People v. Fuller
| Decision Date | 25 February 1992 |
| Docket Number | No. A048888,A048888 |
| Citation | 5 Cal.Rptr.2d 112,15 Cal.App.4th 945 |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
| Parties | Previously published at 15 Cal.App.4th 945, 3 Cal.App.4th 1220, 9 Cal.App.4th 956 15 Cal.App.4th 945, 3 Cal.App.4th 1220, 9 Cal.App.4th 956 The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Nadine FULLER, Defendant and Appellant. |
Charles Bush, San Francisco, for defendant and appellant, under appointment by the Court of Appeal.
Daniel E. Lungren, Atty. Gen., George Williamson and John H. Sugiyama, Asst. Attys. Gen., Ronald E. Niver and Catherine A. Rivlin, Deputy Attys. Gen., San Francisco, for plaintiff and respondent.
Nadine Fuller appeals after a jury conviction of voluntary manslaughter for the death of her young son. Appellant contends that the trial court allowed the jury to hear a taped confession obtained in violation of Miranda v. Arizona (1966) 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694. During a custodial interrogation shortly after her son's death, appellant stated several times that she did not want to talk about her son, though she earlier admitted to others that she killed him. Respondent contends that appellant did not invoke her right to remain silent, but instead expressed only reluctance to face the details of her son's death.
At times, appellant gave conflicting signals on her willingness to talk. However, appellant spoke one phrase her interrogator could not properly disregard: "No, I don't want to talk about my baby." When the examining officer overcame appellant's reluctance to speak by telling appellant, "Nadine, we have to talk about your baby," and "I have to know what happened," the resulting confession was rendered inadmissible.
Appellant contends that such error is reversible per se, and in any event was not harmless. Miranda error must be tested against the "harmless beyond a reasonable doubt" standard. Appellant's prior, untainted confessions and the physical evidence of the death establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the erroneously admitted confession was harmless. The judgment is affirmed.
There was no dispute that appellant killed her 11-year-old son. The issues at trial concerned her state of mind at the time of the act.
On November 7, 1988, appellant visited her workplace after taking the previous week off to attend a personal improvement seminar. Earlier that day, appellant had talked about the seminar with her sister, who described appellant as happy and very elated. At noon, she met with a seminar employee, who testified that appellant was excited and said the seminar was the best thing that ever happened to her. The employee also testified that appellant said she had set goals for her finances and her relationship with her son. Appellant had a long lunch with another seminar participant, who described her as being very happy.
After these meetings, appellant went to her workplace. At 4 p.m., appellant's employer saw her and approached to confront her about her recently discovered embezzlement from the company. 1 Appellant's employer described her as looking "terrible," "very worn out," and as if she had been crying. He told appellant that he had discovered her embezzlement, that he had reported it to the police, and that she was in trouble. Appellant began crying. Appellant then saw her son approaching and screamed to him to come with her. Appellant left with the boy in her car.
Between 4:40 p.m. and 5:30 p.m., appellant called two of her sisters and three friends. Three of the recipients of these calls said appellant sounded "very odd," "extremely upset," and was "crying uncontrollably." Appellant left messages or told the people she spoke with that she had learned a lot, but that it was too late.
One of the people appellant called was her boyfriend. She sounded distressed and told him of her embezzlement. He offered to leave his office and come to her home, but she said not to come before 7 p.m. He then left for his apartment, arriving at 5:50 p.m., where he found a message from appellant on his telephone answering machine. A few minutes later, appellant knocked on his door.
Appellant's boyfriend testified that she was disheveled and exhausted, her eyes puffy from crying, and that she had blood on her hands and feet. Appellant collapsed outside his door, and he helped her into his apartment. Once inside the apartment, appellant ran around frantically, saying repeatedly that she had killed her son and had tried to kill herself. Appellant said she gave her son pills and strangled him, and asked several times that the police be called. After a few minutes, her boyfriend called the police; an officer soon arrived.
The first deputy sheriff to arrive described appellant as being extremely upset and very emotional. Appellant was screaming that she had killed her son but could not kill herself. Appellant said, " " The deputy asked appellant why she thought she had killed her son; appellant replied that she had given him pills and choked him. A second deputy sheriff arrived, and appellant spontaneously stated many times that she was sorry about her son and that she was afraid she could not kill herself.
Meanwhile, other officers went to appellant's house. Her son's body was found on the floor of the master bedroom. A telephone cord was wrapped very tightly around his neck three times and knotted. A quilted comforter covered blood stains on the bed, and there were blood stains near the bed. The boy died by strangulation. A notebook from appellant's seminar was tucked under his hand. The officers also found evidence, consistent with abrasions on appellant's neck, that she had attempted to hang herself near her son's body.
At trial, the testimony of two prosecution expert witnesses produced an opinion that the boy had been given 28 to 30 tablets of a prescription drug called Vicodin, an amount that would have been lethal. However, one of the prosecution's experts admitted there was a glaring inconsistency in the relative amounts of the two Vicodin ingredients detected that were the basis of that opinion. A defense expert witness found that the boy had substantially lower levels of the Vicodin ingredients, which another defense expert testified was consistent with taking two Vicodin tablets.
Appellant did not testify; the defense case consisted mainly of expert testimony. A clinical psychologist testified for the defense that appellant had a long-standing borderline personality disorder. The psychologist said the seminar appellant went through would particularly affect those with borderline personality disorder because the seminar is designed to get people to let go of reasoning and intellect and make big emotional displays. The psychologist described the seminar as "a very intense[,] psychologically intense, defense-stripping program...." The psychologist offered an opinion that appellant would not have killed her son had she not gone to the seminar and lost her psychological defenses. The psychologist also asserted that shortly before the boy's death, appellant became unbalanced and entered "a brief psychotic reaction"--a sudden onset of psychotic symptoms.
A psychiatrist also testified for the defense. The psychiatrist diagnosed appellant as having borderline personality disorder, "walking a tightrope between being neurotic and being psychotic." He testified that after the confrontation with her employer about the embezzlement, appellant became psychotic and began a brief reactive psychosis. The psychiatrist also asserted that appellant would not have killed her son if she had not gone through the seminar.
Appellant's custodial interrogation, the tape of which was played for the jury, occurred the evening that the boy was killed and lasted approximately 40 minutes. The deputy who took appellant to the sheriff's substation had read her the Miranda rights, including telling her that " 'You can decide at any time to exercise these rights ... and not answer any questions or make any statements.' " Appellant said she understood those rights and that she would talk to him. The deputy waited with appellant for Sergeant Jeannette Prandi to arrive to conduct the interview; appellant was still emotionally upset.
Just after 7:30 p.m., Sergeant Prandi began by asking appellant if she had ever been advised of her rights before. Appellant said she did not know. Sergeant Prandi repeated appellant's Miranda rights to her, including the right to decide at any time not to answer any questions or make any statements. Although appellant repeatedly screamed, "No, no, no," when told she was being read her rights because her son was dead, she said "Yes" when asked if she understood her rights and wanted to talk.
Sergeant Prandi began by asking appellant for simple background information about herself and her son. When asked her son's date of birth, appellant cried and became hysterical, repeating, "No, no, no ...," and then said, Appellant answered a few questions about the boy's father before saying, "No, no, ... don't tell him, it's gonna break his heart too," and lapsing into repetition of the phrase. Sergeant Prandi continued questioning appellant:
With the next few questions, appellant admitted stealing money from her employer. Appellant said, "I owe them a lot of money because I want my...
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People v. Fuller
...Respondent, v. Nadine FULLER, Appellant. No. S025928. Supreme Court of California, In Bank. Sept. 2, 1993. Prior report: Cal.App., 5 Cal.Rptr.2d 112. Pursuant to Rule 29.4(c), California Rules of Court, the above-entitled review is DISMISSED and cause is remanded to the Court of Appeal, Fir......
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People v. Fuller
...Respondent, v. Nadine FULLER, Appellant. No. S025928. Supreme Court of California, In Bank. May 14, 1992. Prior report: Cal.App., 5 Cal.Rptr.2d 112. Appellant's petition for review Submission of additional briefing, otherwise required by rule 29.3, California Rules of Court, is deferred pen......