Court Opinion

ID: 9908166
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-12-07 22:02:13.418588+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:48:58.296944
License: Public Domain

Filed 12/7/23 P. v. Taylor CA3
                                           NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for
publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication
or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

                IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
                                      THIRD APPELLATE DISTRICT
                                                        (Shasta)
                                                            ----

 THE PEOPLE,                                                                                   C096640

                    Plaintiff and Respondent,                                             (Super. Ct. No.
                                                                                          CRF160001937)
           v.

 JOHN LAWRENCE TAYLOR,

                    Defendant and Appellant.

         After pleading not guilty by reason of insanity (NGI) to the charge of resisting an
executive officer, defendant John Lawrence Taylor was committed to a state hospital for
a six-year term. (Pen. Code, § 69.)1 The People petitioned to extend the term for two
years, alleging that by reason of mental disease, defect, or disorder defendant presented a
substantial danger of physical harm to others. (§ 1026.5, subd. (b)(1).) The officer

1 Undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code.

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involved testified about the underlying offense at the trial on the petition. The jury found
the allegations of the petition true and the trial court extended defendant’s commitment
for two years.
       Defendant contends evidence of the underlying offense was irrelevant and should
not have been admitted. We disagree. Relevant evidence includes defendant’s violent
threats charged in the underlying offense as an indication of future violent tendencies.
More importantly, the underlying offense is relevant because defendant continued to
exhibit the same conduct during commitment, indicating that he continued to experience
the same mental illness. We find no abuse of discretion and will affirm the order
extending commitment.
                                    I. BACKGROUND
       In January 2018, defendant pled not guilty by reason of insanity to obstructing and
resisting an executive officer by threats. Defendant also admitted a prior strike.
(§ 1170.12.) Other pending charges against defendant were dismissed. Defendant agreed
to commitment to the Department of State Hospitals for a term of six years. Defendant
acknowledged the possibility of extension of his commitment beyond six years and
potentially for life. The trial court found defendant guilty and insane at the time of the
offense and committed defendant for the maximum term of six years.
       In February 2022, the People filed a petition to extend defendant’s commitment.
Defendant requested a jury trial. The People and defendant moved in limine to admit or
exclude, respectively, testimony regarding the underlying offense. At the hearing on the
motions in limine, the trial court stated that its tentative ruling was to grant the People’s
motion and allow evidence regarding defendant’s underlying offense. At the
commencement of trial, the trial court adopted its tentative ruling.

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       At trial, the People called as a witness Andrew Page, a deputy in the Shasta
County Sheriff’s Office.2 In 2016, Deputy Page was a correctional officer in the Shasta
County Jail. On March 16, 2016, when Deputy Page went to defendant’s cell, he smelled
a strong odor of fecal matter and urine and noticed fecal matter leading up to and near the
cell. The window to the cell was covered in what appeared to be fecal matter and pages
from books. Deputy Page attempted to get defendant to respond verbally but only heard
him laughing. Officers decided to remove defendant from his cell to clean it. Officers
were able to enter the cell and place defendant in shackles and also secure his wrists.
Deputy Page saw something on the wall. When officers searched defendant, he said they
would not find anything on him, it was on the wall. A pen sharpened to a point was stuck
on the wall with fecal matter and paper. The words “Page will die” were written on the
wall in large letters in fecal matter. Defendant was moved to the shower and the cell was
sanitized. Defendant was returned to his cell. As Deputy Page was leaving the cell,
defendant yelled, “Fuck you, Page. I’m going to kill you and your family, motherfucker.
I’ll piss in your mouth.”
       At a subsequent welfare check, Deputy Page was unable to see the defendant, and
defendant did not respond to verbal commands. Deputy Page entered the cell and found
defendant hiding in a spot in the corner of the cell that could not be viewed from the cell
window. At a subsequent welfare check, defendant was again hiding in the blind spot.
Defendant said, “[F]uck you, you’re going to have to do this shit all night. Fuck you, I
ain’t getting up, I ain’t moving.” At another welfare check, defendant uttered a series of
expletives directed at Deputy Page, threatened to kill his family in a graphic and

2 Six witnesses testified at trial, including defendant’s treating psychiatrist, treating
psychologist, a psychiatric technician, and a registered nurse. We limit our summary to
the testimony relevant to the issue on appeal.

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gruesome manner, and also threatened to kill the district attorney. Defendant continued
with this behavior at each welfare check until the end of Deputy Page’s shift.
       Dr. Sabina Correa, a psychologist at Napa State Hospital, testified regarding the
similarities between the underlying offense and defendant’s conduct at the hospital. Dr.
Correa testified that she had read the police report from 2016 regarding the incident with
Deputy Page. Defendant’s primary diagnoses at the time of the underlying offense were
schizoaffective disorder bipolar type, with paranoid traits, borderline personality disorder,
and antisocial personality order. As the evaluating doctor, Dr. Correa opined that
defendant’s current presentation was the same as the severe mental illness that caused his
underlying offense and that defendant would remain a danger based on the same
presentation.
       Specifically, Dr. Correa testified that defendant’s pattern of hiding in the blind
spot of his cell could be attributed to a combination of antisocial personality disorder and
potentially paranoia. A registered nurse at Napa State Hospital testified to an incident
where defendant was hiding under a bed and around corners so he could not be seen.
       Dr. Correa further testified that she reviewed a note regarding an incident in April
2021 where defendant coughed up phlegm, spat, and fought with police. In another
incident on the same day, defendant threatened to stab and kill staff and his psychiatrist
with a “shank.” Dr. Correa testified that these violent behaviors were similar to the
underlying offense. Dr. Correa also found similarities between the pen sharpened to a
point in 2016 and an incident in 2021 where defendant was found to be hiding pens.
       Dr. Correa’s assessment was that little clinical progress had been made during
defendant’s commitment. Defendant presented the same mental illness as at the time of
the underlying offense.
       The jury found the allegations of the petition to be true. The court extended
defendant’s commitment to March 2024.
       Defendant filed a timely notice of appeal.

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                                     II. DISCUSSION
       “Section 1026.5, subdivision (a)(1) provides that an NGI defendant committed to a
state hospital after being found not guilty of an offense by reason of insanity pursuant to
section 1026 ‘may not be kept in actual custody longer than the maximum term of
commitment.’ (§ 1026.5, subd. (a)(1).) However, under section 1026.5, subdivision
(b)(1), an NGI defendant may be committed beyond the term prescribed by subdivision
(a) if he or she ‘has been committed under Section 1026 for a felony and,’ after a trial, the
trier of fact finds that he or she ‘by reason of mental disease, defect, or disorder
represents a substantial danger of physical harm to others.’ ” (People v. Redus (2020)
54 Cal.App.5th 998, 1010 (Redus); see also People v. Zapisek (2007) 147 Cal.App.4th
1151, 1159 (Zapisek).) “Proof of dangerousness also requires proof that the NGI
defendant has ‘at the very least, serious difficulty controlling his potentially dangerous
behavior.’ ” (Redus, supra, at p. 1010, quoting Zapisek, supra, at p. 1165.)
       “ ‘ “ ‘ “Whether a defendant ‘by reason of a mental disease, defect, or disorder
represents a substantial danger of physical harm to others’ under section 1026.5 is a
question of fact to be resolved with the assistance of expert testimony.” ’ ” ’ ” (Redus,
supra, 54 Cal.App.5th at p. 1011; Zapisek, supra, 147 Cal.App.4th at p. 1165; see also
People v. Superior Court (Blakely) (1997) 60 Cal.App.4th 202, 205, 215 (Blakely).) In
Zapisek, the court said the most important evidence at an extension hearing was expert
testimony that the defendant’s “delusions were of the same type as those he experienced
when he committed” the underlying crime. (Zapisek, supra, at p. 1166.) “Other relevant
evidence bearing on the issues of [the defendant’s] mental disorder and dangerousness
may include, inter alia, previous instances of violent behavior [citation], as well as the
determination of the treatment staff at [the hospital], [the defendant’s] behavior at that
facility and psychiatric evaluations.” (Blakely, supra, at p. 215, citing Kansas v.
Hendricks (1997) 521 U.S. 346, 355, fn. 2.) In Kansas v. Hendricks, the Supreme Court

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said: “As we have recognized, ‘[p]revious instances of violent behavior are an important
indicator of future violent tendencies.’ ” (Kansas v. Hendricks, supra, at p. 358.)
       The trial court’s rulings on evidence are reviewed for abuse of discretion. (People
v. Kopatz (2015) 61 Cal.4th 62, 85.) “A trial court has abused its discretion when its
ruling ‘ “fall[s] ‘outside the bounds of reason.’ ” ’ ” (Ibid.)
       We conclude that Deputy Page’s testimony was relevant to whether defendant had
serious difficulty in controlling his potentially dangerous behavior. Evidence of the
nature and severity of the underlying offense were relevant foundational facts underlying
Dr. Correa’s expert opinion in the case. In other words, evidence of defendant’s conduct
in the 2016 incident—hiding, sharpening a pen, as well as threatening violence—was
relevant to Dr. Correa’s assessment that defendant’s similar behavior in the hospital
indicated that defendant had made little progress with the mental illness he experienced
in 2016. In addition, defendant’s violent threats in 2016 were an indicator of future
violent tendencies.
       We note that on reply defendant shifts the argument to the contention that “[t]he
detailed testimony of Deputy Page did not tend to prove similarities with [defendant’s]
inpatient actions, that would not have been adequately presented by limiting the evidence
to the original complaint itself.” Defendant did not argue in the opening brief for limiting
the evidence of the underlying offense to reading the complaint. Rather, defendant
asserted that all evidence of the underlying offense should have been excluded as
irrelevant. In any event, the allegations in the complaint that defendant resisted Deputy
Page in violation of section 69 did not include any factual details of the March 2016
incident, including the nature and severity of the threats defendant made or any of the
other conduct defendant exhibited in 2016.

                                               6
       We conclude the trial court did not abuse its discretion in allowing testimony from
Deputy Page regarding the underlying crime.3
                                   III. DISPOSITION
       The order extending defendant’s commitment is affirmed.

                                                          /S/

                                                 RENNER, J.

We concur:

/S/

DUARTE, Acting P. J.

/S/

KRAUSE, J.

3 Because we conclude the evidence was relevant, and defendant did not argue below or
on appeal that the trial court should have excluded Deputy Page’s testimony under
Evidence Code section 352, we need not consider whether: (1) the evidence was more
prejudicial than probative, or (2) admission of the testimony was harmless error in light
of the testimony of other witnesses, as the People argue.

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