People v. Bassett

• Decision Date: 08 August 1968
• Docket Number: Cr. 11130
• Citation: 70 Cal.Rptr. 193,69 Cal.2d 122,443 P.2d 777
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 443 P.2d 777 The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Fred Kipp BASSETT, Defendant and Appellant.

Page 193

70 Cal.Rptr. 193

69 Cal.2d 122, 443 P.2d 777

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Fred Kipp BASSETT, Defendant and Appellant.

Cr. 11130.

Supreme Court of California In Bank.

Aug. 8, 1968.

Rehearing Denied Sept. 5, 1968.

Richard A. Ibanez, Los Angeles, under appointment by the Supreme Court, for defendant and appellant.

Thomas C. Lynch, Atty. Gen., William E. James, Asst. Atty. Gen., Richard D. Huffman and James H. Kline, Deputy Attys. Gen., for plaintiff and respondent.

MOSK, Justice.

Defendant was charged by information with two counts of murder, and pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity to both. The jury returned verdicts of first degree murder on each count, found defendant sane at the time of the commission of the crimes, and fixed the penalty at death. The court denied motions for new trial and for reduction of the penalty. The appeal is automatic. (Pen.Code, § 1239, subd. (b).)

We have before us the tragedy of a youth suffering since childhood from deepseated paranoid schizophreniz, who at the age of 18 methodically executed his mother and father. The evidence is overwhelming that while he planned the parricide with precision and knew that it was wrong, his diminished mental capacity was such that he could not maturely and meaningfully reflect upon the gravity of his contemplated acts. The deputy district attorney acknowledged in argument to the jury that 'everyone, including myself, everyone agrees that this boy was and had been a paranoid type of schizophrenic'; indeed, defendant's abnormal mental condition was well known long in advance of trial. ¹

In these circumstances we must once again shoulder the burden of dissecting a lengthy record and weighing the 'substantiality' of the prosecution's evidence of mental capacity. (See, e.g., People v. Goedecke (1967) 65 Cal.2d 850, 56 Cal.Rptr. 625, 423 P.2d 777; People v. Nicolaus (1967) 65 Cal.2d 866, 56 Cal.Rptr. 635, 423 P.2d 787.) This is a responsibility we are empowered by statute to perform (Pen.Code, §§ 1181, subd. 6, and 1260), and we will not hesitate to act, as here, to prevent, a grave miscarriage of justice.

The prosecution's case in chief. To an accusation charging a defendant with the crime of murder (Pen.Code, § 187), there is as yet no statutory plea of 'not guilty of first degree murder by reason of diminished mental capacity.' Accordingly, the prosecution here was compelled to go through the ritual of establishing a prima facie case of murder that no one in fact disputed. ² By means of the customary parade of witnesses--not one of whom did defendant challenge on cross-examination--and introduction of exhibits--to none of which did defendant object--the following events were shown to have taken place:

Officer Meyer arrived at defendant's house at 4:30 p.m. on December 19, 1963, in response to a call for assistance. Defendant told him that his mother and father had been arguing and had gone into their bedroom and bolted the door; that he thereafter heard two shots in succession, but was unable to enter the bedroom to see what had happened; and that he summoned the neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Glass, who in turn called the police. The officer forced the bedroom door and found two bodies on the floor. Defendant's mother was lying on her back with a .22-calibre single-shot Derringer pistol in her right hand. She had been shot in the head at close range; although still alive, she died without regaining consciousness. Defendant's father was lying nearby, dead from a gunshot wound of the chest that had also been fired at close range. A lamp in the parents' room had been turned on its side.

Homicide detectives thereafter found in defendant's bedroom a matchbox containing a small piece of paper with a note on it in defendant's handwriting. At the top was written '12, 1963'; below, the following appeared:

'1. As planned S--2.

'2. Then remove shell and put F/prints on.

'3. Then put G in M's hand.

'4. Muss room, lamps.'

On the reverse side was written 'Et cetera,' then the following:

'5. Put F nearby.

'6. Lock door.

'7. Get Glasses.'

In a corner of the paper was the word 'Plans'; and on one side, the word 'Remember,' below was written, 'Wear plastic hood, leather gloves for shot, whites for prints.'

Also found in defendant's bedroom were a pair of black leather gloves and a pair of white cotton gloves, both lying in open view; the latter were damp, and crumpled within them was a piece of string several feet long. There was a box containing 47 live .22-calibre shells in defendant's dresser drawer, and a plastic bag with blood on it in a wastebasket in the adjacent hallway. Sales slips found in defendant's wallet showed that he had purchased the Derringer on December 12, 1963, from a local sporting goods store.

Defendant's former brother-in-law testified that several years earlier he and defendant had learned from watching television how to bolt the bedroom door from the outside by means of a piece of string passed around the edge of the door and then withdrawn.

Harold Glass, defendant's neighbor, testified that in a conversation at the jail shortly after the shootings defendant told him that he had murdered his mother and father but did not regret it, and that he planned to kill his sister some day too.

George Dutra, a psychiatric technician at Atascadero, testified that defendant was assigned to his ward for one year beginning in April 1964, and often discussed the case with him. Defendant told Dutra he had been planning to kill his parents since he was about eight years old. On the day of the shootings he took his gun, went to his mother's bedroom, and asked her to turn around and close her eyes because he had a surprise for her. He then put the gun to her temple and pulled the trigger. Upon hearing the shot his father came in and told him to get a wet towel. Defendant went to his own room, reloaded the gun, and returned to his parents' room. His father was bending over his mother's body, and defendant placed the gun against his father's chest and fired the second shot.

Referring to his mother, defendant told Dutra that 'the old biddy took quite a while to die,' and he tried to suffocate her with a plastic bag. He said he intended to make it look like a murder-suicide, had devised a way to bolt the door from the outside with a piece of string, and had written out a set of plans to this effect. When asked how he felt about killing his parents, defendants said that he 'enjoyed' doing so; that they 'deserved' to die because 'All crumbs deserve to die'; and that they 'drank a lot and argued a lot and were cold towards him. Showed him very little love and affection.' Defendant stated that killing them was one of the most 'glorious' or 'heightened' or 'wonderful' experiences of his life. He said he was 'quite amused' by their struggle to live, and made no offer to help them as they lay dying on the floor. Finally, he told Dutra he would also like to kill two other psychiatric technicians on his ward.

With cross-examination of this witness, however, the other side of the case began to emerge. Dutra acknowledged that defendant was admitted to Atascadero with the diagnosis of schizophrenic; he was considered a very dangerous patient, and was kept under sedation by use of ataraxic drugs 'almost the entire time he was there' because of his 'suicidal tendencies, homicidal tendencies, anxiety, hallucinations.' Explaining the latter phenomenon , Dutra testified that defendant told him he heard the voice of 'Christopher Chamberlain,' who told him to do 'bad things,' including kill his parents. Another voice he heard was that of 'Juanita Gomez,' assertedly a prostitute. Dutra observed defendant pacing the floor and moving his lips as though talking to someone, and at other times saw him mumbling alone in his room.

The defense. When the prosecution rested its case in chief, the defense came forward with a mass of evidence to establish that by reason of his illness defendant lacked the mental capacity to entertain the state of mind necessary to be found guilty of murder in the first degree.

Dr. Dayrel D. Smith, one of the court-appointed psychiatrists in this case, examined defendant for several hours approximately one month after the killings. He determined that defendant 'was seriously and severely mentally ill and that the major portion of the difficulty consisted in disorder of thought, 'manifesting itself in 'fluctuating reality contact.' Defendant, who was experiencing auditory hallucinations at the very time of the interview, informed the doctor that 'I was interrupting his existence and destroying the train of thought of the voices that he was hearing. * * *' Dr. Smith subsequently stated that 'He couldn't refuse to listen to his hallucinated voices, but he could refuse to listen to me, you know. He couldn't deny the imperative nature of what was going on in his own head, but I was an outsider.'

From other observations the doctor determined that defendant was also in the grip of a delusional system. The delusions centered around his belief that he was 'superior' and 'psychic,' and 'was capable of receiving the thoughts of other people.' Defendant further believed, however, that 'everybody has the potential to harm him,' and that he had 'received' a thought from his parents to the effect that 'he was nuts, and this troubled him.' ³

Dr. Smith further testified that defendant's flattened 'affect,' i.e., his lack of remorse or any other appropriate emotion, was typical of the schizophrenic personality, as was his 'break with reality' in the form of hallucinations and delusions. Such phenomena, on the other hand, are very real to the patient. ⁴

In Dr. Smith's opinion, defendant had been mentally ill for years. As evidence of this, he explained that hallucinations and delusions such as defendant exhibited 'only arise in an illness out of an earlier maladaptation. There are compensatory thin...