People v. Farmer
| Decision Date | 12 January 1989 |
| Docket Number | No. 22960,No. S004489,22960,S004489 |
| Citation | 765 P.2d 940,254 Cal.Rptr. 508,47 Cal.3d 888 |
| Parties | , 765 P.2d 940 The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Lee Perry FARMER, Jr., Defendant and Appellant. Crim. |
| Court | California Supreme Court |
James F. Johnson, San Francisco, under appointment by the Supreme Court, for defendant and appellant.
John K. Van de Kamp, Atty. Gen., Steve White, Chief Asst. Atty. Gen., John W. Carney and Jay M. Bloom, Deputy Attys. Gen., for plaintiff and respondent.
This is an automatic appeal (Pen.Code, § 1239, subd. (b)) from a judgment of death under the 1978 death penalty law (id., § 190.1 et seq.). As we shall explain, we conclude the judgment must be affirmed as to guilt but reversed as to penalty.
Erich Schmidt-Till returned home from his job at a restaurant in Riverside at approximately 1 a.m. About three hours later, a neighbor went to investigate a moaning sound emanating from the apartment. He found the screen removed from an open window; peering inside, he saw Schmidt-Till lying on the floor and summoned the police.
At roughly the same time, the police received another call from a woman who claimed that her brother had called to tell her he had been shot. After alerting patrolmen, an ambulance, and the fire department, the police dispatcher telephoned Schmidt-Till. The victim was able to inform her that he had been shot three times in the mouth and stomach. He identified his assailant as a White male of approximately 35 years of age and added that he knew him but could not remember his name.
Officer Strigotte and his colleagues were the first to arrive on the scene. They cautiously entered the sparsely illuminated apartment. Strigotte located Schmidt-Till with his flashlight and administered first aid. The victim was lucid enough to respond to some questions. He said that he had been awakened by a noise and had confronted an intruder, who shot him in response to queries about what he was doing there. He described the assailant to Strigotte. The man had previously visited the apartment to engage in drug transactions with his roommate, Lloyd Reed. Schmidt-Till speculated that the man had entered the apartment hoping to steal drugs from Reed. Schmidt-Till tried several times to recall the man's name, asking Officer Strigotte to find a "phone book" containing the name, but the officer could not locate it. The ambulance arrived soon afterwards; at the hospital a few hours later Schmidt-Till succumbed to his injuries.
The "phone book" was apparently a yellow note pad with a list of names and telephone numbers maintained by Reed. Three persons on this list fit the general description of Schmidt-Till's assailant. One of these was defendant.
Reed revealed to investigators that he had been involved in wholesale metham phetamine dealings with defendant. He owed defendant $500 at the time of the shooting. He had not slept in the apartment on the night of the murder. At the request of the police he made an inventory of his possessions; several items were missing, including stereo equipment, credit cards, jewelry, and a revolver. He had shown the revolver, which was kept in a closet, to defendant the previous year. Because it was unlawful for Reed, a former felon, to possess a handgun, he received immunity for this offense and for his drug dealing to induce him to cooperate with authorities.
Several details were filled in later by Victoria Huffman, who went to the police after her husband Charles beat her and slept with defendant's girlfriend. She stated that defendant had come to visit her husband on the night of the murder, that Charles and defendant planned to visit Reed because he owed defendant money, that they entered Reed's apartment and, finding no one there, took a number of items to satisfy the debt. On their return to the Huffman residence, Victoria asserted, she was sent to buy beer and bullets, the latter intended for the stolen revolver. The two men went to a remote area to test the gun; afterwards they reentered Reed's apartment, and it was then that Schmidt-Till was shot.
Defendant was charged with murder (Pen.Code, § 187), and as a special circumstance it was alleged that the killing occurred during the commission of a first degree burglary (id., § 190.2, subd. (a)(17)(vii)). The People further accused defendant of two counts of burglary (id., § 459) and alleged that he had been convicted of three prior felonies.
Defendant and Huffman were tried in separate proceedings. At defendant's trial the People introduced evidence of footprints found outside the window through which the apartment had been entered. Some matched the boots defendant was wearing when arrested, but others were linked to Huffman. Bullets found at the scene were consistent with the victim having been shot three times, and they were similar in type to those bought by Victoria on the night of the killing. Some of Reed's possessions were located by police in a residence to which Huffman had access. The defense presented evidence and argument in an attempt to show that Huffman was the killer and that the prosecution had not proved that defendant participated in the crimes charged.
The jury returned a verdict of guilty of both the murder and the two first degree burglaries. It further found that the special circumstance was true, that defendant personally killed the victim, and that the murder was committed with premeditation and deliberation. At the penalty phase the jury fixed the punishment at death, and the court sentenced defendant accordingly.
The court admitted into evidence the statements that Schmidt-Till made to Officer Strigotte at the scene of the crime and a tape recording of statements Schmidt-Till made by telephone to the police dispatcher. These are, of course, hearsay, and may not be admitted into evidence unless they come under one of the exceptions to the rule. (Evid.Code, § 1200.) The court found the statements admissible both as spontaneous utterances and as dying declarations. Defendant attacks this ruling.
To come within the spontaneous statement exception to the hearsay rule, an utterance must first purport to describe or explain an act or condition perceived by the declarant. (Evid.Code, § 1240, subd. (a).) Secondly, the statement must be made spontaneously, while the declarant is under the stress of excitement caused by the perception. (Id., subd. (b).) Defendant disputes that the utterances were spontaneous. 1
When the dispatcher called Schmidt-Till, the following dialogue, played back at the trial, ensued:
Also admitted into evidence was the subsequent conversation between Officer Strigotte and Schmidt-Till. Strigotte testified that he found the victim bleeding but conscious and talking on the telephone. He questioned Schmidt-Till regarding the incident, but from moment to moment had to halt the questioning because of the victim's obvious pain. Schmidt-Till reiterated that he knew his assailant but could not remember his name. In response to specific questions, he described the man's race, weight, height, and age. Strigotte also asked about the assailant's clothing, hair color, tattoos, scars, and facial hair, but Schmidt-Till could not remember these features. He did say that Reed was his roommate but was not the one who shot him; the gunman, he asserted, was a customer of Reed. In addition, he gave an account of how the shooting occurred. Strigotte conjectured that the questioning lasted approximately five minutes. He elicited the information through a series of questions, each of which was answered separately.
In one sense, a "spontaneous" utterance is one that is voluntary and is initiated by, or at least not elicited from, the speaker. Under this literal interpretation of spontaneity, few of Schmidt-Till's statements would qualify. The dispatcher urged him to answer her questions, refusing to let him wait until help arrived. While his answers to Strigotte were more voluntary, none of the information was given on his own initiative, but likewise was elicited by specific questions.
But "spontaneous" may also be used in a slightly different sense: to describe actions undertaken without deliberation or reflection. This is what is intended by Evidence Code section 1240, which codifies the earlier common law exception to the hearsay rule (People v. Washington (1969) 71 Cal.2d 1170, 1176, 81 Cal.Rptr. 5, 459 P.2d 259). As this court stated in Showalter v. Western Pacific R.R. Co. (1940) 16 Cal.2d 460, 468, 106 P.2d 895, the basis for the circumstantial trustworthiness of spontaneous utterances is that in the stress of nervous excitement, the reflective faculties may be stilled and the utterance may become the instinctive and uninhibited expression of the speaker's actual impressions and belief.
The crucial element...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Jernigan v. Edward
...Cal. 3d 771, 814, 281 Cal. Rptr. 90, 113, 809 P. 2d 865, 888 (1991) (alterations in original) (quoting People v. Farmer, 47 Cal. 3d 888, 913, 254 Cal. Rptr. 508, 765 P. 2d 940 (1989)). The same is true in the federal system. See United States v. Hicks, 103 F.3d 837, 846 (9th Cir. 1996), ove......
-
Rufo v. Simpson
...still dominated and the reflective powers were still in abeyance. (People v. Poggi, supra, 45 Cal.3d at pp. 318-319; People v. Farmer (1989) 47 Cal.3d 888, 904.) The trial court here did not abuse its discretion in concluding Nicole's statements to the officers satisfied the spontaneous sta......
-
People v. Baker
...flawed. The existence of an independent purpose would undermine any such argument as well. (See People v. Farmer (1989) 47 Cal.3d 888, 915, 254 Cal.Rptr. 508, 765 P.2d 940 ; see also People v. Clark (1990) 50 Cal.3d 583, 608–609 & fn. 15, 268 Cal.Rptr. 399, 789 P.2d 127.)10 Defendant does n......
-
People v. Casique, A113636 (Cal. App. 5/29/2009)
...spontaneously, while the declarant is under the stress of excitement caused by the perception. (Id., subd. (b).)' (People v. Farmer (1989) 47 Cal.3d 888, 901 (Farmer), disapproved on other grounds in People v. Waidla [(2000)] 22 Cal.4th [690,] 724, fn. 6.) For purposes of the exception, a s......
-
Discovery
...of fact of that loss, and the circumstances surrounding it. The California Supreme Court took up the issue again in People v. Farmer , 47 Cal.3d 888 (1989), holding that preservation of photographs of footprints meets the requirement to preserve the footprint evidence. The court said that t......
-
Table of cases
...§10:22.1 People v. Fairbank (1997) 16 Cal.4th 1223, §4:16.11 People v. Fares (1993) 16 Cal.App.4th 954, §10:35.4 People v. Farmer (1989) 47 Cal.3d 888, §5:111.2 People v. Farris (1977) 66 Cal.App.3d 376, 386, §9:93.3 People v. Farwell (2018) 5 Cal.5th 295, §3:81 People v. Fauber (1992) 2 Ca......
-
Closing argument
...an objection to the comment because counsel could not assume facts in argument that were not in the evidence. People v. Farmer (1989) 47 Cal. 3d 888, 922, 254 Cal. Rptr. 508, overruled on unrelated issue in People v. Waidlaw (2000) 22 Cal. 4th 690, 724, 94 Cal. Rptr. 346. Counsel’s use in f......
-
Table of cases
...4th 1053, 96 Cal. Rptr. 3d 191,§7:150 Farley, People v. (1979) 90 Cal. App. 3d 851, 153 Cal. Rptr. 695, §6:90 Farmer, People v. (1989) 47 Cal. 3d 888, 254 Cal. Rptr. 508, §21:70 Farnam, People v. (2002) 28 Cal. 4th 107, 121 Cal. Rptr. 2d 106, §§2:190, 3:50, 5:80, 5:90, 5:100, 7:200, 12:80, ......