People v. Hayes

• Decision Date: 23 December 1999
• Docket Number: No. S004725.,S004725.
• Citation: 989 P.2d 645,91 Cal.Rptr.2d 211,21 Cal.4th 1211
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Royal Kenneth HAYES, Defendant and Appellant.

91 Cal.Rptr.2d 211

21 Cal.4th 1211

989 P.2d 645

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Royal Kenneth HAYES, Defendant and Appellant.

No. S004725.

Supreme Court of California.

December 23, 1999.

As Modified on Denial of Rehearing February 16, 2000.¹

Eric S. Multhaup, Mill Valley, under appointment by the Supreme Court, Kathy M. Chavez, Tamara P. Holland and Jeanne M. Fahey, Emeryville, for Defendant and Appellant.

Daniel E. Lungren and Bill Lockyer, Attorneys General, George Williamson, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Robert R. Anderson, Assistant Attorney General, William G. Prahl and Raymond L. Brosterhous II, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

BAXTER, J.

On December 3, 1984, a jury in the Santa Cruz County Superior Court convicted appellant Royal Kenneth Hayes of the December 29, 1981, first degree murders (Pen.Code, §§ 187, 189)² of Lauren de Laet and Donald MacVicar, and found true a multiple-murder special-circumstance allegation (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(3)) and an allegation that Hayes personally used a firearm during the commission of the murders. (§ 12022.5.) The same jury convicted appellant of the March 9, 1982, false imprisonment (§ 236) of and assault with a deadly weapon (§ 245, subd. (a)) on Deborah Garcia, and of possession of cocaine (Health & Saf.Code, § 11350) on March 10, 1982, the date of his arrest. The jury was unable to agree on the penalty for the murders.

On May 29, 1986, a jury in the Stanislaus County Superior Court, to which county the case had been transferred on a change of venue, returned a penalty verdict of death. The trial court denied appellant's motion for modification of the penalty (§ 190.4) and imposed a judgment of death on August 8, 1986.

This appeal is automatic. (§ 1239.) We shall affirm the judgment in all respects.

I THE PROSECUTION GUILT PHASE CASE

Briefly summarized, the evidence, insofar as it relates to the murder counts, established that Donald MacVicar and Lauren de Laet were shot by defendant at a remote location on the Santa Cruz campus of the University of California where shallow holes, in which the victims were to be buried, had been prepared. The victims were lured to the location by defendant to whom MacVicar had given $250,000 for cocaine, which the victims had been led to believe was to be delivered at a house near the site of the killings. The victims were taken individually from the vehicle in which they had been driven to the location. Diane Weller, an accomplice who testified under a grant of immunity, was instructed to remain in the vehicle. The victims were told that each had to be searched before going to the house where delivery of the cocaine was to occur. Deborah Garcia, another prosecution witness, who had prepared the holes and testified under a grant of immunity, was present. Appellant ordered her to search each victim and, as a victim leaned forward against a tree to submit to the search, appellant shot the victim in the back of the head. MacVicar, the first to be taken to the site, was killed by a single shot. De Laet, who was brought to the site after MacVicar had been shot, did not die at once and was shot in the head a second time. Garcia then brought Weller to the scene.

Appellant removed the victims' heads and hands, after which the bodies were placed in the holes, which had to be enlarged. What appellant believed was quicklime that would hasten decomposition was spread over the bodies. The graves were then covered with dirt, brush, and leaves. The severed body parts were placed in plastic bags and left nearby. Appellant, Garcia, and Weller later disposed of the perpetrators' clothes, the guns, and other evidence at other locations.

On February 20, 1982, a mushroom hunter discovered fragments of what was later determined to be de Laet's skull. He marked the location and took the skull fragments to a sheriff's deputy. He returned to the site with two deputies who, while they awaited the coroner, pieced the fragments together and observed a hole that appeared to be the size of a .44- or .45-caliber slug. On the following day, sheriffs deputies and other investigative personnel located more bone fragments, a small amount of hair, a shovel, a kitchen or steak knife, and a green garbage bag near the place at which the bone fragments were found.

MacVicar's body was found on March 10, 1982, de Laet's the next day. Each torso had a white clay-like substance clinging to it. MacVicar's skull was found in the same area by another mushroom hunter on March 18, 1982. An autopsy surgeon later removed a .45-caliber slug from this skull. De Laet's skull was found to have holes from two bullets which were .44- or .45-caliber. Neck and wrist wounds indicated that the heads and hands had been removed with a slicing or chopping instrument like a hatchet, machete, or cleaver. Identity of the victims was confirmed through past X-ray and dental records.

Appellant's involvement became known when Garcia, fearing for her life and the safety of her family, disclosed her participation to her brother-in-law, who arranged for her to meet with an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and local law enforcement officials.

Weller and Garcia, each of whom claimed to have acted under the domination of appellant and to have feared him, testified about their relationship with him and about various drug-related criminal activities in which they and others had participated with appellant over a period of years prior to the murders.

It is necessary to state in greater detail the evidence received during the guilt phase of the trial, although much of it is not relevant to establishing appellant's guilt, because the evidence goes both to the credibility of the chief prosecution witnesses, Weller, an accomplice, and Garcia, whom the jury may have found to be an accomplice, and to whether Garcia was an accomplice as a matter of law. In addition, at the penalty phase the jury was permitted to consider much of this evidence, which reflected criminal activity involving force and violence and both express and implied threats to use force and violence. (§ 190.3.)

A. Weller's Testimony.

1. Events preceding December 29, 1981.

Weller met appellant in Minneapolis in 1977. She became infatuated with him, and he moved into her apartment. Appellant dressed well, had expensive jewelry, and seemed to be a "big spender." He initially told Weller he was a real estate salesman, but spoke about his relationship with the Teamsters Union and the Mafia. At that time Weller believed appellant's money came from connections appellant had with the Mafia. He told her he could have people followed and could make things happen to them. He did not like "snitches" and people who stole from him. Weller felt she would be killed if she did either, but was not afraid of appellant at that time because she did neither.

Appellant and Weller moved to Kailua-Kona on the island of Hawaii late in 1977. He now claimed that he was connected with the "Hawaiian Mafia" where he was a "man of respect." He told Weller that a person should never argue with a "man of respect" and screamed at her if she talked back to him. Appellant used the code name "Penguin." His credit cards bore a "Central States' Properties" logo. He used other persons' names for two telephones and had a post office box registered to "Mr. Church." He told Weller not to ask questions about his business and said he was having her followed for her own personal safety. She believed appellant because he was aware of things she had done about which she had not told him.

Early in 1979 Weller left appellant's house because appellant required her to report everything she did. Appellant told her again that he was having her followed for her own safety and she saw persons she thought were following her.

In April 1981 appellant was living in a small one-bedroom house across the road from the beach on Alii Drive in Kailua. Deborah Garcia had been living with appellant at that location. Weller first met Garcia at a time when Garcia was living with appellant, sometime before January 1981, and saw her again that month when Garcia was living in the Alii Drive house. One of appellant's telephones was in Garcia's name. Garcia left for the mainland United States in April 1981. Appellant called Weller. He said Garcia had left, told Weller that he was ill and unhappy, and asked her to visit him. At appellant's request, Weller, who was then living in a small trailer on the beach, moved back in with appellant.

When Weller moved back in with appellant, appellant was using cocaine on a regular basis. For two months both Weller and appellant used two to three grams of cocaine daily. They left the house only for necessities. Appellant often spoke "gibberish" and Weller believed he was having a mental breakdown. In the summer of 1981, appellant began to speak of connections with the CIA and continued to talk about connections with the Teamsters Union and the Mafia. He said that "Penguin" was a code name from the CIA, and told her that two of his friends who came to the house during this period and used cocaine with them were CIA agents. He also showed her purportedly secret documents. Appellant, who stayed awake and talked for days during the two-month period of heavy cocaine use, told Weller that the head of the Teamsters Union was to have a physical examination at the hospital and would never leave the hospital. When the official died on the day appellant said he would, Weller was afraid and believed that appellant did have something to do with the Mafia.

At the time they were living on Alii Drive, appellant often used pay phones to make and receive calls, explaining that his own telephone was probably tapped.

Weller began to doubt her own sanity because appellant often accused her of forgetting instructions. He was then receiving and selling cocaine regularly and she helped him "cut" it. Lauren de Laet mailed a package of...