People v. Arnold

• Decision Date: 24 April 1967
• Docket Number: Cr. 9736
• Citation: 66 Cal.2d 438,426 P.2d 515,58 Cal.Rptr. 115
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 426 P.2d 515 The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Florence Ada ARNOLD, Defendant and Appellant. In Bank

Page 115

58 Cal.Rptr. 115

66 Cal.2d 438, 426 P.2d 515

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Florence Ada ARNOLD, Defendant and Appellant.

Cr. 9736.

Supreme Court of California,

In Bank.

April 24, 1967.

Rehearing Denied May 24, 1967.

Peter G. Fetros, Sacramento, under appointment by the Supreme Court, for defendant and appellant.

Thomas C. Lynch, Atty. Gen., Doris H. Maier, Asst. Atty. Gen., Raymond M. Mom

boisse, Edward A. Hinz, Jr., and Daniel J. Kremer, Deputy Attys. Gen., for plaintiff and respondent.

TOBRINER, Justice.

Following the death of her 13-year-old daughter, Sandra Kay Arnold, the grand jury returned an indictment charging defendant with the crime of manslaughter. A jury found defendant guilty as charged; the court granted probation on the conditions that defendant be confined in jail for a period of one year and that, in the event that any minor child in her care became ill, she could report to the probation officer and call a doctor.

For the reasons stated below we hold that the trial court committed reversible error in admitting into evidence defendant's extrajudicial statement; the prosecution failed to show that the statement was not obtained in violation of defendant's constitutional rights. For guidance of the court on retrial we take this occasion to reject defendant's further arguments that the trial court should have excluded as unduly prejudicial a photograph of Sandra taken after her death and that the trial court erred in giving instructions to the jury based on Penal Code sections 270 and 272.

According to the testimony of Dr. Wallace, who performed an autopsy on Sandra, a wad of human hair two and one-half inches long, jammed into the small intestine, produced her death. The hair ball totally blocked the intestine, causing obstruction of the bowels and aspiration of fecal material into the lungs. Dr. Wallace testified that a larger hair ball had formed in Sandra's stomach over a period of several months; part of it had probably broken off and moved into the small intestine. Such an obstruction would cause fever, pain, weakness, vomiting and such other indicia of serious illness. The doctor further testified that an operation performed up to 12 hours before Sandra's death would probably have saved her life.

The most damaging part of the prosecution's case against Mrs. Arnold consisted of a transcription of an interrogation of defendant by a deputy district attorney in the course of which defendant described Sandra's terminal illness. According to the statement, Sandra became ill on May 2, 1964; she complained of stomach pains and vomited several times. Over the following days defendant kept Sandra at home in a specially obtained hospital bed, gave her enemas, and applied compresses. Sandra's condition began to deteriorate, and defendant called members of the Church of the First Born, ¹ who came to the Arnold home on May 15 and prayed for Sandra.

Defendant realized at this time that Sandra was gravely ill, since the girl could not walk unassisted, could not retain liquids fed her, could not normally excrete bodily waste, and was losing weight. Defendant, although aware that Sandra might die, did not obtain a doctor for her because of defendant's religious convictions against using medical assistance. On May 19 Sandra had a 25-minute convulsion; on May 20 defendant and other members of the church took Sandra to the river, where she was immersed and baptized. Three hours later Sandra died.

The trial court instructed the jury that it could find defendant guilty of manslaughter if it found that defendant had violated Penal Code section 270 ² or section 272, ³ which describe misdemeanor offenses, that such violation had caused death, and that defendant had acted in a manner dangerous to life and knew, or should have known, of this danger.

Defendant attacks the admissibility of her extrajudicial statement to the deputy district attorney; she claims that the deputy district attorney did not first advise her of her rights to counsel and to remain silent pursuant to Escobedo v. State of Illinois (1964) 378 U.S. 478, 84 S.Ct. 1758, 12 L.Ed.2d 977, and People v. Dorado (1965) 62 Cal.2d 338, 42 Cal.Rptr. 169, 398 P.2d 361. Examining the record in the instant case we explain why we cannot assume that the statement was elicited prior to the advent of the accusatory stage described in Escobedo and Dorado. Since the defendant was not then informed of her rights to counsel and to remain silent we find that the admission into evidence of the statement constituted error. ⁴

Defendant rendered the questioned statement during an interrogation at the office of the deputy district attorney. The deputy had notified her to come to his office to discuss the circumstances of Sandra's death. She did so; she testified at trial, 'I didn't know I didn't have to come down and talk to you, or I wouldn't have * * *.' ⁵ The deputy queried her for one hour and forty-five minutes. No one else was present on the occasion except an attache of the district attorney's office who transcribed the interrogation; he took no part in the questioning. At this point defendant had not been placed under arrest.

The attache who transcribed the statement testified that the deputy district attorney did not advise defendant of her right to counsel, but that defendant had not requested an attorney before or during the interrogation. The trial court, however, after hearing this testimony, permitted, over objection, the introduction of the statement; the trial court held the request a condition to the accrual of the constitutional right. The ruling thus conflicted with our decision, rendered subsequent to the trial, in People v. Dorado, supra, 62 Cal.2d 338, 42 Cal.Rptr. 169, 398 P.2d 361. Escobedo v. State of Illinois, supra, 378 U.S. 478, 84 S.Ct. 1758, 12 L.Ed.2d 977, and People v. Dorado, supra, 62 Cal.2d 338, 42 Cal.Rptr. 169, 398 P.2d 361, require that a suspect be advised of his right to counsel and his right to remain silent once the accusatory or critical stage has been reached. In People v. Dorado, supra, 62 Cal.2d 338, at page 353, 42 Cal.Rptr. 169, at page 179, 398 P.2d 361, at page 371, we listed the factors which coalesced to signal the advent of the accusatory stage: '(1) (T)he investigation was no longer a general inquiry into an unsolved crime but had begun to focus on a particular suspect(;) (2) the suspect was in custody(;) ⁶ (3) the authorities had carried out a process of interrogations that lent itself to eliciting incriminating statements * * *.'

We shall point out, first, that the record in the instant case demonstrates that the investigation had 'begun to focus' on defendant; second, that in determining whether defendant was 'in custody' the court must decide whether she was physically deprived of her freedom of action in any significant way or was led to believe, as a reasonable person, that she was so deprived, but that the record is incomplete on this issue and the case must be remanded for retrial in order to develop the pertinent facts; third, that the deputy carried out a process of interrogations that lent itself to eliciting incriminating statements; fourth, that the introduction of the statements into evidence caused prejudice to defendant.

Turning to the first point, we find that in the instant case 'the investigation was no longer a general inquiry into an unsolved crime but had begun to focus on a particular suspect.' The record indicates that, prior to the formal interrogation of defendant, the deputy district attorney had determined that Sandra's death resulted from a felony and that defendant perpetrated the crime.

The questions asked during the session strongly suggest that Before the interrogation occurred the deputy had reason to believe that Sandra had been extremely ill for several weeks before her death, that defendant had not obtained medical assistance for Sandra during the terminal illness, that defendant's religious beliefs would not permit the summoning of a doctor for Sandra, that members of defendant's church had immersed Sandra in the river several hours before she died, that Sandra was in the custody of her mother, and that Sandra's father lived in Louisiana. The deputy also had in his possession the autopsy report. Moreover, defendant and other members of the Church of the First Born had previously talked with various law enforcement officials about the death. We therefore conclude that at the time of the interrogation the deputy had strong reason to believe that defendant was guilty of manslaughter.

The second issue, whether defendant was in custody at the time she made the statement, presents the crucial problem of the case. Although we have consistently and expressly held that custody constitutes an essential element of the accusatory stage, we have recognized that custody could occur in a situation in which defendant had not been arrested but his freedom of movement curtailed. In the instant case we are called upon to define more precisely the elements in the curtailment of that freedom of movement.

We stated in Ballard: 'At no time have we discarded custody as an essential element of the accusatory stage. The dangers that Escobedo and Dorado sought to deter, such as coercion, can only take place if a suspect is in custody.' (Ballard v. Superior Court (1966) 64 Cal.2d 159, 169, 49 Cal.Rptr. 302, 308, 410 P.2d 838, 844.) There, the prosecutrix, who charged the defendant physician with rape, had obtained incriminating statements from the defendant at his office with an electronic microphone concealed on her person. We ruled that the physician was not in custody. Likewise, we held in People v. Williams (1965) 63 Cal.2d 452, 460 fn. 7, 47 Cal.Rptr. 7, 12, 406 P.2d 647, 652, that defendants, who 'phoned the police and told them they were going to turn themselves in', were not then in custody.

But Ballard explains that, as we held in People v....