People v. Jones (15 Cal. 4th 119, 1997)

Opinion

GEORGE, C. J.

Defendant Jeffrey Gerard Jones was convicted, following a jury trial, of two counts of first degree murder (Pen. Code, §§ 187, 189) and one count of attempted first degree murder (§§ 664/187). The jury found true the allegations that defendant personally had used a deadly or dangerous weapon (a hammer) in the commission of each offense (§ 12022, subd. (b)) and found, as special circumstances, that defendant had been convicted in this proceeding of multiple murders (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(3)). The jury further found that defendant, who had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, was sane when he committed the charged offenses. Following the penalty phase of the trial, the jury set the penalty at death. This appeal from the resulting judgment of death is automatic. (§ 1239, subd. (b).) For the reasons that follow, we affirm the judgment in its entirety.

I

Competency Hearings

On January 25, 1985, a felony complaint was filed charging defendant with the present offenses. On March 1, 1985, the municipal court suspended the criminal proceedings and transferred the case to the superior court under section 1368 for a determination of defendant’s mental competence to stand trial. The superior court appointed Dr. Bruce Kaldor and Dr. Captane Thomson to examine defendant.

The parties waived their right to a jury and, on September 6, 1985, a hearing to determine defendant’s competence to stand trial commenced before Superior Court Judge Benjamin Diaz. Following a five-day hearing, Judge Diaz ruled that defendant was not competent to stand trial and, on October 1, 1985, ordered that he be committed to Atascadero State Hospital. After four months at that facility, officials there determined that defendant’s competency had been restored and, on February 3, 1986, the superior court ordered that defendant be returned from the state hospital and that criminal proceedings be resumed.

On October 13, 1987, defense attorney Jessie Morris filed a declaration pursuant to section 1368 expressing doubt as to defendant’s competency to stand trial. The superior court again suspended proceedings and reappointed Dr. Kaldor to examine defendant. A jury trial on the issue of defendant’s competency commenced on March 1, 1988. As explained more fully below, defendant presented evidence indicating that he suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and was receiving heavy doses of medication to control the symptoms of that disease. Defendant contended that both the disease itself and the side effects of the medication rendered him incompetent to stand trial. The prosecution countered that defendant was malingering by exaggerating his symptoms of mental illness. The jury found that defendant was competent to stand trial, and the case proceeded to trial.

Guilt Phase

The trial began on July 18, 1988. The evidence introduced at the guilt phase of the trial showed the following:

Shortly after noon on January 21, 1985, Harry Dong was found lying on the floor of a restroom at Sutter’s Fort in Sacramento. He was bleeding profusely from severe wounds to his head and face. Larry Button, an emergency medical technician who treated Dong at the scene, described the victim’s face as “pretty well destroyed.” The fly on the victim’s pants was open, and the victim’s penis was outside his shorts.

Button noticed defendant, who appeared to be a transient, standing outside the restroom and heard defendant tell another man that the victim’s “face was bashed in." This comment attracted Button’s attention because the victim’s injury had been reported as a possible gunshot wound, and appeared to the technician to have been caused by a shotgun.

Dr. Hugh Moore, a physician specializing in otolaryngology (head and neck surgery), treated Dong at the emergency room of the Sacramento Medical Center of the University of California. Dong’s injuries were caused not by a gunshot, but by many blows with a blunt instrument, such as a baseball bat, the curved end of a crowbar, or a hammer. Dong subsequently died as a result of his injuries.

At approximately 5 p.m. that same day, January 21, 1985, medical student John Rowland entered the men’s restroom in the lobby of the Sacramento Medical Center and began to use one of the urinals. The next thing he knew, he was lying on the floor in a pool of blood, with his head spinning. He tried to call for help but was unable to yell very loudly. He crawled to the door, raised himself up, and grabbed the door handle. As the door opened, he fell backwards into the lobby.

Rowland was rushed to the emergency room. Dr. Moore, who was in the operating room treating Dong, was summoned to treat Rowland. Dr. Moore was struck by the fact that Dong and Rowland had sustained “very similar” injuries on the same day, although Dong’s injuries were more severe than Rowland’s. It appeared that Dong had received many more blows. The injuries to both victims could have been caused by a hammer.

While Rowland was being treated, a nurse noticed defendant standing in the hallway just outside the emergency room. Defendant stayed for five or ten minutes and then left.

Rowland survived and was operated upon by two teams of surgeons to repair a series of fractures extending from the rear of his head to the right side of his jaw. He was rendered deaf in one ear, and one side of his face is paralyzed and numb, his balance is impaired, and he has continuing dental problems.

Shortly after 5 p.m. on the following day, January 22, 1985, Ronald English, an intern at the Sacramento Medical Center, was passing near the men’s restroom in the emergency room when he heard a scream and saw people pointing toward the door of the restroom. English approached, and saw defendant leaving the restroom. English put his hand on defendant’s shoulder and asked him whether he was all right. Defendant responded: “That guy in there is crazy.” As English and defendant were talking, Parmand Sharma, a custodian at the medical center, entered the restroom and yelled for help, saying someone had been injured. Defendant brushed English’s hand off of his shoulder and “took off running.” English chased defendant and called for help, while Sharma summoned the campus police. With the help of a bystander, English tackled defendant and held him until campus police officer William Davisson arrived.

As Officer Davisson handcuffed defendant, he noticed a wooden handle protruding from the waistband at the rear of defendant’s pants, and then removed a claw hammer from defendant’s pants. Officer Davisson learned via his walkie-talkie that an assault had occurred, and responded that he had a suspect in custody. Defendant, who apparently had overheard this conversation, stated: “I have been framed." When subsequently booked, defendant was able to follow simple instructions without apparent difficulty.

While defendant was being pursued, emergency room nurse Jeffrey Howell entered the restroom and found Dr. Michael Corbett slumped in front of the urinal, bleeding profusely from the back of his head. Corbett’s breathing was slow and irregular, and he was nonresponsive and near death. Despite efforts to resuscitate him, Corbett died as a result of his injuries.

Autopsies revealed that Dong and Corbett died as the result of having received multiple blows from a blunt instrument. Their injuries were quite similar, and both victims displayed circular bruises, approximately one inch in diameter. The hammer found in defendant’s possession could have caused Dong’s and Corbett’s injuries. There were no defensive wounds to indicate that either Dong or Corbett attempted to fend off his attacker.

Dr. Bahram Cherazi, a neurosurgeon who operated on both Corbett and Rowland, testified that the injuries suffered by both victims were quite similar and “appeared to be imparted by a rounded, pointed but not necessarily a sharp object . . . with a great deal of force.” Both Corbett’s and Rowland’s injuries could have been inflicted by using the hammer seized from defendant.

Evidence of the following uncharged similar offense was admitted for the limited purpose of proving that defendant was the individual who committed the charged offenses. Shortly after noon on January 18, 1985, three days before Dong was killed, Jere Lipps, a professor of geology at the University of California at Davis, heard someone turn the doorknob of the locked door to his office, and then knock on the door. Professor Lipps opened the door, found defendant standing there, and asked defendant what he wanted. Defendant said he was looking for a friend. When defendant mentioned a room number, Professor Lipps gave him directions to that room. As they spoke, defendant looked over Professor Lipps’s shoulder into the office. Professor Lipps returned to his office and closed the door but, because defendant had acted suspiciously during their encounter, Professor Lipps soon returned to the hallway to see where defendant had gone and was startled to find him still standing near the door. After Professor Lipps repeated the directions he had given earlier, defendant started down the hallway, walking stiffly, with his right arm pressed to his side. Defendant entered a restroom and, a minute or two later, came out and hurried down the hall.

A few minutes after defendant left the restroom, Professor James McClain entered and found the body of Professor Fred Morris lying on the floor near the urinal in a pool of blood. The zipper on the victim’s trousers was down.

An autopsy revealed that Morris died “from multiple blunt injuries to the skull.” Morris had sustained a circular wound, about an inch in diameter, below his left ear; the left side of Morris’s jaw had been shattered, and he had a third wound above his left ear. All of the wounds could have been inflicted by using defendant’s hammer.

Bloodstains found on the clothing worn by defendant at the time of his arrest were analyzed and found to be inconsistent with defendant’s blood type and consistent with the blood types of victims Corbett, Rowland and Dong. One bloodstain revealed a trait present in Corbett’s blood that appears in only six persons in a thousand. Bloodstains also were found on the hammer seized from defendant. One stain was inconsistent with defendant’s blood and could have been a mixture of blood from several persons.

Defendant presented an alibi defense to the uncharged offense and to one of the charged offenses, through the testimony of his aunt, Hazel Sadler, who stated that he was at home at the time of the commission of the uncharged murder of Morris on January 18, 1985, and the charged murder of Dong on January 21, 1985. Defendant also presented the testimony of Judy Zimmerman that, at the time of the Dong murder, she was eating lunch near the restroom at Sutter’s Fort and did not notice defendant or any other African-American man in the area.

At the conclusion of the guilt phase, the jury found defendant guilty of two counts of first degree murder and one count of attempted first degree murder, found that he had used a deadly or dangerous weapon in the commission of each offense, and finally found, as a special circumstance, that he had been convicted in this proceeding of multiple murder.

Sanity Phase

As noted above, in addition to pleading not guilty, defendant pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity and, accordingly, a sanity phase hearing was conducted after the jury returned its verdicts at the guilt phase.

At the commencement of the sanity phase hearing, the parties stipulated that the evidence introduced during the guilt phase could be considered by the jury at the sanity phase. In addition, defendant’s mother and two family friends testified to defendant’s increasingly aberrational behavior during the years leading up to the charged offenses, including lack of personal hygiene, paranoid behavior, and complaints of hearing voices. A childhood friend of defendant testified to a marked change in defendant’s behavior during or after defendant’s years in high school. After leaving high school, defendant did not bathe regularly, wore dirty clothes, had difficulty communicating, and acted strangely.

Several psychiatrists and other mental health professionals testified on behalf of defendant that he suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and was receiving heavy doses of medication to control the symptoms of that disease. Several of these physicians opined that defendant was not legally sane at the time of the offense, but also acknowledged that defendant displayed an antisocial personality disorder and that it was difficult to determine whether a patient was malingering. The prosecution introduced no evidence during the sanity phase of the trial.

The jury found that defendant was sane when he committed the charged offenses.

Penalty Phase

A psychiatrist and a clinical psychologist offered further details regarding defendant’s mental illness and antisocial personality disorder. Family members and friends testified that defendant appeared normal during childhood but showed signs of mental illness during and after his years in high school. The prosecution presented no evidence during the penalty phase of the trial.

The jury returned a verdict of death.

n

Competency to Stand Trial

As noted above, two hearings were held under section 1368 to determine defendant’s competency to stand trial. Defendant asserts he was denied due process of law because the trial court failed to initiate a third competency hearing. We describe in some detail the evidence introduced at the second competency hearing.

Dr. William Greenough, an emergency room physician at Sutter-Davis Hospital in Davis, the city where defendant resided with his mother, testified at the jury trial on the issue of defendant’s competency that on August 3, 1983, a year and a half before the present offenses, defendant entered the emergency room with a “variety of complaints,” including that his head was “splitting open,” he felt as if he were “turning into two different people,” and he feared he had been poisoned with embalming fluid. Following a physical examination that disclosed no medical problems, and a psychiatric examination, Dr. Greenough diagnosed defendant as having “a severe psychiatric mental disorder, most probably paranoid schizophrenia, which had most probably been present for many years.” He did not believe defendant was malingering. Dr. Greenough arranged for defendant to be admitted to the psychiatric unit at Woodland Memorial Hospital.

Although defendant entered the hospital voluntarily, he later became hostile and asked to be discharged. Dr. Edward Doehne determined that defendant was a danger to himself and others, placed a 72-hour hold on defendant pursuant to Welfare and Institutions Code section 5150, and administered to him, by injection, the antipsychotic medication Prolixin. At one point, defendant attempted to leave the hospital and was placed in restraints for several hours. Defendant later consented to take his medication orally, and his condition seemed to improve.

Dr. Theodore Hoffman, Jr., a psychiatrist, also treated defendant at Woodland Memorial Hospital and concluded defendant “was experiencing a paranoid schizophrenic disorder of a grandiose type.” Dr. Hoffman believed defendant truly was psychotic and was not elaborating upon his symptoms.

At the conclusion of the 72-hour period, Dr. Doehne requested that defendant be held for an additional 14 days, but that request was denied and defendant was released on August 8, 1983.

On May 1, 1984, Dr. Greenough again examined defendant in the emergency room of the Sutter-Davis Hospital. Defendant complained he was “feeling bad all over” and described many ailments, including “a burning pain ‘in the middle of [his] brain.’ ” A physical examination disclosed no medical problems, and Dr. Greenough reaffirmed his conclusion that defendant “had a major psychiatric problem, which was probably paranoid schizophrenia.” He believed defendant’s mental condition had worsened from when he had seen defendant eight months earlier. Defendant again was referred to Woodland Memorial Hospital, where Dr. Hoffman prescribed the psychotropic medication Navane.

Gillian Rumsey, a psychiatric nurse who is the program manager of the Sacramento County jail psychiatric services, met defendant in January 1985 shortly after his arrest on the current charges, when defendant became a prisoner at the county jail. From January to March of 1985, defendant refused medication, did not communicate verbally, and did not bathe regularly. When Rumsey would enter his cell, which was scattered with garbage, defendant would turn away and stare at the wall. In March 1985, Rumsey had defendant transferred to the psychiatric unit of the jail for 72 hours of observation, because defendant had been pacing in his cell and appeared agitated. Defendant was involuntarily medicated with the neuroleptic Haldol but, when returned to a regular cell, refused further medication.

On March 19, 1985, Dr. Bruce Kaldor, a psychiatrist appointed by the municipal court to evaluate defendant’s competency to stand trial, examined defendant in his jail cell. Defendant appeared alert but refused to communicate with Dr. Kaldor. The jailers with whom Dr. Kaldor spoke had not observed defendant talking to himself or appearing to hear voices. Dr. Kaldor testified that defendant could be competent to stand trial even though he suffered from paranoid schizophrenia; “[A] paranoid schizophrenic can be quite competent. Competency does not necessarily equate with mental illness. So a person may have the disease of schizophrenia and be personally able to stand trial due to his competency.” Dr. Kaldor added that a person with antisocial personality disorder also may be competent to stand trial, and that a person with an antisocial personality disorder is more likely to malinger or fake a mental illness.

Nurse Rumsey testified that defendant remained unmedicated until July, when he again became agitated, yelling threats, disrobing and standing nude in his cell, and inducing vomiting and spreading the vomitus on the walls. Defendant again was transferred to the psychiatric unit and involuntarily medicated with Haldol. After 14 days, defendant was returned to the regular jail population and agreed to continue his medication voluntarily. To decrease side effects, his medication was changed to the neuroleptic Thorazine Prolixin.

On August 22,1985, Dr. Kaldor examined defendant in an interview room at the jail. Dr. Kaldor told defendant he was there to determine whether defendant was competent to stand trial, but defendant did not respond initially. After Dr. Kaldor several times requested defendant’s cooperation, defendant stated: “I’m hearing voices, hallucinating.” Dr. Kaldor asked defendant about the voices, but defendant would not elaborate. Later, defendant added: “I am seeing things.” When asked what he was seeing, defendant replied: “Eyeballs.” About 15 minutes into the interview, defendant turned his back on Dr. Kaldor and refused to say anything more. Dr. Kaldor considered reports from jailers who said that defendant appeared to be rational, read the newspaper, and conversed with other inmates. Dr. Kaldor stated that these reports “raised the question in my mind as to whether Mr. Jones was malingering .... And essentially I gave him the doubt. [