People v. Heckathorne
| Decision Date | 23 June 1988 |
| Docket Number | No. G004613,G004613 |
| Citation | 248 Cal.Rptr. 399,202 Cal.App.3d 458 |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Spencer Cassanova HECKATHORNE, Defendant and Appellant. |
A jury convicted Spencer Heckathorne of second degree murder with use of a firearm. The trial court prejudicially erred in permitting the prosecutor to cross-examine the defendant concerning details of a prior felony conviction for assault with a deadly weapon, and we must reverse accordingly.
Heckathorne celebrated his birthday on October 15, 1985, by consuming cocaine and beer throughout the evening with his wife and friends. Just after two the following morning, during an argument with his spouse, Heckathorne's shotgun discharged. The blast tore through the wall of the next door apartment, fatally wounding Robin Holding.
At the scene, Heckathorne told an officer, Heckathorne's blood alcohol level at the time of the shooting was estimated to be between .19 and .23 percent. He was formally interviewed the same morning and stated the gun discharged accidentally as he tried to unload it.
When examined, the shotgun held four rounds of ammunition in the magazine and one in the chamber. An expended casing was found near Heckathorne's bed. The weapon was in excellent working condition, and tests failed to demonstrate a means by which it could have discharged other than pulling the trigger. A used cartridge could be expelled only by pumping the slide; this action also placed a fresh round in the chamber.
At trial the three surviving occupants of the next door apartment testified for the prosecution and described Heckathorne's behavior in a visit to them on the evening before the shooting. He irritated the group with his braggadocio and statement to one of them, "I could kill you in a minute, just as easy as I could kill a cop." 1 After Heckathorne returned to his own apartment, they heard shouting and swearing as he argued with his wife. Holding and another occupant were in the process of banging on the common wall for quiet when the victim was struck by the fatal blast.
Heckathorne and his wife denied the alleged ferocity of their argument. In addition, they claimed they could not clearly hear the shouts of their neighbors through the apartment wall. Their descriptions of Heckathorne's evening gun loading ritual were also consistent. On the night of the shooting, Heckathorne chambered a cartridge before he left to perform an errand and visit the neighbors. Later, as the couple argued, he was sitting on his bed attempting to remove the shell from the chamber. His wife's back was to him, and she could not see what he was doing. The round would not eject, Heckathorne claimed; and the gun simply discharged. He believed the casing fell on the floor when he pumped the slide to dislodge the live round.
Heckathorne testified he was feeling the effects of the alcohol and cocaine as he tried to unload the gun, and expert testimony confirmed his manual dexterity would be affected at that elevated blood alcohol level. The angle of the shot into the wall was consistent with the position on the bed Heckathorne described.
Heckathorne was impeached with evidence of a 1980 felony conviction for assault with a deadly weapon. The prosecutor's cross-examination on the subject began as follows:
Defense counsel then objected on the grounds the prosecutor was improperly examining his client regarding the facts of the earlier offense. The court, after a sidebar argument, ruled Heckathorne had "opened the door" to such questioning and although admittedly "going out on a limb," allowed further inquiry:
Defense counsel's subsequent motion for mistrial was denied.
The scope of inquiry when a criminal defendant is impeached with evidence of a prior felony conviction does not extend to the facts of the underlying offense. (People v. McClellan (1969) 71 Cal.2d 793, 809, 80 Cal.Rptr. 31, 457 P.2d 871.) Citing a legal text, the Attorney General counters this well-settled rule does not apply where the defendant first seeks to mislead a jury or minimize the facts of the earlier conviction. (See 2 Jefferson, Cal.Evidence Benchbook (Cont.Ed.Bar 1982) § 28.8, p. 932.)
The cause before us does not fall within any such exception, however. In response to the prosecutor's initial question on the subject, Heckathorne readily agreed he had been convicted of assault with a deadly weapon, adding only "an automobile." As he was currently on trial for a shotgun killing, the supplementary response was merely a clarification. It did not of itself minimize or mislead. Automobiles, after all, are certainly the most dangerous commonly employed instrumentalities in our society, even when they are used for their intended purpose and not as weapons.
True, Heckathorne's next response asserted the incident was only an accident. Had it been offered on direct examination, our analysis would be entirely different. But the answer was merely in reply to the deputy district attorney's inappropriate invitation to discuss the facts of the old offense, i.e., "Did you try to assault somebody with this automobile?" The prosecutor should have been bound by the answer and defense counsel's timely objection should have been sustained. Under such circumstances, the prosecution will not be heard to assert the defendant attempted to mislead or minimize the facts of a prior conviction in order to justify an attempt to impeach him by innuendo on an improper and collateral issue.
We find the error prejudicial. Circumstantial evidence supported, but did not compel, a murder conviction. Heckathorne was the only witness to the gun's discharge, and his credibility was critical. Much depended on the jury's impression of Heckathorne as an individual who would or would not deliberately shoot a gun into a common apartment wall in conscious disregard of a neighbor's life. The prosecutor's improper questioning elicited inadmissible evidence of a disposition to commit violent crimes without serious provocation or motive and gave him an opportunity to inappropriately describe and characterize the previous incident in the guise of a question: "[Y]ou literally started ramming his car and ... he tried to run from you, and you assaulted him?" In short, during the brief colloquy the prosecutor was able to portray Heckathorne as a violent hothead. The deputy district attorney repeatedly harped on this theme in closing argument, labeling the defendant a "bad dude," "violent," "abrasive," and "macho." It may be true that Heckathorne is all of those things. But our system has long since determined that individuals are to be tried for their actions, not their characters. The improper cross-examination on the prior conviction violated that principle.
Perhaps worse, the prosecutor's questioning also suggested Heckathorne was a liar, who, despite having served a stint in state prison, nevertheless denied responsibility for the previous crime, now claiming it was an accident. This was particularly prejudicial because the entire defense to the current allegation was accident as well.
Moreover, the evidence by no means compelled the verdict returned by the jury. We simply cannot say there is no reasonable probability that a result more favorable to Heckathorne could not have been reached in the absence of the error. 2 (People v. Watson (1956) 46 Cal.2d 818, 836, 299 P.2d 243.)
Judgment reversed.
I concur specially because I have considerable difficulty with the notion that assault with a deadly weapon is, as a matter of law, a crime of moral turpitude. Nevertheless, four published opinions have so held with nary a dissent on that point. (People v. Valdez (1986) 177 Cal.App.3d 680, 223 Cal.Rptr. 149; People v. Means (1986) 177 Cal.App.3d 138, 222 Cal.Rptr. 735; People v. Armendariz (1985) 174 Cal.App.3d 674, 220 Cal.Rptr. 229; People v. Cavazos (1985) 172 Cal.App.3d 589, 218...
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