People v. Hamilton

• Decision Date: 09 July 1963
• Docket Number: Cr. 7136
• Citation: 32 Cal.Rptr. 4,383 P.2d 412,60 Cal.2d 105
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 383 P.2d 412 The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Raymond Marty HAMILTON, Defendant and Appellant.

Page 4

32 Cal.Rptr. 4

60 Cal.2d 105, 383 P.2d 412

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Raymond Marty HAMILTON, Defendant and Appellant.

Cr. 7136.

Supreme Court of California.

July 9, 1963.

Rehearing Denied Aug. 7, 1963.

Martin N. Pulich, Public Defender, John D. Nunes, Chief Asst. Public Defender, and Chris G. Gasparich, Asst. Public Defender, for defendant and appellant.

Stanley Mosk, Atty. Gen., John S. McInerny, and Robert R. Granucci, Deputy Attys. Gen., for plaintiff and respondent.

PETERS, Justice.

By jury verdicts defendant was found guilty of the first degree murders of Estella Hamilton (count one) and of Lorenzo Bernard (count two). The jury fixed the penalty on count one at life imprisonment, and on count two at death. Motions for a new trial and reduction of the penalty on the second count were denied. The appeal is automatic (Pen.Code, § 1239, subd. (b)).

This is the second trial and appeal in this case. The first trial resulted in death penalty judgments on both counts, which were reversed. (People v. Hamilton (1961) 55 Cal.2d 881, 13 Cal.Rptr. 649, 362 P.2d 473).

Defendant does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidnce to sustain the murder convictions, but he does contend that a variety of errors occurring at both the guilt and penalty trials were so serious and prejudicial as to require a reversal. Although several serious errors did occur on the trial of the guilt issue, we are of the opinion, after a reading, review and consideration of the entire record, that the evidence of guilt is so convincing and overwhelming that such errors, considered singly and together, did not militate against defendant receiving a fair and impartial trial. Therefore, on the guilt issue, as to both convictions, the judgments must be affirmed. But very serious errors also occurred on the penalty phase of the trial on count two. Here the overwhelming nature of the evidence as to guilt does not have the same impact as it has on the guilt issue. After a reading, review and consideration of the entire record we must hold that such errors were prejudicial, and must therefore reverse this phase of the judgment.

Defendant was charged with the murder of Estella Hamilton, his ex-wife, and Lorenzo Bernard, who at the time of the killings, were together in Estella's bedroom under somewhat compromising circumstances. Estella was shot by defendant, but the cause of her death was a combination of the gunshot wound and the laceration of her neck when she either fell or was pulled through the glass pane of the bedroom window. Bernard died of gunshot wounds inflicted by defendant. It was the prosecution's theory that defendant, while armed and with felonious intent, broke into Estella's home on the night in question, and that the resultant killings were felony murders. Defendant admitted the shootings, but contended that he killed Bernard in self-defense, and that Estella's death was accidental. In support of such defense defendant claimed that he had gone to Estella's home at her request but en route he was detained, and Bernard arrived there in the interim; that because of Bernard's presence Estella did not wish defendant to enter; that defendant in a fit of anger then kicked in the bedroom windown and stepped inside; that Bernard attacked him with a knife and defendant shot Bernard in self-defense; that in the scuffle Estella was accidentally shot and fell into the broken window, and she was further cut when he tried to pull her out the window. Defendant admitted being in possession of the fatal gun. He claimed to have taken it from his brother's home in Los Angeles, during a visit there some two weeks before the killings, for the purpose of fixing a spring adjustment. However, whether or not this was so, defendant admits that he took the gun the night of the killings from his own apartment in Oakland as he prepared to go to Estella's home in Berkeley.

Without recounting the evidence further in detail, the evidence demonstrates not only that the two killings were committed during the perpetration of a felony, but also supports the conclusion that they were premeditated crimes. It should also be said that the record shows that defendant has a long record of prior convictions, both of felonies and misdemeanors, and also of parole violations. But, as has frequently been said, even a thoroughly bad man is entitled to a fair trial. It is necessary to consider whether defendant had such a trial on both the issues of guilt and penalty. The guilt phase of the trial.

Appellant claims that it was error to allow the prosecution to introduce into evidence an offer of compromise which he made, and the district attorney rejected, prior to the trial. Lloyd Jester, a member of the district attorney's staff, was allowed to testify that on a date between appellant's arrest and the first trial he met with appellant in the county jail, and that at such time appellant offered to plead guilty if arrangements could be made to assure him a life sentence. A motion to strike this testimony was denied.

It was error to admit this offer to plead guilty into evidence.

It is true that, in the absence of statute, it has been held in California that an offer to plead guilty is admissible (People v. Boyd, 67 Cal.App. 292, 302-303, 227 P 783; People v. Cooper, 81 Cal.App.2d 110, 117-118, 118, 183 P.2d 67). It has also been held that a plea of guilty, later withdrawn, is admissible (People v. Ivy, 163 Cal.App.2d 436, 329 P.2d 505). In the absence of statute, the underlying theory of these cases is that by his plea or offer to plead guilty the defendant has made, in fact, an admission of guilt. In jurisdictions other than California the cases are in conflict. (See discussion 4 Wigmore, Evidence (3d ed. 1940) § 1067, p. 66.)

But all of the cases cited above were either decided before Penal Code sections 1192.1 through 1192.4 were enacted in 1955 and 1957, or failed to mention those sections. By these enactments the Legislature has changed the law in California on this subject.

Section 1192.1 provides that if a defendant is charged with a crime divided into degrees, upon a plea of guilty, when consented to by the prosecutor and approved by the court, the plea may specify the degree, and defendant cannot be thereafter punished for a higher degree. Section 1192.2 makes the same rule applicable to pleas of guilty before a committing magistrate. Section 1192.3 provides that in cases where the jury can select various punishments, the plea of guilty may specify the punishment to imposed, and, if accepted by the prosecution and approved by the court, no more severe punishment than specified in the plea may be imposed. Section 1192.4 (added to the Penal Code in 1957, Stats.1957, ch. 1297, p. 2616, § 4) was passed for the obvious purpose of supplementing the other three sections. It provides: 'If the defendant's plea of guilty pursuant to Section 1192.1, 1192.2 or 1192.3 of this code be not accepted by the prosecuting attorney and approved by the court, the plea shall be deemed withdrawn and the defendant may then enter such plea or pleas as would otherwise have been available. The pleas so withdrawn may not be received in evidence in any criminal, civil or special action or proceeding of any nature, including proceedings before agencies, commissions, boards and tribunals.'

By this section, the Legislature has decided, just as it did many years ago in civil cases by prohibiting the introduction into evidence of offers to compromise (Code Civ.Proc. § 2078), that it is in the public interest that pleas of guilty to a lesser degree of crime shall not be admissible. The obvious purpose of the section is to promote the public interest by encouraging the settlement of criminal cases without the necessity of a trial. (See McCormick, Evidence (1954) § 251, p. 543.) Certainly, it cannot reasonably be argued that while a plea of guilty to a lesser degree is not admissible, that an offer to plead guilty to such lesser degree is admissible. There is no material difference between actual pleas of guilty to a lesser degree of the crime charged, and offers to plead guilty to a lesser degree.

We therefore conclude that appellant's offer to plead guilty if assured of a life sentence, as made to a representative of the district attorney was improperly admitted into evidence. By virtue of the provisions of section 1192.4 the earlier cases treating such offers to plead and pleas as admissions of guilt are no longer controlling. But for reasons hereafter stated, we do not think that this error resulted in a 'miscarriage of justice,' on the guilt phase of the trial, as those words are used in article VI, § 4 1/2, of the Constitution.

Appellant next contends that the prosecution was guilty of misconduct, and that the trial court erred in failing to rectify the situation when the prosecutor made an improper attempt to impeach his own witness. One of the least important issues involved at the trial was the question of when appellant first obtained the gun with which he was armed at the time of the killings. According to the prosecution, appellant took the gun, without permission, from the home of his brother in Los Angeles on the evening of the homicides before boarding an airplane for San Francisco. The defense contended that appellant took the gun from his brother's home on a visit to Los Angeles some two weeks earlier, for the purpose of repairing it; that appellant left the gun at his own apartment in Oakland, and then picked it up that night on the way to Estella's home in Berkeley. ¹

In an attempt to prove premeditation, the prosecution called Nolan Hamilton (appellant's brother) for the ostensible purpose of having him testify that appellant took the gun from his Los Angeles home on the very afternoon of the homicides. When the witness testified that he was unable to state when the gun was taken, the prosecutor claimed surprise and produced a written...