People v. Hall

• Decision Date: 22 May 1986
• Citation: 718 P.2d 99,226 Cal.Rptr. 112,41 Cal.3d 826
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 718 P.2d 99 The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Henry Loren HALL, Defendant and Appellant. Crim. 24565.

Page 112

226 Cal.Rptr. 112

41 Cal.3d 826, 718 P.2d 99

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Henry Loren HALL, Defendant and Appellant.

Crim. 24565.

Supreme Court of California, In Bank.

May 22, 1986.

Rehearing Denied June 26, 1986.

Jeffrey J. Stuetz, San Diego, under appointment by the Supreme Court, for defendant and appellant.

John K. Van de Kamp, Atty. Gen., Jay M. Bloom and Maxine P. Cutler, Deputy Attys. Gen., San Diego, for plaintiff and respondent.

MOSK, Justice.

We granted review in this case to examine and clarify the so-called Mendez-Arline rule, which restricts the admission of defense evidence tending to show that a third party is guilty of the offense charged. (People v. Mendez (1924) 193 Cal. 39, 223 P. 65; People v. Arline (1970) 13 Cal.App.3d 200, 91 Cal.Rptr. 520.)

Defendant was convicted of first degree murder and second degree robbery and burglary, and the Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment. After reviewing the relevant law and the record, we also affirm, holding that the error in excluding the proffered evidence was harmless. At the same time, we correct any misapprehension generated by the case law that the Mendez-Arline rule is a principle of exclusion requiring a preliminary showing of a "substantial probability" of third-party guilt before such evidence may be admitted. To the contrary, we reaffirm the admissibility of any relevant evidence that raises a reasonable doubt as to a defendant's guilt, including evidence tending to show that a party other than the defendant committed the offense charged. Such evidence may be excluded only when the court properly exercises its discretion under Evidence Code section 352 to reject evidence that creates a substantial danger of undue consumption of time or of prejudicing, confusing, or misleading the jury. ¹

The body of Israel Deasonhouse was found on the kitchen floor of his home on December 31, 1981. He was lying face-up, his clothing in disarray, his pants pockets fully turned out. He apparently had been eating cottage cheese at the time of his death, and had defecated in his pants. The investigator noted a distinctive hemorrhaging under the victim's eyelids that may indicate death by air deprivation, but finding no external signs of trauma and no evidence of forced entry he ordered a noncriminal autopsy to determine cause of death. The coroner determined the cause of death was cardiac arrhythmia incident to heart disease. The examination was limited to the victim's heart and chest.

In October 1982, on the basis of information volunteered by one Rhae Foust, the authorities ordered the body exhumed and a criminal autopsy performed. Investigation of the neck area revealed a fractured hyoid bone and local hemorrhaging, suggesting that the fatal cardiac arrythmia may have been caused by strangulation.

Foust had come forward with information after his arrest for drunk driving, apparently hoping to mitigate punishment for that offense and for forgeries he had allegedly committed with defendant, although the police clearly advised him that no charges would be dropped in exchange. He recounted that on December 31, 1981, defendant told him that he and another friend, David Rodriguez, had killed an elderly man named Israel. He stated that defendant described the victim as eating cottage cheese and as losing bowel control when he was strangled alternately by defendant and Rodriguez, and also told of returning to the victim's house to confirm that he was dead. In a later conversation, Foust continued, defendant explained that he had driven the victim to the bank the day of killing and had seen what appeared to be a large roll of money, but that he had found only a small sum in his pockets during the murder. Foust attributed his failure to come forward earlier to his fear of reprisal by Rodriguez or defendant, who had threatened to kill him if he told anyone.

Defendant was arrested. He admitted in a statement to the police that he and Rodriguez gave Deasonhouse a ride to the bank, but denied participating in the murder. He claimed Rodriguez was the killer. Rodriguez, he said, told him that Deasonhouse answered his knock at the door, and that Rodriguez immediately seized and choked him. Defendant said nothing about the cottage cheese or the involuntary defecation. He conceded, however, that he might have boasted to Foust of participating in the murder in order to impress him.

The defense attempted to show that Deasonhouse was killed by someone other than defendant. After the prosecution rested, defendant made an offer of proof to show that Deasonhouse was more likely murdered by a teenage neighbor who had been seen victimizing him in the past, or by Foust himself. Defendant intended to base his theory of Foust's culpability on the latter's knowledge of intimate details of the murder not mentioned by defendant; on the fact that the victim's hyoid bone was broken on the left side, although defendant is right-handed; and on the proposed testimony of Foust's estranged wife that he is left-handed, is violent when drunk, and has a history as a police informant. She would further testify that Foust had never spoken of a meeting with defendant or expressed fear of him, and was "virtually tantamount to a pathological liar." Defendant would also attempt to prove that Foust's motive for bringing the murder to the attention of police was to avoid prosecution for forgery.

The court responded that "the test ... as I understand it from reading [People v. Arline, supra, 13 Cal.App.3d 200, 91 Cal.Rptr. 520] is whether the proffered evidence would show more than a possible ground or possible suspicion that Rhae Foust committed the offenses charged in the Information." After reviewing the proposed testimony, the court reasoned, "I don't see how your evidence, as I say, gets beyond the point of possible suspicion, since [it is] almost incred[ible] for a person to make statements concerning a murder that he himself committed ten months after the murder when he must have reasonably been aware of the fact that law enforcement probably had, to some degree, given up on it." The court concluded by reciting the words of section 352 but determined only that the evidence lacked probative value under the Arline test. It therefore denied the offer of proof.

Nevertheless, the defense thereafter succeeded in introducing a significant amount of the evidence it believed linked Foust to the crime. Foust's wife testified that her husband never spoke of Deasonhouse's murder or mentioned fearing defendant, and that he was generally untruthful. Another witness testified that Foust was violent; she also said he wore "waffle-stomper" shoes around the time of the murder, to impeach testimony by Foust that he never wore such footwear. Defendant's closing argument emphasized to the jury that "waffle-stomper" prints were found in Deasonhouse's bedroom.

Defendant further argued that Foust was left-handed and the victim's hyoid bone was broken on the left side, a fact suggesting a left-handed perpetrator. He stressed that Foust revealed details to the police that only someone present at the murder could know, while defendant related a more sparse version and denied any knowledge of what the victim had been eating or his loss of bowel control. Finally, he suggested Foust had a motive to offer information to the authorities--to avoid prosecution for drunk driving and forgery by currying favor with the police.

I

Defendant contends that the court denied him the right to present more than a minimal defense founded on evidence that came in "through the back door," and that the court's reliance on Arline was error. We agree. What has come to be called the Mendez-Arline test is an exclusionary rule abstracted from case law articulating the minimum threshold for admitting evidence of third-party culpability that tends to exonerate a defendant. Simply expressed, it provides that such evidence is admissible only if it constitutes "substantial evidence tending to directly connect that person with the actual commission of the offense." (People v. Green (1980) 27 Cal.3d 1, 22, 164 Cal.Rptr. 1, 609 P.2d 468; see generally Garcia, Third Party Culpability Evidence: A Criticism of the California Mendez-Arline Exclusionary Rule--Towards a Constitutional Standard of Relevance and Admissibility (1983) 17 U.S.F. L.Rev. 441.)

The rule takes its name from two key formulations of the standard for admitting evidence of third-party culpability: People v. Mendez, supra, 193 Cal. 39, 223 P. 65, ² the first California Supreme Court case upholding the exclusion of such evidence, and People v. Arline, supra, 13 Cal.App.3d 200, 91 Cal.Rptr. 520, the first Court of Appeal opinion to restate that standard after enactment of section 352. At the outset, therefore, it is important to recall both the specific articulations of the rule in those cases as well as the factual contexts in which they emerged.

The defendant in Mendez offered to prove that four Mexican workers residing a quarter of a mile from the scene of a ranchowner's murder had quarrelled with the victim, and that their disappearance after quitting employment on the morning after the homicide suggested flight and thereby admission of guilt. Witnesses had testified they had seen three Mexican men in the vicinity of the crime on the day it occurred. The trial court rejected testimony about the victim's dispute with the missing laborers, concluding that such evidence of possible motive was not linked to any other evidence "having the inherent tendency" to connect them to the commission of the crime. It similarly rejected testimony describing three of the four men who disappeared because, as the defendant conceded, the descriptions were "so general and indefinite that they would apply equally to hundreds of persons." (193 Cal. at p. 51, 223 P. 65.)

This court affirmed. We noted that it is always proper to defend against criminal charges by...