People v. Dennis

• Decision Date: 19 February 1998
• Docket Number: No. S007210,S007210
• Parties: , 950 P.2d 1035, 98 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 1174, 98 Daily Journal D.A.R. 1651 The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. William Michael DENNIS, Defendant and Appellant.
• Court: California Supreme Court

Page 680

71 Cal.Rptr.2d 680

17 Cal.4th 468, 950 P.2d 1035, 98 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 1174,

98 Daily Journal D.A.R. 1651

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. William Michael DENNIS, Defendant and Appellant.

No. S007210.

Supreme Court of California.

Feb. 19, 1998.

Rehearing Denied April 15, 1998.

Andrew Parnes, Ketchum, and E. Evans Young, Oakland, under appointments by the Supreme Court, for Defendant and Appellant.

Daniel E. Lungren, Attorney General, George Williamson, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Ronald A. Bass, Assistant Attorney General, Ronald S. Matthias and Martin S. Kaye, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

CHIN, Associate Justice.

A jury found William Michael Dennis guilty of first degree murder for killing his former wife, Doreen Erbert. (Pen.Code, §§ 187, 189.) ¹ When defendant attacked Doreen with a machete-like weapon, she was eight months pregnant. The jury found defendant guilty of second degree murder for killing Doreen's fetus. (§§ 187, 189.) The jury also found as a special circumstance that defendant committed multiple murders. (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(3).)

At the conclusion of the penalty phase, the jury returned a verdict of death. The trial court denied defendant's motion to modify the verdict under section 190.4, subdivision (e), and sentenced him to death for Doreen Erbert's murder. This appeal is automatic. (§ 1239, subd. (b).)

I. FACTS

A. Summary of Facts

On Halloween night, October 31, 1984, defendant went in disguise to the home where his former wife, Doreen Erbert, lived with her husband of five years, Charles Erbert, and their four-year-old daughter, Deanna. While Charles was away from the house, defendant attacked Doreen with a machete or similar weapon after she opened the door to him. Doreen was eight months pregnant. Among the many wounds she suffered were severe cuts to her abdomen, uterus, placenta, and the umbilical cord. The fetus suffered severe chopping wounds and was expelled from Doreen's womb. The fetus was found dead at the scene; Doreen died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. When police questioned defendant later that night, he denied killing Doreen. At trial, however, defendant did not contest his identity as the killer.

Defendant's counsel argued the killings resulted from mental illness and were not premeditated or deliberated. Defendant presented psychiatric testimony that he became delusional after his four-year-old son, Paul, drowned in Doreen's pool four years earlier. The psychiatrist asserted that defendant came to believe Doreen had wanted their son to die. In the psychiatrist's opinion, defendant fixated on blaming Doreen for Paul's death and fantasized about killing Doreen and Charles Erbert. The defense also said defendant's recent reassignment to a less prestigious, lower paying job contributed to his depressed and irrational state.

The prosecution's penalty phase presentation relied almost entirely on the evidence of the crimes presented at the guilt phase. The defense presented friends and associates of defendant to testify to his good character, his childhood difficulties, and his love for his son Paul. Defendant did not testify during either the guilt or penalty phases.

B. The Prosecution Case

Charles Erbert and Doreen met after Doreen's divorce from defendant; Doreen and Charles married in 1979. After the marriage Doreen moved into the house Charles had purchased eight years earlier. At the time, Doreen had a three-year-old son, Paul, by her marriage to defendant. On November 26, 1979, Doreen gave birth to Deanna Erbert. Paul continued to live with Doreen, Charles, and Deanna. Defendant came to the house to pick up Paul for visits. Defendant lived within six blocks of the Erberts, about a six-minute walk.

In 1980, while Doreen was home with Paul, he died in a drowning accident in the family's backyard swimming pool. The following year, defendant sued Doreen and Charles for personal injuries and wrongful death for Paul's drowning. The case proceeded to trial. The jury's verdict was for the Erberts; the court entered judgment against defendant's claims in March 1982. In the courtroom after the trial, Charles asked defendant not to come to their house any more. Charles did not speak to defendant again and only saw him once, in public at a shopping center.

Defendant was bitter about the divorce from Doreen, and his bitterness continued after his son's death. He was upset and dissatisfied by the outcome of his wrongful death suit. He blamed Doreen for Paul's death and believed she had not suffered enough for the drowning. He told a coworker that he believed Doreen killed Paul, that she had not been watching him and did not dive in to rescue him after she found him at the bottom of the pool. It appeared to another of defendant's coworkers at Lockheed that Paul's death severed the last tie by which defendant maintained contact with Doreen.

Around the first of October 1984, defendant lost his position at Lockheed as a sprayer in the manufacture of tiles used on the space shuttles. To avoid being laid off, defendant accepted a job reduction to work in Lockheed's document reproduction unit. The change meant that defendant's pay would be reduced in stages from $13.53 per hour to $10.99 per hour. Although defendant acted congenially toward other workers in the new unit, he was not happy there and commented sarcastically about the unit's work to his former supervisor.

On Halloween night, October 31, 1984, Charles Erbert took Deanna trick-or-treating after he arrived home from work. Doreen remained at home. She was eight months into her term and was visibly pregnant. Doreen's sister saw her the previous weekend at a family breakfast. Two photographs from that affair were introduced to show Doreen's physical appearance the week before she died. Her sister said she had teased Doreen, who was under five feet tall, that "she was as far out as she was high."

Charles returned home with Deanna. He had saved a few houses for Doreen to take Deanna to visit while he handed out candy at home. When Deanna and Doreen returned, Charles left for the liquor store in one of his two trucks. Before leaving, he suggested to Doreen it was getting late and she should close up the house for the evening. Charles estimated he was away from the house for about 15 minutes.

When he returned, he noticed the front door was unlocked. When he opened the door, he saw Doreen lying bleeding on the floor at the entry to the living room. He saw the fetus in the living room and thought at first Doreen had miscarried. Then he saw Doreen's hand lying in the living room along with part of the fetus. He tried to stop Doreen's bleeding by holding her arm tightly, but he saw there were severe cuts on her neck and stomach as well.

While going to the telephone, Charles slipped and fell in the blood, adding to the substantial amount he already had on himself. Unable to get through to 911, Charles called the fire department and a neighbor for help. He noticed Deanna hiding in the living room and took her into the kitchen so that she could not see more. He continued to try to stop Doreen's bleeding as he waited for help. Charles said that Deanna told him she "heard the baby crying." She also told him, and later said to the neighbor, Jennie Chapman, that the man who killed Doreen had threatened to kill her if she told anyone. Charles said too that he first recalled at trial that Deanna said Doreen had called out "Michael."

When the paramedics arrived, Charles tried to assist them with Doreen. After his neighbor came to the house, he took Deanna out to sit with the neighbor in her car. He saw the paramedics putting Doreen in the ambulance. When he tried to go with his wife despite the paramedics' requests, the police arrested him after noticing he was bloody and had alcohol on his breath. They left him handcuffed in the patrol car for the next hour, enraged and kicking at the car's windows.

Deanna testified at trial. She was four years old when her mother was killed and eight years old at the time of trial. She did not remember much about the traumatic attack on her mother. Deanna recalled going to answer the door with her mother, and that, when Doreen opened the door, she said to the man there, " 'Get out of my house.' " Deanna testified the man said, " 'I'm going to kill you.' " Doreen told Deanna to get behind the couch, and she ran and hid there. She could not see what was happening, but she heard both her mother's voice and the man's. She left her hiding place twice, once to peek from the kitchen and once to get her blanket. She came out again after she knew the man had left. She saw all the blood and went back behind the couch, where she waited until her father returned. She could not remember what she saw when she peeked from the kitchen.

Reserve San Jose Police Officer Glen Sutfin responded to a 9:15 p.m. fire department dispatch and arrived on the scene after the paramedics and fire department personnel. He and other police officers on the scene then searched the house because of the possibility the perpetrator was still there. About the same time, paramedics were putting Doreen, who was still alive, into the ambulance for transport to a hospital. Doreen's severed hand lay in a pool of blood near her fetus. The fetus's left leg had been severed; a paramedic determined he could not be resuscitated. Doreen was pronounced dead when the ambulance reached the hospital.

The scene of the killings was extremely bloody. Many people had tracked in and out of the house as the paramedics, firefighters, and police came and went. ² An expert on blood spatter interpretation testified that many of the bloodstains in the entryway and on a stool, jack o'lantern, the front door, and the ceiling, were velocity stains. The blood on the ceiling and upper walls probably flew off the weapon as it was raised after striking Doreen. There were slash marks...