Full opinion text
Opinion BAXTER, J. In 1984, a jury convicted defendant Richard Delmer Boyer of the first degree murders (Pen. Code, §§ 187, subd. (a), 189) and robberies (§ 211) of Francis and Aileen Harbitz. An allegation that defendant used a deadly weapon, a knife, in each of the offenses was sustained. (§ 12022, former subd. (b), see now subd. (b)(1).) Under the 1978 death penalty law, special circumstances of multiple murder (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(3)), and robbery murder (id., former subd. (a)(17)(i), see now subd. (a)(17)(A)) were found true. After a penalty trial, the jury sentenced defendant to death. We reversed the 1984 guilt and penalty judgments. We concluded that defendant’s confession to the police in a custodial setting was obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment and Miranda v. Arizona (1968) 384 U.S. 436 [16 L.Ed.2d 694, 86 S.Ct. 1602], and that admission of the confession in evidence at his trial was prejudicial on the issue of guilt. However, on the record before us, we saw no basis to conclude that other evidence admitted against him was tainted by the Fourth Amendment and Miranda violations, such that it could not be used in any retrial. (People v. Boyer (1989) 48 Cal.3d 247 [256 Cal.Rptr. 96, 768 P.2d 610] (Boyer I).) After a retrial, in which defendant’s confession was not admitted, a jury again found defendant guilty of the robberies and first degree murders of the Harbitzes. A knife-use allegation was again sustained for each crime. The jury found true, as special circumstances, that each murder was committed in the course of a robbery, and that defendant was convicted of more than one murder in the proceeding. Pursuant to the jury’s penalty verdict, defendant was again sentenced to death. This appeal is automatic. We will affirm the guilt and penalty judgments in full. I. Guilt Phase Evidence A. Prosecution case. In December 1982, retirees Francis Harbitz, age 68, and his wife Aileen Harbitz, age 69, were stabbed to death in their Fullerton home. Their bodies were discovered in the late evening of December 12, 1982, by their son William, who came to check on them after attempts to reach them by telephone during that day had failed. William had last seen and spoken to his parents on December 5, 1982. A friend of Aileen’s had telephoned once on the evening of December 7, and several times on the morning of December 8, but got no answer. Later on December 8, the friend went to the Harbitz residence, knocked, got no response, and slipped a note under the door. Papers with handwriting were found on the floor inside the front door on the night of December 12. When William entered the house, he found Francis’s body sitting upright against a bloody hallway wall. Aileen’s was lying, surrounded by blood, on the floor of the living room. Francis had sustained some 24 stab wounds to his neck, upper and lower chest, and back. Three of his ribs were fractured by a knife entering his back, and he also suffered a broken arm. One of the neck wounds severed his left carotid artery. Three chest wounds penetrated his heart, and one of these also cut his ascending aorta. Francis bled to death from the wounds to his heart and aorta. Aileen suffered 19 stab wounds to her neck, chest, abdomen, and back. One abdominal entry wound transected her left lung four times, indicating the assailant repeatedly withdrew the knife and reinserted it in the same track. A wound beneath her left ear penetrated to her spine. One of the chest wounds transected her ascending aorta. She bled to death as a result. At the crime scene, a purse found in the kitchen contained no wallet. Later, at the crime lab, two $50 bills were found folded inside a smaller container at the bottom of this purse. A second purse, found in a back bedroom, contained a total of $40 in cash. In Francis’s bedroom, a wallet in a dresser drawer contained approximately $260 in cash. The premises showed no signs of forced entry or ransacking. On the night William discovered his parents’ bodies, he mentioned defendant’s name to the police. William had met defendant three years earlier, when defendant lived near William and his wife in a Fullerton apartment complex known as the International Hotel. William introduced defendant to his parents, and defendant had done yard work for the senior Harbitzes. Defendant’s relationship with the victims was cordial, and they had lent him money. According to William, defendant wore a “standard buck knife” in a sheath on his belt “all the time.” William had recently moved from the International Hotel, without telling defendant, but had kept his old telephone number. William had not seen defendant for six months to a year. During this period, defendant had called three times, though William did not speak to him personally. Defendant telephoned William again on December 8, 1982, at which time they engaged in small talk. On December 14, 1982, police searched the El Monte residence defendant shared with his girlfriend, Cynthia Cornwell. Items retrieved from the premises included a pair of Levi’s, a buck knife, and a sheath. The burned remnants of a jacket were found in a hibachi on the kitchen stove of the El Monte house. At some point, police also recovered Aileen’s wallet from a sewer. The Levi’s had a hole in the left knee and also contained three bloodstains. One stain, near the hole, was consistent with defendant’s blood, but not with the victims’. A second stain was consistent with Francis’s blood, but not with Aileen’s or defendant’s. A third stain was consistent with Aileen’s blood, but not with Francis’s or defendant’s. The buck knife had a spot of human blood, but the sample was too small to analyze for identity. The victims’ wounds could have been inflicted with the buck knife, but not with a kitchen knife found on a counter in the Harbitzes’ home. John Kennedy testified under a grant of immunity as follows: In December 1982, he lived in Temple City, near El Monte. On December 7, 1982, Kennedy, driving his mother’s car, arrived at the El Monte house shared by defendant and Cornwell between 4:30 and 5:00 p.m. Defendant asked for a ride to his parents’ house so he could pick up money his father had received for selling one of his guns. After 45 minutes or so, they departed. It was beginning to get dark. Defendant was walking and talking normally. He was wearing a blue jacket. Kennedy drove. They first stopped to buy a quarter-gram of cocaine from a dealer Kennedy knew, with $25 Kennedy had borrowed from his brother for that purpose. They injected the cocaine. Typically, a cocaine injection produced a five-minute “rush” and a one-hour “high.” After they injected the cocaine, defendant directed Kennedy on a 10-minute drive to defendant’s parents’ house. Kennedy stayed in the car. Defendant went inside for 15 minutes. He returned with a tire and a foam mattress and said his father had given him a check. Next, defendant directed Kennedy a short distance to an apartment complex, where defendant tried and failed to obtain a marijuana cigarette. Defendant then had Kennedy drive to the International Hotel in Fullerton to find “Bill.” This trip took about 20 minutes. When they arrived, both men went to an apartment door, and defendant knocked. A young woman answered and said no Bill lived there. Remarking that Bill must have moved back with his parents, defendant told Kennedy to drive to another location. Defendant first suggested they were headed to “some dope dealer’s house,” but when they arrived at their destination—three or four miles from the International Hotel—defendant said he was going “to Bill’s parents’ house.” Darkness had fallen. Defendant directed Kennedy where to park. Kennedy remained in the car. Defendant got out, walked around a comer, and disappeared from view. He was acting normally. After 45 minutes, defendant returned. He seemed to be walking normally, and was carrying a towel. At that moment, a patrol vehicle with red lights on its roof approached. Defendant walked to the back of Kennedy’s car and began wiping the rear window with the towel. After the patrol car passed, defendant got in and instructed Kennedy “to take off calmly, not to attract any attention.” Kennedy did not know where they were, but, following defendant’s directions, he drove back to the freeway. Defendant was “talking] okay.” As they drove, Kennedy saw defendant apply the towel to his left knee. Defendant referred to “dope dealers that don’t have no dope,” and said “that he had to hurt ’em.” Defendant indicated he himself had been stabbed. Once they were on the freeway, Kennedy saw defendant going through two wallets. Defendant said he needed to find a bushy area beside the freeway. As they passed such an area, between the Durfee and Peck Road offramps of Interstate 10 near El Monte, defendant threw out one of the wallets. He discarded the second wallet in “a gutter, a sewer” beside the Temple City Boulevard offramp. He instructed Kennedy not to tell anybody what had happened that night. When they arrived back at the El Monte house, Kennedy saw the stab wound in defendant’s knee. Defendant and Cornwell went into the bathroom to tend the wound. At the house, Kennedy noticed defendant was wearing his buck knife in a sheath on his waist. Before leaving, Kennedy saw this knife lying on a dresser, blade open. There was blood on the knife. To Kennedy’s knowledge, defendant injected cocaine three or four times a week. Kennedy had, on occasion, seen defendant smoke phencyclidine (PCP) and marijuana, and had observed him ingest cocaine and alcohol in combination. Cynthia Cornwell testified under a grant of immunity as follows: In December 1982, she, defendant, and her three children were living in a house on Gibson Street in El Monte. Defendant and she were boyfriend and girlfriend. Cornwell’s welfare check had been substantially cut when defendant moved in. They were extremely poor and needed money for “everything.” On the afternoon of December 7, 1982, Kennedy came to the house. Sometime thereafter, Kennedy and defendant left together. Defendant was wearing a blue jacket. Before departing, he said he was going to try to borrow money from his parents. He asked Cornwell for $30, which she knew was the price of cocaine. There was no money to give him. When defendant and Kennedy returned, defendant was limping, and there was blood on his knee. Cornwell asked where defendant had gone, what had happened, and whether he had gotten any money. Defendant answered that he got no money; he had “tried going to a loan shark and got in an argument with him, and that’s what happened to his knee.” Defendant gave Cornwell $10. The two went into the bathroom, where Cornwell tended defendant’s wound. Before the police came to the house, but on the same day, defendant asked Cornwell whether she would wait for him if something happened. Defendant then got a telephone call from his mother, which seemed to upset him. When Cornwell asked what was wrong, defendant said “something about a murder” and told Cornwell “you are going to hate me.” That evening, after defendant left the El Monte house with the police, Cornwell burned defendant’s blue jacket in a hibachi on top of the kitchen stove. She did so because defendant would be in a bad mood when he returned, “so I figured if I burned the jacket, tomorrow was payday [i.e., welfare check day], he was going to get a new one and he would be pacified.” The police arrested Cornwell as an accessory when she told them about the jacket. B. Defense case. Dr. Ernest Klatte, a psychiatrist, interviewed defendant once in December 1982, once in January 1983, and twice more in 1990, for a total of eight and three-quarter hours. Before the first interview, Dr. Klatte reviewed reports of the Harbitz murder investigation prepared by the public defender and the Fullerton Police, as well as the forensic report of the Orange County Sheriff’s crime lab. He also reviewed defendant’s past medical reports. These included indications that, in the past, defendant had suffered two serious traffic accidents, both of which rendered him temporarily unconscious. According to Dr. Klatte, defendant provided the following version of the events of December 7, 1982: For some time, defendant had been injecting cocaine daily, and had been drinking considerably. On December 7, he drank a “fair amount” of beer in the morning and a half-pint of whiskey in the afternoon. After consuming the whiskey, he smoked a PCP cigarette. He also shared a quarter-gram of cocaine with Kennedy. After injecting the cocaine, defendant and Kennedy drove to defendant’s parents’ house, where defendant hoped to talk his mother out of money for more drugs. However, his father was home, so he could not obtain the money. Next, defendant went looking for William Harbitz, but found he had moved. Defendant then had Kennedy drive him to the home of William’s parents, who had been nice to him, to find out how to contact William. Defendant was developing “one of his headaches, which he had on and off for some years.” During these episodes, he did not like being around people and felt prone to anger easily. He did not mention the headache to Kennedy. He was also starting to feel effects of the PCP he had consumed. When they arrived in the Harbitzes’ neighborhood, defendant told Kennedy to park around the comer because Kennedy seemed “kind of edgy.” When defendant knocked on the Harbitzes’ door, Aileen invited him in. The warmth inside the house bothered him. After he chatted briefly with Aileen, she suggested he go to the back bedroom and talk with Francis. He did so. As defendant was leaving Francis’s room, he noticed a billfold out of the comer of his eye, and “things started getting very strange.” He felt he was part of Halloween II (Universal Pictures 1981), a popular horror movie. Events kept changing speeds, and items inside the house became distorted. In the 1982 to 1983 interviews, defendant said he recalled only that he grabbed Aileen and that Francis came down the hall saying, “what’s going on here.” According to defendant’s 1982 to 1983 account, he had no memory of pulling out his knife or stabbing, and he remembered nothing else until he was outside ready to leave in the car. In 1990, he said he was “tripping” and had actually hallucinated a man coming at him with a knife. Defendant did remember that he had two wallets when he left the Harbitz house. He also acknowledged that he went through the wallets looking for money, then discarded them in a bushy area and a sewer. Defendant discussed these events in a way that implied he acted “to get rid of the evidence.” Assuming defendant told the truth about the drugs he ingested on December 7, 1982, Dr. Klatte opined that their effects would tend to make him impulsive and explosive, with an impaired ability to interpret events, act thoughtfully, exercise judgment, and weigh consequences. He would likely have been paranoid, delusional, and excitable, and might have hallucinated. Dr. Klatte acknowledged that defendant had an antisocial personality, might have lied about the events of December 7, and might be malingering. Defendant’s antisocial personality, plus his understanding that the mental evaluation was intended to assist him at trial, raised a high clinical suspicion of malingering. Kennedy’s and Cornwell’s assessments that defendant seemed sober on December 7 also “raised a question in [Dr. Klatte’s] mind about what happened inside the [victims’] house,” although experienced drug users become more adept at masking their symptoms, and long-term use of drugs like cocaine and PCP can produce momentary psychotic or other explosive effects unrelated to the most recent ingestion. Dr. Klatte did particularly suspect defendant’s 1990 hallucination claim, because defendant had not mentioned this experience in his earlier interviews. Dr. Klatte further conceded that, while defendant professed not to remember the stabbings, much of his activity that night was goal oriented, to obtain money for drugs. Lawrence Plon, a pharmacist, testified to the usual effects of cocaine and PCP. Plon said cocaine is a central nervous system stimulant. When injected, it produces a very excited “high” feeling often compared to sexual orgasm. PCP separates the consciousness from the body. It can produce excitement or catatonic withdrawal, aggression, paranoia, hallucinations, and delusions. II. Penalty Evidence A. Prosecution case. The parties stipulated that on October 16, 1980, defendant pled guilty to committing a misdemeanor assault against James Davis on September 15, 1980. The prosecution also presented evidence, essentially uncontested, that defendant participated in the armed robbery of a Payless Shoe Source store in Temple City on October 12, 1982. Defendant personally pulled a handgun on the clerk, Paula Kelly, and forced her to open both the cash register and the store safe. Finally, the prosecution sought to prove that defendant murdered 75-year-old Houston Compton in Fullerton on August 22, 1980. Compton’s blood-soaked body, with the back pants pocket pulled out, was found around 7:30 that same evening near the center of the Fullerton College campus. The victim was last seen alive between 6:00 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. at Coco’s, a restaurant less than two miles from the campus and about one mile from the International Hotel, where defendant then lived. The five-foot two-inch, 115-pound victim suffered a stab wound to the upper chest and some 34 slash wounds to the fingers, hands, forearms, elbows, upper chest, face, and head. The fatal wound extended from the side of the face to the neck, severed the jugular vein, and nicked the carotid artery, causing massive loss of blood. The wounds could have been inflicted by a Frontiersman 124 buck knife. Compton’s early 1960’s Ford Fairlane was found abandoned in Santa Monica on September 11, 1980. His wallet was lying on the front seat. There were blood spots, spatters, and smears on the dashboard, the under-dash air conditioning unit, a seat cushion on the front passenger side, and the inside of the front passenger door, as well as pooled blood on the passenger side floorboards, both front and rear. Extensive debris, including a McDonald’s restaurant bag with a receipt inside and other discarded food wrappings and containers, was removed from the car. The receipt was for a purchase of two hamburgers at 10:12 p.m. on August 22, 1980, from the McDonald’s restaurant on Leffingwell Road in Whittier. The car’s interior also contained gun enthusiast magazines and papers, which were marked with Japanese writing and the handwritten names and addresses, in English, of gun shops. In the trunk, police discovered a box labeled “buck knife,” and, under a tire iron, a trench coat with the name “George Murphy” embroidered inside. This coat also had labels identifying a tailor shop in Japan, as well as a tag with handwritten letters that appeared to be a P and a B. No matchable fingerprints were found in the vehicle or on any items taken from it. DNA test results for the genetic materials collected in the case (i.e., blood, hairs, scrapings from the victim’s fingernails) did not point to defendant. Roger Green testified as follows: In 1980, he owned a gun shop in Whittier. In late August of that year, he sold a Frontiersman 124 buck knife, in its box, to two men. The men also expressed an interest in purchasing a Walther handgun, which Green did not sell. One of these customers resembled a photo of a man named Charles Connell. The prosecution sought to prove defendant’s identity as Compton’s killer in several ways. William Harbitz testified as follows: One evening in August 1980, defendant came to the door of Harbitz’s apartment. Defendant had been drinking, and said he had been in a knife fight. There was blood on defendant’s T-shirt. The next morning, Harbitz found blood on the fender of his dune buggy, which was parked in the direction from which defendant had approached. Linda Weissinger testified as follows: In August 1980, then 16 years old, she worked at the McDonald’s restaurant on Leffingwell Road in Whittier. Around 10:15 p.m. on August 22, 1980, during the closing rush, a man driving a white, early ’60s car like Compton’s ordered two hamburgers at the drive-through window. Weissinger took the order, while another employee, Shelly Stowell, received the customer’s money and handed him the food. They noticed the man because he had blood on his T-shirt—Stowell remarked what a “slob” he was—and because, unlike most customers, he parked away from the drive-through window, and leaned toward the passenger side of the car, as if he did not wish to be seen. Weissinger observed the man for 40 to 50 seconds. From her angle, she saw him only in three-quarters profile, and the car’s roof prevented her from observing his upper forehead and hair. Nonetheless, in May 1983, she picked defendant’s picture from a six-photo array. At trial in 1992, Weissinger confirmed she was “sure” in May 1983 that the photo she picked at that time showed the man she saw at McDonald’s on August 22, 1980. During direct and cross-examination, Weissinger revealed that, before she identified defendant in May 1983, she had picked other men at November 1980 and July 1981 live lineups. The man Weissinger identified with “99 percent” certainty at the November 1980 live lineup was some 50 pounds heavier than the person she saw on August 22, 1980, and there were also differences in facial hair and hair style and color. The man she identified at the July 1981 live lineup “seem[ed] to have lost some weight and grown some facial hair.” Weissinger explained that the police had told her to discount such differences, because someone’s appearance could change in those ways over time. After picking defendant from the May 1983 photo array, she was shown the same group of photos on two later occasions—in April 1985 and January 1991. These were the only times she saw the same photos more than once. B. Defense case. Responding to Weissinger’s testimony for the prosecution, Dr. Kathy Pezdek, a clinical psychologist, testified about factors undermining the accuracy of eyewitness identifications. Dr. Pezdek indicated that stress, a poor opportunity to observe in the first instance, and loss of memory due to passage of time can all contribute to mistaken identification. Accuracy can also be compromised, Dr. Pezdek explained, when the witness is anxious to help the police by identifying someone. In Dr. Pezdek’s view, Weissinger’s multiple identifications of different persons implied she was suggestible in this way. The sharply different appearances of the other men Weissinger identified cast further doubt on her accuracy. Moreover, Dr. Pezdek observed, one who meets many people, such as a McDonald’s worker, might misidentify someone observed on a particular occasion by unconsciously transferring a memory of someone seen in a entirely different context, such as a neighbor. Dorothy Boyer, defendant’s adoptive mother, testified that defendant was four years old when adopted. Dorothy and her husband Del went to the apartment of defendant’s natural mother to pick defendant up. Conditions in that home were poor. The natural mother was anxious to get rid of defendant, and he showed no emotion at their parting. The Boyers agreed on the spot to take defendant’s younger sister also. When defendant was adopted, he could hardly talk, and he communicated with grunts. He was in poor physical condition, with boils all over his body, the result of an inadequate diet. The natural mother said defendant’s speech problems were because he “didn’t get enough oxygen or something” at birth. Dorothy recounted that as a young child, defendant had many friends, and the Boyer living room “belonged to the whole neighborhood.” However, speech problems persisted through defendant’s childhood, despite the Boyers’ attempts to help, and he began wearing glasses in the third or fourth grade. As a consequence, other children made fun of him, and his social and academic development was impaired. He became more withdrawn. He wet his bed until he was 10 or 11 years old. Initially, he worked hard in school and obeyed the rules, but he repeated second grade, and despite home tutoring, his performance worsened through elementary school. The Boyers spent money to support defendant’s interests in art and music. Del, whom defendant idolized, engaged in many pursuits with him, including homework, chess, baseball, and soapbox derby. The family attended church regularly, traveled to Yosemite each year, and took ski vacations together in the winter. Defendant’s school attendance and performance deteriorated further during his teenage years. Dorothy’s communication with him became difficult, though he remained close to Del and protective of his younger sister. When defendant was 17, money and a small television turned up missing from the Boyer home. The Boyers suspected drugs. As a result, Del told defendant he would have to leave home when he turned 18. Around the same time, defendant had two traffic accidents. The first time, he was thrown from a car onto the pavement. He hit his head and was hospitalized for three or four days. Subsequently, in a motorcycle crash, he seriously fractured his leg and crushed his hip. This time he was in the hospital for three or four months. After defendant left home, the Boyers moved to a condominium complex on East Oxford Drive in La Mirada. Around August 1980, defendant periodically visited them there. During this period, Dorothy sensed that defendant had a continuing drug problem and was not choosing his friends well. Dorothy indicated that she and Del tried to visit defendant in prison, but were treated so badly that defendant urged them not to return. Thereafter, they spoke with him by telephone twice a week, and he regularly sent handmade birthday and holiday cards with his own drawings and cartoons. Dorothy said defendant had often expressed remorse for killing the Harbitzes. Nancy Ann Lucia was the neighbor of the Boyers who helped arrange his adoption. She accompanied the Boyers to pick up defendant and his sister from their natural mother. Nancy confirmed defendant’s poor environment and physical condition at that time, as well as the obvious lack of bonding between child and natural mother. Nancy said defendant was “a very frightened little boy.” According to Nancy, the Boyers were loving and attentive adoptive parents, but Del was a perfectionist who put too much pressure on defendant. Defendant and Nancy’s son, who was the same age, had a normal playmate relationship. The Lucias moved away permanently when the two boys were in the fourth or fifth grade, and Nancy did not see defendant after that. Luis Lucia, Nancy’s son, confirmed his close childhood friendship with defendant. Luis did not know defendant as an adult guilty of capital crimes, but he insisted that everyone makes mistakes, and that defendant did not deserve to die. Sally Forbes, a marriage, family, and child counselor, conducted multiple interviews with defendant and his parents. On this basis, she testified at length about defendant’s background and its effect on his psychological makeup. Forbes attached particular significance to defendant’s lack of emotion upon parting from his natural mother. Forbes stressed the importance of the first four years of childhood as an influence on later behavior. During this period, Forbes said, children develop autonomy and self-esteem, and they learn about trust and mistrust. Instinctively aware of their need for adult care, they will cling to parents despite neglect and mistreatment. Defendant’s lack of bonding with his natural parent, Forbes opined, thus indicated severe mental and emotional deprivation during his earliest years. Moreover, childhood events described by defendant and the Boyers—his persistent speech problem, his night fears including visual hallucinations, and his bed-wetting—as well as his episodes of “acting out,” such as lying and setting fires, also suggested some great fear- or terror-inducing trauma in his background. Defendant scored 90 on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, indicating low average intelligence. With effort, Forbes indicated, defendant thus should have been able to do adequate school work. It appeared from defendant’s school history that, responding to the Boyers’ love and attention, he was initially enthusiastic, but that he later lacked motivation and simply gave up. As a possible explanation, Forbes noted that adopted children are always insecure about why their real parents did not want them. Usually, Forbes observed, this issue gets worked out through family communication and therapy, but here it did not. Forbes acknowledged school reports documenting an increasing degree of antisocial behavior as defendant got older, and she agreed that his adolescent truancy suggested problems with drugs and alcohol. Considering the extent of defendant’s difficulties, Forbes felt her initial interviews did not uncover the “full story” of his possible preadoption trauma. In 1984, after 30 or 40 interviews, defendant revealed that his natural father had sexually abused him. Defendant said the father would come home, send defendant’s older sister out to play, take defendant into the bedroom, force him to perform oral sex, give him pink and orange cookies, and make him promise not to tell. Forbes believed this occurred when defendant was between two and four years old. Early childhood sexual abuse, Forbes indicated, produces deep-seated guilt feelings. It could account, she believed, for defendant’s night fears, fire-setting, and bed-wetting during childhood, and could permanently impair his ability to trust, thus producing an alienated “loner.” In Forbes’s later interviews with defendant, he had softened his cynical attitudes, and had become more compassionate, mature, and insightful—a change also noticeable in his artwork. He was now able, Forbes said, to set short-term goals, postpone gratification, avoid losing his temper, and judge and react appropriately to situations. Dr. Jonathan Salk, a psychiatrist, had a single interview with defendant at the Orange County jail. Forbes accompanied Dr. Salk to the jail, but she left the interview room when defendant expressed embarrassment about discussing certain matters in her presence. Defendant then confirmed to Dr. Salk his memories of sexual abuse by an adult male, probably his natural father, when he was a very young child. The details generally corresponded to those defendant had given Forbes. Defendant also recalled incidents of physical violence at his father’s hands. In Dr. Salk’s opinion, defendant’s demeanor and manner of describing these events indicated he was telling the truth. Defendant generally depicted his preadoption childhood as chaotic; his mother was an alcoholic, his father was at home only intermittently, and his older sister was his primary caregiver. Dr. Salk believed defendant exhibited many childhood behaviors linked to severe psychological trauma. Luis Munoz and Edward Wood, Orange County jail guards, testified that defendant was an average, cooperative inmate who gave no trouble while confined there. Defendant volunteered to clean up the cafeteria, a duty that allowed him to be out of his cell. Toni Bovee, a defense investigator, showed examples of the many original drawings and poems defendant had sent her and her daughter. Bovee said defendant had often expressed remorse for the Harbitz homicides. Clayton Griffith, a prison art instructor, testified that, in their initial encounters, defendant displayed a “biker macho” demeanor, and his artwork was cold, impersonal, and detached. Over time, however, defendant’s artwork softened, and he began to combine poetry with drawing. Defendant was always reserved, but after six months or so, he became less formal, and more friendly and expressive. His hard demeanor came to seem more like a facade. Defendant was generally polite and caring of others insofar as he had contact with them. He appeared to have good relations with peers and supervisors. Because he was unavailable at the 1992 trial, the testimony of James Verwys from the prior trial was read into the record as follows: Verwys was a Los Angeles police officer. He occupied the hospital bed next to defendant’s after defendant’s motorcycle accident. Verwys liked defendant the best of his 20 or so hospital roommates. Defendant seemed a genuine, caring person. He was the only roommate to return after his release from the hospital to visit Verwys. They kept in touch and socialized after Verwys was released. Defendant has redeeming qualities and is worth keeping alive. III. Pretrial Issues A. Motion to suppress evidence. As noted above, in Boyer I we reversed defendant’s original conviction on grounds that his confession in police custody was illegally obtained and should have been suppressed, but we ruled that other evidence in the case was not similarly subject to exclusion as the product, or “tainted fruit,” of the illegal police conduct. (Boyer I, supra, 48 Cal.3d 247, 276.) Prior to the retrial, defendant moved anew to suppress evidence other than his confession, including the evidence discussed in Boyer I, on multiple grounds. His motion was denied, and the challenged evidence was again admitted against him on the issue of guilt. Defendant urges on appeal that the trial court committed multiple errors in denying his new suppression motion. We find no prejudicial error. Our analysis requires, at the outset, an extensive factual recitation. 1. Factual and procedural background. Before the 1984 trials, defendant moved to exclude his incriminating statements to police, as well as other evidence, on grounds they were obtained in violation of his rights under the Fourth Amendment and Miranda v. Arizona, supra, 384 U.S. 436. On the motion, the following facts were adduced: On the evening of December 14, 1982, without an arrest or search warrant, or probable cause for either, detectives from the Fullerton and El Monte Police Departments surrounded the El Monte house defendant shared with Cynthia Cornwell and her children. When defendant emerged from the back door, he was detained, and he agreed to accompany detectives to the Fullerton police station for an interview about the Harbitz murders. Once at the station, defendant received Miranda warnings and then underwent a two-hour tape-recorded interrogation by Detective Lewis. Lewis indicated he thought defendant was guilty, did not credit defendant’s contrary protestations, and believed defendant could not live with the guilt. Defendant’s efforts to invoke his Miranda rights to silence and counsel, and to ascertain whether he was under arrest, were repeatedly ignored or evaded. However, questioning finally ceased, and the recorder was turned off. Lewis then asked defendant if the police could search the El Monte house. Defendant said it was all right with him, but they would have to obtain Cornwell’s consent, because “[i]t’s her house.” Officers Davinroy and Ritter, waiting in El Monte, were dispatched to obtain Cornwell’s permission. Meanwhile in Fullerton, defendant consented to fingerprinting and was taken to the jail facility for that purpose. When he returned from fingerprinting, he spoke with Cornwell by telephone. Though defendant had not yet made any incriminating statements and, according to Lewis, was not under arrest, Lewis overheard defendant tell Cornwell he was being charged with two counts of murder. Defendant advised Cornwell that the decision whether to allow a residential search was hers, because it was her house. After speaking with defendant, and with- her own attorney, Cornwell gave oral consent, and the search began. At the Fullerton police station, Lewis asked defendant to step back into the interrogation room “for a few minutes.” The tape recorder was not turned on. Lewis indicated he could not solicit further statements from defendant, because defendant had asked for an attorney. However, Lewis said, he wanted to “tell [defendant] a couple things.” Lewis then related to defendant that certain portions of defendant’s story did not ring true, in that Paul Harbitz, one of the victims’ sons, indicated defendant had done yard work for the senior Harbitzes more recently than defendant maintained. Hence, Lewis admonished, he would be “checking further into the case with Bill Harbitz.” As Lewis then turned to leave the room, defendant called him back and said “I did it.” Lewis reactivated the tape recorder and took a new waiver of defendant’s Miranda rights. Defendant thereupon gave a more complete statement. (Boyer I, supra, 48 Cal.3d 247, 263-267.) Among other things, defendant disclosed that during the fatal encounter, he had stabbed himself in the knee. He revealed that the knife he used to stab the Harbitzes was in his bedroom in El Monte, most likely in a dresser drawer. He said that he had worn Levi’s and a blue jacket the night of the murders, and that the jacket had gotten blood on it. He indicated the jacket was on the bedroom floor and the Levi’s were in the bedroom closet. Defendant represented that he had gone alone to the victims’ home in a car belonging to the mother of his friend John Kennedy. At some point, defendant also directed police to the location of Aileen Harbitz’s wallet, which he had discarded near a freeway offramp. As soon as defendant confessed, information about the Levi’s, the jacket, and the knife was transmitted to the officers searching the El Monte house. They recovered bloody Levi’s from the bedroom closet and a knife from a dresser drawer, but they found no blue denim jacket. When they asked Cornwell about the jacket, she told them she had burned it in a hibachi on the kitchen stove. The officers advised her she might thereby be implicated in a murder. They placed her under arrest as an accessory and advised her of her Miranda rights. She agreed to cooperate. Detectives also located and questioned Kennedy, who ultimately admitted he drove defendant from the El Monte house to the Harbitz residence on the night of the murders. Kennedy also confirmed the exact location where defendant had discarded the wallet beside the freeway offramp. Defendant’s motion to suppress was denied, and his statement to the police was introduced in the prosecution’s case-in-chief. Both Kennedy and Cornwell testified for the prosecution under grants of immunity. The knife, the bloody Levi’s, and the recovered wallet were also admitted in evidence. On appeal from the 1984 judgment, we agreed with defendant that his incriminating statements to the police on December 14, 1982, were the product of violations of his rights under the Fourth Amendment and Miranda v. Arizona, supra, 384 U.S. 436. Thus, we ruled, these statements should not have been admitted in the prosecution’s case-in-chief to prove defendant’s guilt, and the error was prejudicial. On this basis, we reversed defendant’s conviction. (Boyer I, supra, 48 Cal.3d 247, 267-275.) Defendant pressed the further contention that the knife and bloody Levi’s, Kennedy’s testimony, and the wallet recovered near the freeway offramp were “ ‘tainted fruit’ of the illegal police conduct,” and thus also inadmissible. (Boyer I, supra, 48 Cal.3d 247, 256.) He urged that the evidence recovered from the El Monte house was based on his invalid consent to search given while he was illegally detained. He further asserted that the authorities had improperly obtained Kennedy’s testimony, and had recovered the wallet, as the result of information invalidly obtained from defendant. (Id. at p. 276.) We rejected these arguments. Based on the record then before us, we reasoned as follows: The search of the El Monte house was based not on defendant’s invalid consent, but on the voluntary, untainted consent of Cornwell. During the consensual search, and after the authorities located the knife and bloody Levi’s the search would inevitably have produced, Cornwell volunteered she had burned the blue jacket, an inherently suspicious event leading to the arrest that persuaded her to cooperate with the authorities. Cornwell’s cooperation would have led the police to Kennedy, for she knew defendant was in Kennedy’s company on the night of the murders. Armed with information from Cornwell about Kennedy’s involvement, police would certainly have obtained his cooperation. Thus, both his testimony and his independent knowledge of the discarded wallet’s location would have been procured regardless of defendant’s statement. (Boyer I, supra, 48 Cal.3d 247, 276-279.) On retrial, defendant filed a new motion seeking to suppress the knife, the Levi’s, the wallet, and the anticipated testimony of both Cornwell and Kennedy as “tainted fruit” of his illegal detention and confession. Defendant also claimed that Cornwell’s consent to search the El Monte house, and her anticipated testimony on retrial, were the result of coercive tactics by the authorities against her. Defendant sought an evidentiary hearing on these issues. The trial court determined that our decision in Boyer I was the law of the case as to all issues addressed therein, and that relitigation of those issues was thus foreclosed. Accordingly, the court ruled, defendant could not raise claims (1) that the search of the El Monte house was the “tainted fruit” of defendant’s illegal detention, confession, and consent, (2) that Cornwell’s consent to the search was involuntary, or (3) that procurement of Kennedy’s information and testimony was not inevitable. However, the trial court permitted defendant to litigate his claim, not raised or addressed in Boyer I, that Cornwell’s testimony should be excluded as the result of official coercion against her, and as the tainted product of defendant’s illegal arrest, detention, and confession. The parties stipulated “as far as the purposes of this hearing,” that the facts recited by our opinion in Boyer I were true. At the evidentiary hearing, Detective Lewis testified for the prosecution as follows: When he and other officers approached the El Monte house on the evening of December 14, 1982, he knew defendant lived there with a woman and her three children. Had defendant not been home, and had the woman been cooperative, Lewis would have inquired about defendant’s whereabouts, and would also have asked her where defendant was on the night of December 7. If she were not cooperative, Lewis would have left When the officers knocked, Cornwell came to a window and indicated that defendant was there but could not come to the front door because it was jammed. After defendant emerged from the back door and was detained, the officers and defendant went back inside, where Lewis explained to Cornwell, who was very emotional, that defendant had agreed to accompany them to the Fullerton station for an interview. Lewis indicated defendant would be gone about three hours. Cornwell asked if defendant was under arrest; Lewis said he was not. Cornwell also asked if she could follow them to the police station. Lewis agreed, but Cornwell was unable to arrange transportation or child care. Lewis did not recall telling Cornwell that the matter involved a murder investigation. While in Lewis’s presence at the station, defendant had two phone conversations with Cornwell, one “after the initial interview,” and the second after defendant returned from fingerprinting. In the first call, Lewis heard defendant tell Cornwell it was her decision whether to allow a search. Lewis did not know the substance of the second call, but he did hear defendant tell Cornwell he was “arrested for a couple murders.” To the best of Lewis’s recollection, both of these calls occurred before defendant confessed. Other evidence established that Cornwell was arrested and jailed overnight after officers searching the El Monte house pursuant to her prior oral consent learned of defendant’s confession and the significance of the blue jacket, asked her about the jacket, and were told she had burned it. (See discussion, ante and post.) In response to defense counsel’s question on cross-examination, Lewis agreed that, before defendant confessed, it would not have been appropriate to arrest someone as an accomplice for destroying evidence such as a bloody jacket, because until then, “I didn’t know he had committed the murder.” On December 21, 1982, Lewis returned to the El Monte house to interview Cornwell further. Cornwell was “edgy” but calmer than on December 14. She said she was under a doctor’s care and did not want to speak to the police. Lewis told her defendant had confessed, “so she might as well talk to us.” In taking this approach, Lewis, aware of Cornwell’s emotional attachment to defendant, was seeking to persuade her that she “wouldn’t be telling us anything we didn’t already know.” Cornwell declined to talk on that occasion but said she might do so later after speaking to her psychologist and her attorney. Cynthia Cornwell testified for the defense as follows: On December 14, 1982, some three or four hours after defendant was taken to the police station, “at least” two other detectives came to the house. She did not recall whether they asked to search, or whether she consented to the search before or after she learned defendant had been arrested. She did speak by telephone both to defendant and to her attorney about allowing a search. She remembered little about the substance of those conversations, or how the calls were placed. During the search, she knew defendant was suspected of murder. She also was aware the police had not kept their promise to have defendant home in two or three hours. According to Cornwell, both before and during the search, the officers mentioned that her children could be taken away because the house was dirty and messy. She could not recall whether this was first said before or after she consented to the search, but it was after she spoke to defendant and her attorney. She took the reference to her children as a threat unless she cooperated against defendant. During this time, Cornwell was “upset,” “scared,” and “very, very emotional.” Something that “terrified” Cornwell during the search was that one of the officers tossed or dropped her infant daughter off a bed, from a height of 12 to 18 inches, so he could look underneath it. One other detective and Cornwell’s five-year-old daughter were also in the room at this time. The baby was not hurt, but Cornwell felt the officer did this to “intimidate me.” Also, Cornwell wanted to give her children baths to keep them calm, but detectives would not let her do so unless an officer “stood right there and watched the whole thing.” During the search, the officers asked Cornwell where certain items of clothing could be found, “and I was telling them.” When they asked about the jacket, she told them she burned it on the stove. She showed the officers the scraps that were left. They said she could or would be charged as an accessory. They arrested her, had her sign a search consent form, and took her to jail. At the time she was arrested, she knew defendant had confessed. She felt that some pressure was being applied against her at the time of her arrest. The police sought to interview her while she was in jail, but she realized they had lied to her, and were still lying to her, so she refused. Cornwell was released the next day; she assumed it was because she was sick. She did not know whether she would be charged, and she did not want to know. She did not call a lawyer after she was released. Shortly after her release, she was hospitalized with hepatitis and jaundice. She also was placed on medication for mental problems, including anxiety, “so I [could] walk out of my house without panicking if I saw a man in a business suit.” The medication helped, and she was no longer taking it. Cornwell thought any information she had would help defendant, because she “honestly did not believe he did it,” but at first she was not willing to testify. Defendant’s confession had nothing to do with her ultimate decision to cooperate. She decided to do so when told she would have immunity, out of fear she would otherwise be prosecuted. Moreover, though she later realized they could not take her children, the police threats to do so, and the incident with her baby daughter, caused her to believe that her own life was threatened, and that the police might find a way to retaliate. At one point, the court asked Cornwell, “[a]s I understand, your consent to search the house was based on the activities of the officers making the threats and the way they threatened your child . . . also, is that correct?” (Italics added.) Cornwell replied, “Correct.” Ruth Ohanessian testified for the defense as follows; Cornwell had previously consulted Ohanessian, then a lawyer, about a custody matter. Late one December night, Cornwell called to seek advice about whether she should allow the police to search her house. Cornwell, who was “very upset,” and “almost hysterical,” indicated “they were threatening to take the children.” Ohanessian told Cornwell to stay calm and not to antagonize the officers until Ohanessian called back. Ohanessian then tried two or three times to call Cornwell directly. Each time, a “brusque” male voice answered, saying Ohanessian had a wrong number, disclaiming that Cornwell was there, and then terminating the conversation. Finally, with operator assistance, Ohanessian reached someone who identified himself as a police officer. Ohanessian asked why they were saying they were going to take the children. The other party was not willing to give much information. He did not seem surprised at the question, did not deny discussing the children with Cornwell, and gave no legitimate reason why they could be taken. However, he acted somewhat conciliatory and said “they really didn’t have any intentions of taking the children. He indicated they were there about something that had nothing to do with [Cornwell], something having to do with her boyfriend.” Ohanessian then spoke to Cornwell. Ohanessian advised that Cornwell “didn’t have to be terribly worried about their taking the children” and should “give as little permission as she could” to avoid having the children taken. They were able to talk only briefly, and Ohanessian told Cornwell she would call back later. As the conversation ended, Cornwell was “still upset,” but, having been reassured about the children, she was “a tiny bit calmer.” After again trying several times without success, Ohanessian called back much later, shortly after midnight, and spoke to Cornwell. Cornwell said she was being arrested and asked Ohanessian to contact a family member for assistance with the children and possibly to arrange bail. Detective Rick Ritter testified for the People in rebuttal as follows: He arrived at the El Monte house around 5:50 p.m. on December 14, 1982, and left sometime after 1:00 a.m. He obtained Cornwell’s consent to search some four or five hours after he first arrived. His partner, Detective Davinroy, had been told over the telephone at a nearby fire station that defendant had given permission to search, “and we were to contact [Cornwell] at the residence and explain to her what the situation was and request to be allowed to search.” Cornwell was nervous when her consent was requested, and she might have cried at some point. Initially, she expressed particular distrust of Davinroy and said that if Davinroy was going to participate in the search, she wanted to be present, and she wanted receipts. Ritter agreed. Ultimately, six or seven officers were present in the house. Davinroy and Ritter had called for additional officers so that, if consent was refused, the premises could be secured while a warrant was obtained. While the officers were in the house, and prior to Cornwell’s arrest, detectives were monitoring Cornwell’s calls. Davinroy was answering the telephone because the officers were expecting and receiving calls from the police station. However, when Cornwell said she wanted to call her attorney before authorizing a search, Ritter said “go ahead.” When Ohanessian called back, she was allowed to speak to Cornwell once she identified herself. Ritter insisted he made no threats, about the children or otherwise, to Cornwell at any time, nor did he hear anyone else do so. According to Ritter, when Cornwell first realized she was going to be arrested, she was concerned about what would happen to the children, but when Ritter assured her they would be taken care of, she calmed down. At some time during the evening, Ritter saw two detectives, Cornwell, Cornwell’s daughter, and an infant together in the bedroom, but he never observed anyone touch the baby, pick up the baby, or toss the baby on the floor. He was not always in the same room with every child or every officer. However, he stayed with Cornwell at all times and never let her out of his sight, because “she was a witness in a homicide and/or a suspect.” At the time the detectives obtained Cornwell’s consent, they did not know defendant had confessed. However, they did know of defendant’s confession by the time Cornwell was arrested. On this record, the trial court ruled that Cornwell’s testimony was neither coerced nor tainted. The court found nothing coercive in the initial contact with the police, particularly since Cornwell was told that she could accompany defendant to the station and that the interview would last only two or three hours. Similarly, the court saw nothing objectionable in “the officer . . . answering the phone and things of that nature.” As to the claim of a threat to take Cornwell’s children, the court found that no such threat occurred. The court surmised that Cornwell, in an emotional state and already concerned about child custody issues, might have misinterpreted innocent remarks. While the court declined to determine whether Cornwell’s baby was tossed from the bed, the court’s comments suggested doubt that such an incident occurred. In the court’s words, “I don’t see there’s anything here that the officers did that was certainly threatening to the children.” The court next noted our conclusions in Boyer I—accepted for purposes of this hearing—that, though initially hostile when asked for consent to search, Cornwell became cooperative after consulting with defendant, “which she did,” and with her attorney, “which she surely did,” and that during the ensuing lawful search, the police found the knife and bloody Levi’s and asked about the jacket. The court also noted our Boyer I determination that, even if defendant had not mentioned the jacket and its significance, the officers would have discovered the burned jacket, scraps of which were still flying around the kitchen, would have questioned Cornwell about this “unusual and suspicious event,” and would have received the explanation Cornwell readily volunteered. In sum, the court concluded “that [Cornwell] cooperated of her own free will and volition,” and that her later statements were not tainted by defendant’s illegal arrest because her testimony would inevitably have been procured by lawful means. Accordingly, the court denied defendant’s motion to suppress. On appeal defendant renews his contention that the testimony of Cornwell and Kennedy, the bloody Levi’s, the knife, and the wallet should have been suppressed because (1) they were obtained by exploiting defendant’s illegal detention and the invalid confession thereby obtained, and (2) they would not inevitably have been procured by other lawful means. He urges further that Cornwell’s consent to the search of the El Monte house, and her agreement to testify at trial, were the involuntary products of official coercion toward her. 2. Law of the case. Defendant first asserts, as he did below, that the trial court should not have invoked the law-of-the-case doctrine to limit the suppression theories he could litigate on retrial. He argues the doctrine is inapplicable at the threshold because Boyer 7’s discussion of evidence other than defendant’s illegal confession was mere dictum. He further contends that, because “inevitable discovery” and the validity of Cornwell’s consent to search were not litigated in the original trial, the record we analyzed in Boyer I was not fully developed. By invoking the law of the case in order to allow the introduction of incriminating evidence on untested theories of consent and inevitable discovery, defendant insists, the instant trial court thus lightened the prosecution’s burden of proof in violation of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. As a consequence, defendant urges, he suffered infringement of his Sixth Amendment rights to a jury trial and to present a defense, and of his Eighth Amendment right to present all evidence material to his defense against a judgment of death. “[Wjhere an appellate court states a rule of law necessary to its decision, such rule ‘ “must be adhered to” ’ in any ‘ “subsequent appeal” ’ in the same case, even where the former decision appears to be ‘ “erroneous” ’ ” (People v. Whitt (1990) 51 Cal.3d 620, 638 [274 Cal.Rptr. 252, 798 P.2d 849] (Whitt), quoting People v. Shuey (1975) 13 Cal.3d 835, 841 [120 Cal.Rptr. 83, 533 P.2d 211].) Thus, the law-of-the-case doctrine “prevents the parties from seeking appellate reconsideration of an already decided issue in the same case absent some significant change in circumstances.” (Whitt, supra, at p. 638.) The doctrine is one of procedure, not jurisdiction, and it will not be applied “where its application will result in an unjust decision, e.g., where there has been a ‘manifest misapplication of existing principles resulting in substantial injustice’ [citation] . . . .” (People v. Stanley (1995) 10 Cal.4th 764, 787 [42 Cal.Rptr.2d 543, 897 P.2d 481] (Stanley).) Defendant first suggests the law-of-the-case doctrine is inapplicable here because Boyer 7’s discussion of evidence other than the illegal confession that led to our reversal was not “necessary to [our] decision” (Whitt, supra, 51 Cal.3d 620, 638), but was mere dictum (see Stockton Theatres, Inc. v. Palermo (1956) 47 Cal.2d 469, 474 [304 P.2d 7]). We disagree. In Boyer I, supra, 48 Cal.3d 247, 256, defendant pressed his “tainted fruit” arguments for the clear purpose of establishing that not only his confession, but also most of the other evidence introduced against him, was subject to exclusion. Had we accepted defendant’s claims, the result might well have been to preclude a retrial for lack of legally sufficient admissible evidence. Boyer /’s determination that the challenged evidence appeared free of taint thus ensured that the case could properly be set at large. Moreover, “[a] decision on a matter properly presented on a prior appeal becomes the law of the case even though it may not have been absolutely necessary to the determination of the question whether the judgment appealed from should be reversed. [Citations].” (Steelduct Co. v. Henger-Seltzer Co. (1945) 26 Cal.2d 634, 643 [160 P.2d 804].) Thus, application of the law-of-the-case doctrine is appropriate where an issue presented and decided in the prior appeal, even if not essential to the appellate disposition, “was proper as a guide to the court below on a new trial.” (Westerfeld v. New York Life Ins. Co. (1910) 157 Cal. 339, 345 [107 P. 699].) On the other hand, the law-of-the-case doctrine governs only the principles of law laid down by an appellate court, as applicable to a retrial of fact, and it controls the outcome on retrial only to the extent the evidence is substantially the same. (E.g., People v. Barragan (2004) 32 Cal.4th 236, 246 [9 Cal.Rptr.3d 76, 83 P.3d 480].) The doctrine does not limit the new evidence a party may introdu