required mental states shall be decided by the trier of fact.”
Here, during the guilt phase of defendant’s capital trial, defense witness Dr. William Vicary testified as an expert witness about defendant’s mental illness. Specifically, he testified on direct examination that at the time of the shootings defendant was suffering from bipolar disorder, a chronic and severe mental illness that produced both psychosis, which Dr. Vicary explained is “where you lose your grip on reality,” and paranoia, which Dr. Vicary described as “an idea or series of ideas that’s not based on reality.” Other symptoms included depression, restlessness, frustration, despair, and impulsiveness.
Over defense objection, the trial court permitted the prosecutor on cross-examination to ask Dr. Vicary whether he had advised defendant’s attorney “that there just was insufficient evidence to present a psychiatric defense,” and Dr. Vicary affirmed that he had expressed that opinion and still held it. He agreed with the prosecutor that a psychiatric defense is “where, as a result of whatever the psychiatric evidence is, the defense may be able to raise a reasonable doubt as to whether or not the required mental states were there.” On further cross-examination, he testified that he did not think “there was sufficient evidence to support what we call a diminished intent defense ... to knock it down from murder one to murder two . . .” and “that there was insufficient evidence to even raise a reasonable doubt.”
That testimony was inadmissible under Penal Code section 29. The only reasonable interpretation of Dr. Vicary’s testimony that there was “insufficient *437evidence to present a psychiatric defense,” insufficient evidence “to knock it down from murder one to murder two,” and “insufficient evidence to even raise a reasonable doubt” was that, in his opinion, during the fatal shootings of Calvin Ferguson and Vicente Perez defendant had the mental state necessary for first degree murder. Penal Code section 29 prohibits such testimony.
The majority does not deny that the trial court erred in permitting the prosecutor to ask defense expert witness Vicary whether, in his opinion, there was sufficient evidence to support a psychiatric defense. Rather, the majority concludes that the admission of that testimony did not prejudice defendant. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 408.) No prejudice resulted, the majority reasons, because “Dr. Vicary repeatedly emphasized that the decision whether defendant was guilty of murder or manslaughter was not a medical or psychiatric one, but properly belonged to the jurors, who would know more about the case than he did” and also because his opinion about defendant’s mental illness and its symptoms “was significantly and repeatedly undercut on cross-examination by evidence of which Dr. Vicary conceded he was unaware.” (Id. at p. 409.) I examine both of these reasons.
The majority is correct that Dr. Vicary testified that “[t]he ultimate issue as to whether somebody is ... to be found guilty of first degree murder as opposed to second degree murder or manslaughter is not a psychiatric decision” or “a medical decision” but instead “a decision that properly belongs to the jurors.” But the main effect of the trial court’s error was to lead the jury to discredit Dr. Vicary’s testimony on direct examination describing defendant’s serious mental illness and its symptoms. There is a reasonable probability that, had the prosecutor’s cross-examination of Dr. Vicary been properly limited as required by Penal Code section 29, the jury would have entertained a reasonable doubt that defendant acted with premeditation and deliberation when he killed Calvin Ferguson and Vicente Perez.
The prosecution’s only theory of first degree murder for the fatal shootings of Calvin Ferguson and Vicente Perez was murder with premeditation and deliberation. “In this context, ‘premeditated’ means ‘considered beforehand,’ and ‘deliberate’ means ‘formed or arrived at or determined upon as a result of careful thought and weighing of considerations for and against the proposed course of action.’ ” (People v. Mayfield (1997) 14 Cal.4th 668, 767 [60 Cal.Rptr.2d 1, 928 P.2d 485]; accord, People v. Jurado (2006) 38 Cal.4th 72, 118 [41 Cal.Rptr.3d 319, 131 P.3d 400].) Thus, “[a]n intentional killing is premeditated and deliberate if it occurred as the result of preexisting thought and reflection rather than unconsidered or rash impulse.” (People v. Stitely (2005) 35 Cal.4th 514, 543 [26 Cal.Rptr.3d 1, 108 P.3d 182].)
*438In some situations, a defendant’s conduct in shooting a series of people within a short space of time may strongly indicate that each of the shootings was deliberate and premeditated. If, for example, the victims are complete strangers and the defendant shoots each of them immediately upon encountering them, one may infer a preexisting intent to murder strangers selected either randomly or because of some obvious shared characteristic (such as race, ethnicity, gender, age, clothing style, etc.). Or, if the victims are all persons the defendant regarded as enemies, one may infer a preexisting intent to murder all such persons. Here, however, the four individuals that defendant shot were not strangers selected at random or because of a shared characteristic, nor were they persons that defendant regarded as enemies. Defendant’s victims included both complete strangers and persons with whom defendant had prior dealings, and the victims did not share any apparent characteristic that could have caused defendant to preselect them as victims. In this situation, it is far from obvious that each shooting occurred as a result of some preexisting homicidal plan.
“A reviewing court normally considers three kinds of evidence to determine whether a finding of premeditation and deliberation is adequately supported—preexisting motive, planning activity, and manner of killing—but ‘[t]hese factors need not be present in any particular combination to find substantial evidence of premeditation and deliberation.’ ” (People v. Jurado, supra, 38 Cal.4th at pp. 118-119.)
The prosecution here presented no evidence that defendant had a preexisting motive to kill either Calvin Ferguson or Vicente Perez. The majority asserts that “[defendant’s purposive actions in driving to seek out various persons and then killing them, viewed in a light favorable to the judgment, indicate defendant had some motive for his killings—a method to his madness . . . .” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 421.) But there is no evidence that defendant sought out either Ferguson or Perez, or even that he knew they would be in the area where he encountered them. The majority also speculates that the motive for each shooting “may have been related to defendant’s feelings about his desperate financial state” (ibid.), but there is no evidence in any way linking either Ferguson or Perez to defendant’s financial difficulties. Thus, I conclude there is no evidence of a preexisting motive to kill either Ferguson or Perez.
Nor was there evidence of planning activity with respect to the fatal shootings of Calvin Ferguson or Vicente Perez. The majority asserts that eyewitness testimony that defendant shouted to Ferguson “suggested defendant had some purpose in drawing Calvin Ferguson toward him.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 421.) Perhaps so, but the purpose could have been something other than to kill him. Defendant may have intended to ask Ferguson a question, *439and then suddenly formed a rash impulse to kill him based on Ferguson’s response or on something in his manner.
Finally, the manner of killing—a sudden gunshot to the head or neck at close range—although strongly indicating an intent to kill, does not clearly indicate premeditation or deliberation and is entirely consistent with killings occurring as a result of an unconsidered or rash impulse. Thus, the jury here was presented with very little, if any, of the three kinds of evidence that this court has relied upon to measure the sufficiency of the evidence of premeditation and deliberation, making the existence of premeditation and deliberation as to the killings of Calvin Ferguson and Vicente Perez close issues.
Had the trial court’s error not led the jury to discredit it, the testimony of defense expert Dr. Vicary about the nature and symptoms of defendant’s mental illness could have persuaded a reasonable juror to conclude that defendant did not premeditate or deliberate the murders of Calvin Ferguson and Vicente Perez, and that those murders were therefore of the second rather than the first degree. Dr. Vicary testified to his opinion that at the time of the fatal shootings defendant was suffering from a chronic and severe mental illness—bipolar disorder—that caused him to lose his grip on reality (psychosis) and to misinterpret harmless behavior as threatening (paranoia). He also testified that the symptoms of defendant’s illness included restlessness, frustration, and impulsiveness, suggesting that when faced with a perceived threat, defendant would be easily frustrated and likely to act without thinking. Finally, he testified that alcohol intoxication made defendant’s symptoms worse. Taken together, Dr. Vicary’s testimony provided strong support for the defense theory that the killings of Ferguson and Perez were the product of unconsidered and rash impulse, rather than preexisting thought and reflection, and that, as to each victim, defendant was therefore guilty of second rather than first degree murder.
The majority asserts, however, that the opinions about defendant’s mental illness and its symptoms that defense expert Dr. Vicary expressed on direct examination were “significantly and repeatedly undercut on cross-examination by evidence of which Dr. Vicary conceded he was unaware.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 409.) The majority gives three examples as support for this assertion.
In the first example, the majority observes that “Dr. Vicary relied [on direct examination] on the fact that a month or two before the murders, defendant woke up screaming, telling his wife to call the police because someone was coming to kill him and his family.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 409.) On cross-examination, Dr. Vicary conceded he was unaware that defendant had borrowed large sums of money from Wendell West on terms that suggested *440loan sharking and that defendant may have been unable to repay the debt. According to the majority, this new information caused Dr. Vicary to concede that “if a person were indebted to another and unable to repay the money, he might legitimately have nightmares and feel someone was out to get him and his family.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 409, fn. omitted.) In fact, Dr. Vicary did not testify that merely being unable to repay a debt could cause a normal person to have the kind of nightmare that defendant reportedly had experienced. Rather, he testified on cross-examination that “[i]t’s possible if a loan shark had been threatening him and threatening the family that that would have be [szc] a realistic basis for such a nightmare and a reaction, and if that is true, then that would not be paranoia.” (Italics added.) But no evidence was ever presented that Wendell West or anyone else had ever threatened defendant or his family. Accordingly, this cross-examination did not undercut Dr. Vicary’s testimony.
The majority describes the second example this way: “Dr. Vicary also relied on defendant’s attempt to extort money from the owner of Hammett Vacuum Service in exchange for not reporting him for dumping toxic waste. Dr. Vicary had either not noticed or not known that two other individuals in their statements had acknowledged the company in fact had previously been cited for dumping toxic waste. After considering this evidence, he acknowledged he had a ‘totally different outlook’ on the extortion scheme.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 409, fn. omitted.) On direct examination by the defense, Dr. Vicary noted that defendant had been calling this company “several times a day for a week,” had identified himself by name, was never able to speak to the company’s owner, and had made his extortion demands to “a number of his employees and underlings.” The reports and statements furnished to Dr. Vicary indicated that defendant persisted in making the demands even after an employee told him the company had already been cited for toxic dumping. Dr. Vicary remained of the view that defendant’s conduct during this incident reflected mental illness: “There is a self-destructive crazy element to this man’s persistence by calling this owner and trying to extort this $10,000 for a citation that the guy had already been given.”
This is the majority’s description of the third example: “Dr. Vicary also relied on an alleged March 9, 1985, incident in which defendant drew a gun and demanded two individuals return property they purportedly had stolen or he would ‘blow [their] fucking head[s] off.’ Dr. Vicary acknowledged that the police report concerning this incident, dated after the capital crimes occurred, revealed that defendant told the police he believed the individuals had stolen *441property from him. Dr. Vicary agreed that the credibility issues surrounding the incident did not ‘translate into a conclusion that one side of [the] dispute [was] paranoid’; rather, the incident was simply one ‘to be measured against all the other circumstances ....’” (Maj. opn., ante, at pp. 409-410.)
Here again, the majority provides something less than the full picture. Although defendant told an investigating officer that he believed the two individuals had stolen from him, defendant “couldn’t prove it... he just had a feeling that they had stolen from him.” Defendant could not even identify the property he believed had been stolen. Although Dr. Vicary conceded that the individuals might have stolen from defendant, Vicary remained of the view that, in the absence of any rational ground for defendant’s belief, the incident was evidence of defendant’s paranoid thinking. On cross-examination by the prosecutor, Dr. Vicary put it this way: “Now, if you come up [with] the proof—you come up with it or the detective comes up with it or the investigator for the lawyer comes up with it, I’ll be happy to change my mind, but until you do, this piece of evidence suggests this element of paranoia and it kind of fits in with all the other pieces.” No evidence that the two individuals had actually stolen from defendant was ever produced at defendant’s trial.
To sum up: Defendant shot and killed Calvin Ferguson and Vicente Perez, with whom defendant had little or no prior acquaintance, for no apparent reason during a chance encounter. The evidence of premeditation and deliberation was weak. Defense witness Dr. Vicary testified to his opinion that during the shootings defendant suffered from a mental illness that produced paranoia and impulsive behavior, and that alcohol intoxication magnified those symptoms. There is a reasonable probability that this testimony could have persuaded the jury to return verdicts of second rather than first degree murder for the two fatal shootings. The trial court’s error in admitting testimony barred by Penal Code section 29, however, likely caused the jury to completely discount Dr. Vicary’s entire testimony about the existence and nature of defendant’s mental illness. Apart from the erroneously admitted evidence, Dr. Vicary’s testimony describing defendant’s mental illness and its symptoms was not substantially undercut by the prosecution’s cross-examination. After the prosecutor called Dr. Vicary’s attention to some information of which Dr. Vicary was previously unaware, Dr. Vicary maintained his opinion that defendant suffered from a chronic and serious mental illness and that “[t]he primary reason for these unprovoked attacks is [defendant’s] psychotic mental state, specifically his paranoia.”
*442For these reasons, I conclude that the trial court’s error was prejudicial and requires that defendant’s first degree murder convictions be either reversed or reduced to second degree murder, and that the multiple-murder special-circumstance finding be vacated. I therefore dissent from the majority’s affirmance of the judgment as to guilt.