People v. Atchley
| Decision Date | 01 December 1959 |
| Docket Number | Cr. 6450 |
| Citation | 346 P.2d 764,53 Cal.2d 160 |
| Court | California Supreme Court |
| Parties | PEOPLE of the State of California, Respondent, v. Veron ATCHLEY, Appellant. |
J. R. King, Jr., Oroville, for appellant.
Stanley Mosk, Atty. Gen., and Doris H. Maier, Deputy Atty. Gen., for respondent.
A jury found defendant guilty of murder in the first degree and fixed the penalty at death. The trial court denied his motion for a new trial and sentenced him to death. This appeal is automatic. Pen.Code, § 1239, subd. (b).
Defendant was born in 1917 and was reared in a mountainous community in eastern Tennessee. He attended school only through the third grade and cannot read or write anything except his name. Some time between 1943 and 1946 he moved to California and worked in various localities as an agricultural laborer and a welder. He first met the deceased, Marcella Katherine (Farris) Atchley, when he was working near Fresno in 1953. He saw her a number of times before he left the Fresno area, and she bore a child that he claims is his. Defendant eventually entered the used car business in Palermo, California. He bought several lots, built houses on them, and lived in one of the houses with Jewel Spoon, a woman who served as his secretary and bookkeeper. He met the deceased again in 1956 when she came to buy a used car. She returned frequently and after a series of fights with Jewel Sppon moved into defendant's home with five of her children. Jewel retired to a trailer behind the house and later left town. Defendant and the deceased quarreled frequently, but late in 1957 they took a trip and were married in Georgia. They did not publicize their marriage, hoping to avoid a reduction in the aid that she and her children were receiving from the county welfare department.
During the last few days of July 1958 Mrs. Atchley and her children moved out of defendant's home to a house in Gridley, California. Although defendant assisted in making the move, a quarrel ensued and Mrs. Atchley complained to the police. Defendant then informed welfare personnel of her marriage to him. She in turn informed the authorities that defendant had been selling used cars without a license.
On the night of August 2, 1958, Mrs. Atchley went to a dance at Robinson's Corners with her oldest daughter and a young married couple. About 12:15 A.M. she drove her daughter home and then drove the young couple to their home in Oroville.
Defendant spent that evening drinking beer with several friends, but there is no evidence that he became drunk. Some time after midnight he drove to his wife's house in Gridley and discovered that she was not there. He drove back to Palermo, looking for her at Robinson's Corners and at several taverns along the way. He then returned to Gridley and drove by her house again. Noticing that her car was still absent, he parked his car about a block away and took from the glove compartment a 22-caliber pistol loaded with six or seven bullets. He placed the pistol inside the belt of his trousers and approached the house on foot through a back alley. He then waited in the alley and in the back yard, where he could see the headlights of his wife's car when she drove in.
About 2:25 A.M. Mrs. Atchley drove up to the carport attached to one side of her house. While she was parking, defendant moved along the opposite side of the house and stood by the front corner. Mrs. Atchley walked around to the front gate and up the walk. As she neared the door, defendant stepped out towards her. In the ensuing few minutes she was shot once in the head, once in the left breast, three times under the right arm, and, according to the prosecution's experts, once in the back. Her body was later found about three feet from the front walk on the side opposite the point where defendant had stepped out. She was lying face down with her feet towards the walk and her head towards the carport.
Following the shooting defendant drove back to Palermo. He buried the gun in his back yard and hid the holster in an ash can. He then went to bed, where the police found him about 4:00 A.M.
At the trial defendant conceded most of the foregoing facts but maintained that he had been told that his wife was going out with another man, that he had taken the gun only to scare them, and that he had no intention of killing or injuring his wife. He stated that when he saw her returning alone, he stepped out to greet her; that his shirttails were tucked in so that the gun inside his belt was clearly visible; that she seized the gun and he struggled to recover it; that the gun went off several times during the struggle; and that after he recovered it, he fired it several more times. The defense introduced much testimony that Mrs. Atchley had said she wished to kill defendant, that she had threatened him with a gun on several occasions, and that she was a violent and combative person.
Two neighbors testified for the prosecution that they were awakened by the voice of a woman crying hysterically, 'Oh, don't, don't,' followed by a series of shots. Looking out their bedroom window they saw defendant in a stooping position, shooting towards the ground. Because an intervening fence obscured the body, they assumed that he was shooting at the tires on Mrs. Atchley's car. They and another neighbor, who saw defendant arrive and walk into the back alley, testified that his shirttails were out. Defendant admitted at the trial that the gun inside his belt would not have been visible had his shirttails been out. To rebut defendant's story of a struggle for the gun, the prosecution introduced evidence that all of the shots were fired from such a distance that the deceased could not have been holding the gun at the time, that Mrs. Atchley was found with her keys still clutched in her right hand, and that five empty cartridge casings were found so close to each other as to indicate that the shots had been fired with the gun in approximately the same position. Other evidence indicated that defendant had threatened his wife, that she was afraid of him, and that most of the threats and all of the acts of violence attributed to her occurred during the period of her conflict with Jewel Spoon.
Defendant contends that the trial court committed prejudicial error in admitting certain evidence. He argues first that certain photographs introduced by the prosecution were gruesome in character, were unnecessary to the prosecution's case, and were offered several days before they were to be used by the expert witnesses, for the sole purpose of inflaming and prejudicing the jury.
When allegedly gruesome photographs are presented, the trial court in the exercise of its judicial discretion must decide whether their probative value outweighs their possible prejudicial effect. People v. Brubaker, 53 Cal.2d 37, 346 P.2d 8; People v. Carter, 48 Cal.2d 737, 751, 312 P.2d 665; People v. Cheary, 48 Cal.2d 301, 312, 309 P.2d 431. In the present case some of the challenged photographs show the deceased as she was found in her front yard, with bullet holes and bloodstains on her dress and blood on her face. They were used to illustrate testimony about her wounds and to show the relative positions in which the body and various items of evidence were discovered. Other photographs show the deceased lying on a table at the mortuary, naked above the waist, with blood smeared on her face. These pictures were used to show the location and nature of her wounds and to explain the basis for expert opinions as to the position of the gun when the shots were fired. Although many of these photographs are decidedly unpleasant to view, they are not comparable to those held inadmissible in People v. Redston, 139 Cal.App.2d 485, 490-491, 293 P.2d 880, or People v. Burns, 109 Cal.App.2d 524, 541-542, 241 P.2d 308, 242 P.2d 9, where the deceased was shown with a shaved head and disfigured by an autopsy. In view of their probative value, the trial court did not abuse its discretion by admitting them. It was also within the discretion of the trial court to permit all the pictures taken by the same photographer to be identified at the same time, even though many of them were not to be used until later in the trial.
Defendant also contends that the trial court erred in permitting the introduction of a tape recording of a conversation between defendant and his insurance broker, Ray J. Travers. The conversation took place in the interrogation room of the county jail two days after defendant had been arrested and before he had obtained a lawyer. Defendant was unaware that his words were being recorded and did not know that Travers had formerly been a police officer or that he had agreed to question defendant so that the recording could be made. In response to Travers' questions defendant admitted arming himself, concealing himself, watching and waiting for his wife, surprising her, and firing several shots while the gun was in his hand. He maintained, however, that the shooting occurred during a struggle for the gun and that he had no intention of killing the deceased. Defendant contends that these recorded statements constitute a confession and that they were made involuntarily because Travers held out as an inducement the payment to Mrs. Atchley's children of the proceeds of an insurance policy on her life. The People contend that defendant's recorded statements do not constitute a confession and were therefore admissible even if involuntary.
There has been considerable confusion as to the admissibility in a criminal proceeding of statements allegedly made by the defendant involuntarily. See People v. Linden, 52 Cal.2d 1, footnote 8, 338 P.2d 397. Many opinions distinguish 'confessions' and 'admissions,' and state that the latter are admissible without regard to their involuntary character. E. g., People v. Adams, 198 Cal. 454, 465, 245 P. 821; People v. Fowler,...
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