People v. Montiel

• Citation: 855 P.2d 1277,5 Cal.4th 877,21 Cal.Rptr.2d 705
• Decision Date: 12 August 1993
• Docket Number: No. S004756,S004756
• Court: United States State Supreme Court (California)
• Parties: , 855 P.2d 1277 The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Richard Galvan MONTIEL, Defendant and Appellant.

Page 705

21 Cal.Rptr.2d 705

5 Cal.4th 877, 855 P.2d 1277

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Richard Galvan MONTIEL, Defendant and Appellant.

No. S004756.

Supreme Court of California,

In Bank.

Aug. 12, 1993.

As Modified on Denial of Rehearing Oct. 27, 1993.

Page 712

[5 Cal.4th 897] [855 P.2d 1284] Gary M. Sirbu, Oakland, under appointment by the Supreme Court, for defendant and appellant.

Daniel E. Lungren, Atty. Gen., George Williamson, Chief Asst. Atty. Gen., Robert R. Anderson, Asst. Atty. Gen., J. Robert Jibson and William G. Prahl, Deputy Attys. Gen., for plaintiff and respondent.

Page 713

[855 P.2d 1285] BAXTER, Justice.

In 1979, a jury convicted defendant Richard Galvan Montiel of the first degree murder (Pen.Code, §§ 187, 189) ¹ and robbery (§ 211) of Gregorio Ante, the robbery of Eva Mankin, and the burglary (§ 459) of Ms. Mankin's residence. Both the Mankin and Ante episodes occurred on January 13, 1979. With respect to the Ante crimes, the jury found true allegations that defendant personally used a deadly weapon, a knife, in the murder (§ 12022, subd. (b)) and that the robbery was committed against an aged person (§ 1203.09, subds. (a), (b)(i), (iii)), with great bodily injury (§ 12022.7), and by personal use of a deadly weapon. Under the 1978 death penalty law, the jury also sustained special circumstance allegations that the murder was committed in the course of a robbery (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(17)(i)) and intentionally for financial gain (id., subd. (a)(1)).

When the jury was unable to reach a penalty verdict, a penalty mistrial was declared, a new jury was empanelled, and the issue of penalty was retried. The second jury sentenced defendant to death.

[5 Cal.4th 898] We affirmed the guilt judgment, the various enhancements, and the robbery-murder special-circumstance finding. However, we set aside the financial-gain special circumstance and, for unrelated reasons, we reversed the penalty judgment. (People v. Montiel (1985) 39 Cal.3d 910, 218 Cal.Rptr. 572, 705 P.2d 1248 (Montiel I ).)

A third penalty trial took place in 1986, and defendant again received a death sentence. His automatic motion for modification of the verdict (§ 190.4, subd. (e) (hereafter § 190.4(e)) was denied. This appeal is automatic.

Though errors occurred below, they were individually and cumulatively harmless by any applicable standard. (See Chapman v. California (1967) 386 U.S. 18, 23, 87 S.Ct. 824, 827, 17 L.Ed.2d 705; People v. Brown (1988) 46 Cal.3d 432, 446-449, 250 Cal.Rptr. 604, 758 P.2d 1135; see also Strickland v. Washington (1984) 466 U.S. 668, 694-695, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 2068-2069, 80 L.Ed.2d 674.) We will therefore affirm the death judgment.

FACTS

1. Crimes of January 13, 1979.

a. Robbery of Eva Mankin. The prosecution presented the following undisputed evidence: ² On January 13, 1979, defendant was living at his parents' home in Bakersfield. A neighbor, 74-year-old Eva Mankin, returned to her residence that morning with several bags of groceries. She placed her purse and keys on her front porch and began transferring the grocery bags from her car to the porch. As she did so, defendant approached with two small children and announced his intent to put away her groceries for her. Ms. Mankin declined help, but defendant insisted. She knew "something was wrong," because his eyes were "stary and glary." She unlocked the door and allowed defendant and the two children each to carry a bag into the house. The children emerged but defendant remained inside. Feigning calm, Ms. Mankin thanked him and gently told him he had to leave. She touched his shirt, led him out of the house, then closed and locked the door behind him.

Defendant began banging on the door. Ms. Mankin telephoned the emergency operator and called to defendant that she was summoning the police. [5 Cal.4th 899] Nonetheless, he smashed the glass in the front door, reached in, unlocked the door from the inside, and entered the house. Ms. Mankin continued to protest that she had called the police, but defendant demanded her purse "two or three times," then grabbed it and fled. She later recovered the purse from her front yard, but a checkbook, several bank books, her husband's knife, and some cash were missing. She identified several of these items at trial.

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[855 P.2d 1286] b. Murder of Gregorio Ante. The People introduced evidence that Gregorio Ante, a 78-year-old Bakersfield resident, was killed in his South King Street home around midday on January 13, 1979. The cause of death was a deep slash wound to the throat, which severed Gregorio's carotid arteries and blocked his breathing passage.

Moments before his death, Gregorio had received $200 in cash from his grandson Dennis Hall for the sale of a piano. Gregorio placed this money in the pocket of his T-shirt, over which he was wearing a Pendleton shirt. Gregorio then gave his son, Henry, $20 from that pocket to buy parts for a faucet repair. As Henry left to purchase the parts, he saw two men with a motorcycle in front of the house. ³

Soon thereafter, David Ante, another of Gregorio's grandsons, telephoned Gregorio and received no response. David immediately went to Gregorio's residence and found his grandfather's body. There was $180 in cash in Gregorio's T-shirt pocket, but money was missing from his pants pockets, the living room and master bedroom had been ransacked, and a container of coins was missing from the house.

Further evidence about this incident was presented by defense witness Victor Cordova. Victor, a seller and user of phencyclidene (PCP), testified as follows: Defendant arrived at the Cordova home during the morning of January 13. Also present were Victor's wife Maury, and Maury's mother and sister, Kathy and Lisa Davis. Defendant's hands and arms were scratched and cut, and his shirt was bloody. His appearance, behavior, and incoherent speech indicated he was "loaded" on PCP. Victor cut a piece of dangling flesh from a deep wound on defendant's left arm. Defendant registered no pain. Victor dressed the wound and gave defendant a fresh shirt. Defendant smoked part of a PCP cigarette furnished by Victor and continued his bizarre behavior and speech. He made advances to Kathy Davis, kept trying to wipe a mole from Lisa Davis's face, and challenged Victor to "deck [him] ... out."

[5 Cal.4th 900] Unwilling to cope with defendant in his intoxicated state, Victor decided to transport defendant to the home of defendant's brother. The two men proceeded in that direction on Victor's motorcycle. Near the intersection of Brundage and South King Streets, the motorcycle's chain came off the sprocket. Victor pushed the disabled cycle to a nearby garage and telephoned his wife Maury for rescue. Meantime, defendant, who was carrying a can of beer in a sack, walked off briskly toward a nearby home on South King Street.

Two or three minutes later, defendant returned and announced he had just "killed a guy." Defendant seemed "concerned" about a beer can he had left in the victim's house, and he demanded that Victor retrieve the can for him. When Victor refused, defendant reentered the house himself and soon returned holding the can. Using throat-slitting gestures to demonstrate his point, he then told Victor he had killed a man "like you would do a goat."

Maury soon arrived in the Cordovas' pickup truck. With her were Tommy Stinnett and "Marlene," defendant's girlfriend. As the motorcycle was placed in the truck, defendant boasted to the others about the homicide; his tone was loud and "mean." The boasting resumed after the group arrived back at the Cordova home. Victor and Maury took defendant into the bedroom and asked him what had happened. In response, defendant removed a sack from his pocket. The sack contained coins, some cash, and a bloody knife. Frightened, Victor took the knife and threw it into a nearby canal.

Defendant continued to say and do things that made no sense. He squatted in a corner, staring blankly. When Maury used the phrase "Jesus Christ," he told her sharply not to mention that name around him because he was the devil. Victor drove defendant and Marlene to a motel,

Page 715

[855 P.2d 1287] registered in his own name, and left the couple in a room

Later that evening, Victor encountered defendant, still "loaded," at the home of a mutual acquaintance. Victor asked defendant if he realized what he had done and advised defendant to flee to Mexico. Defendant gave Victor a penetrating look and nodded.

On cross-examination, Victor admitted that several weeks before the 1986 retrial, he had encountered defendant in the Kern County jail. Defendant asked Victor to lie about the amount of PCP he had consumed on the day of the murder.

2. Mental state/intoxication evidence.

Both parties introduced extensive evidence about defendant's mental state and degree of intoxication during the Mankin and Ante crimes. As in 1979, [5 Cal.4th 901] the People presented Dr. Ronald Siegel, a psychopharmacologist with particular expertise in the effects of PCP. In preparation for his 1979 testimony, Dr. Siegel had interviewed defendant and obtained defendant's detailed accounts of his long-term drug history, his alcohol and drug consumption immediately before the crimes, and the crimes themselves. Dr. Siegel had also interviewed Victor and Maury Cordova, Lisa Davis, and Tommy Stinnett; further, he had reviewed certain 1979 trial testimony and examined police reports.

Based on this previously obtained information, Dr. Siegel conceded in 1986 that defendant was "grossly intoxicated" by PCP and alcohol on January 13, 1979, and that defendant's motor functions and judgment were somewhat impaired as a result. Dr. Siegel acknowledged that PCP had unpredictable effects, and that it can reduce impulse control, cause distorted perception, produce episodic partial amnesia, and exaggerate aggressive or violent tendencies. He further recognized that extended use of PCP can lead to a...