People v. Castille

• Court: California Court of Appeals
• Writing for the Court: Corrigan
• Citation: People v. Castille, 133 Cal.Rptr.2d 489, 108 Cal.App.4th 469 (Cal. App. 2003)
• Decision Date: 30 April 2003
• Docket Number: No. A089623.,A089623.
• Parties: The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Clemeth Ray CASTILLE et al., Defendants and Appellants.

133 Cal.Rptr.2d 489

108 Cal.App.4th 469

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Clemeth Ray CASTILLE et al., Defendants and Appellants.

No. A089623.

Court of Appeal, First District, Division 3.

April 30, 2003.

Certified for Partial Publication.^*

Rehearing Denied May 30, 2003.

Review Denied July 30, 2003.^**

Robert Joseph Beles; Paul McCarthy, Oakland; Stephen Michael Greenberg; First District Appellate Project for Appellants and Defendants.

Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, Christina Vom Saal, and Catherine A. Rivlin, Deputy Attorneys General, for Respondents and Plaintiffs.

CORRIGAN, Acting P.J.

In this case three defendants were tried together for murder with special circumstances and attendant enhancements. After their arrests, all three defendants were questioned in a joint interview. In the published portion of this opinion we hold that the statements made by each defendant were properly admitted against him and the other two co-defendants pursuant to firmly rooted hearsay exceptions.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Remon Shields, and Clemeth Castille, both 17 years old, and Robert Brown, age 18, decided to rob Sharif's Market in Oakland.¹ Shields collected two sawed-off shotguns from the basement of his grandmother's house: a single-shot .16-gauge Winchester and a pump-action .12-gauge Mossberg. He wrapped the guns in a dark shirt and brought them to Brown's car. Brown drove all three to the market.

At Shields' direction, Brown made a U-turn in front of the market and parked about 15 feet from the front door. Shields and Castille got out of the car. They wore ski masks and pulled hoods over their heads. As both men entered the store, Shields handed Castille the .16-gauge shotgun that fired pellets. Shields carried the .12-gauge Mossberg that fired a slug. Brown remained in the car. Inside the market, Abdo Nashar stood behind the counter near the cash register. Nabil Abdullah was checking a display at the front counter and owner Ibrahim Sharif El-Din was in an upstairs apartment.

Appellants had agreed that Shields would approach the clerk and Castille would act as "back-up." However, Castille entered the store first and approached Nashar at the register. Shields followed and stood guard at the door, about six to eight feet from the counter. Abdullah heard Castille say something to Nashar, after which Nashar grabbed the gun and struggled with Castille. Frightened, Abdullah began to back away, telling Nashar to give Castille the money. Abdullah saw Shields pointing his shotgun into the interior of the store. As he hid behind a refrigerator, Abdullah heard two shots, six or seven seconds apart. He looked out to see Nashar lying behind the cash register, bleeding. Nashar died from a gunshot wound to the left side of his head and neck.

In the apartment above the store, Sharif El-Din loaded his handgun after hearing the second shot. He looked out the window and saw a brown car parked near the store with the passenger-side door open. He heard someone inside the car ask, "Did you kill him?" and heard another person yell, "Go! Go! Go!" Leaning from his window, El-Din fired four to five shots as the car drove away.

The shotguns were kept at Castille's house for several weeks until Brown and Castille gave them to a friend to sell. The friend alerted police and the guns were recovered. A firearms expert opined that wadding found on the floor of the market and an expended shell casing found in the front of the store came from the .12-gauge Mossberg that Shields had carried into the business. Once the Mossberg was loaded, the weapon had to be pumped to chamber a cartridge. The pump had to be employed again after firing to eject the shell. Approximately five pounds of pressure were required to pull the trigger on the Mossberg. A large-caliber expended slug was recovered from the wall five feet behind the cash register. It appeared to have passed through a plexiglass display. The holes in the plexiglass and wall were closely aligned. The hole in the wall was located four feet 10 inches from the floor. The victim was five feet three inches tall. The path of the wound was towards the right side of his body, going downward at a 30-degree angle. The autopsy surgeon testified that the victim's wound was consistent with having been caused by a slug rather than shotgun pellets. Shotgun pellets were found next to and inside the cash register.

About a month after the shooting, police saw defendant Brown's car and noted possible gunshot holes in the rear fender. Shields, Castille and Brown were arrested a week later and each was interviewed separately. Each waived his Fifth Amendment rights after a proper Miranda² admonition. When the individual statements were completed, all three were brought together and a joint interview was conducted. The tape recording of the joint interview was played for the jury. Defendants did not testify and their individual statements were not offered.

During the joint interview, Shields claimed that after he and Castille entered the store, he urged Castille to leave but that Nashar grabbed Castille's gun. Nashar and Castille struggled and the gun went off. Castille stated that he ducked out of the way as Shields pointed his gun at Nashar and fired. Although acknowledging that Castille's account of the shooting was "probably" true, Shields nevertheless maintained that his shotgun discharged accidentally, when he bumped his arm against the door as he fled. Castille ran out of the store and jumped into Brown's car. Shields followed after retrieving Castille's gun from the floor of the market. When Shields got into Brown's car, he yelled at Castille, "Damn Clemeth, why'd you do that, why'd you do that?"

The jury convicted Shields and Castille of first degree murder with the special circumstance that the murder occurred during the attempted commission of a robbery. The jury also found that Shields and Castille each used a firearm during the crime. Brown was convicted of the lesser offense of being an accessory, armed with a firearm. Shields and Castille were sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole, plus 10 years for the firearm enhancements. Brown, who was sentenced to four years in prison, does not appeal. We use the collective term "defendants" to refer to Shields, Castille and Brown. The term "appellants" refers to Shields and Castille.

DISCUSSION

I. Admissibility of Joint Interview Statement

Before trial, the prosecutor indicated he would offer the joint statement as evidence. Defendants objected and, in the alternative, sought separate trials. As we explain below, the court properly admitted the hearsay statements against each appellant in a joint trial.

A. The Joint Interview Background

The interview was conducted under the direction of Lieutenant Ralph Lacer. Lacer was aware of the general rule that the statement of one defendant is inadmissible against another when they are tried together before the same jury. (Bruton v. United States (1968) 391 U.S. 123, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed.2d 476; People v. Aranda (1965) 63 Cal.2d 518, 47 Cal. Rptr. 353, 407 P.2d 265.) He had become aware of a joint interview technique and decided to employ it during this investigation. Lacer met together with four homicide investigators and all three suspects, less than two hours after completion of their individual interviews. Lacer confirmed that each defendant had been given a Miranda admonition, agreed to speak to an investigator and was currently aware of his Fifth Amendment protections. The defendants were then questioned together.

During the interview, Lacer or one of the other officers asked the defendants to recount some aspect of the crime. Once a statement or series of statements was made by one of them, the officer would turn to the other defendants and ask each of them in turn whether what the original speaker had said was true. In the vast majority of instances, each of the others confirmed that the original statements were accurate. Occasionally, one of the defendants would reply that he did not remember a particular detail. In one instance, as we explain below, Shields gave an equivocal reply when asked if something Castille said was accurate. On separate occasions, Shields and Castille each corrected or augmented a statement by Lacer, when Lacer was relating his understanding of what had taken place.

Several methods were used to include all three defendants in the discussion. The officers frequently began their questions on a particular topic by addressing one defendant and then continuing the account with another. As one defendant gave information, the officers asked the others to confirm certain statements. For example, Brown, who was driving, said he thought Shields told him to make a U-turn in front of the store. Shields was then asked if Brown turned around when Shields told him to do so and Shields said, "Yeah." Then Castille was asked, "Is that what you remember. That you made a[U]-turn in front of the store after uh Remon³ said, turn around?" Castille replied, "Yes." The officer went on to ask Castille where he was sitting and what he did after the car was parked. Castille explained that he got out of the front seat of the car and covered his head. Shields was then asked if he also covered his head and he confirmed that he did so. Brown was asked whether both Castille and Shields put their hoods up, and he replied affirmatively. Shields had earlier explained that he gave one of the guns to Castille. The officer asked Shields, "[W]as this the time in which you gave uh Clemeth his gun?" Shields answered, "Yes." The officer then asked, "Clemeth, you took the gun from Remon at that point? Castille answered yes, and the officer turned to Brown and asked, "Okay now Robert, what did you do? Did you stay in the car?" After Brown replied affirmatively, Lacer asked about the guns that were used, asking Shields to describe the gun he gave to Castille. When Shields...