People v. Homick

• Decision Date: 03 December 2012
• Docket Number: No. S044592.,S044592.
• Citation: 289 P.3d 791,150 Cal.Rptr.3d 1,55 Cal.4th 816
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Steven HOMICK, Defendant and Appellant.

55 Cal.4th 816
289 P.3d 791
150 Cal.Rptr.3d 1

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent,
v.
Steven HOMICK, Defendant and Appellant.

No. S044592.

Supreme Court of California

Dec. 3, 2012.

See 1 Witkin & Epstein, Cal. Criminal Law (4th ed. 2012) Defenses, § 184, 185.

[150 Cal.Rptr.3d 17]

Mark E. Cutler, Sacramento, under appointment by the Supreme Court, for Defendant and Appellant.

Edmund G. Brown, Jr., and Kamala D. Harris, Attorneys General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Pamela C. Hamanaka, Assistant Attorney General, Sharlene A. Honnaka and Victoria B. Wilson, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

WERDEGAR, J.

[55 Cal.4th 826][289 P.3d 805]Defendant Steven Homick was convicted by a jury of one count of conspiracy to commit murder (Pen.Code, §§ 182, 187) ¹ AND TWO COUNTS OF FIRST DEGREE MURDER ( § 187), as to whICH THE JURY found true financial-gain, multiple-murder, and lying-in-wait special-circumstance allegations ( § 190.2, subd. (a)(1), (3), (15)).² Following

[150 Cal.Rptr.3d 18]

the penalty phase trial, the jury returned death verdicts on the murder counts. Defendant's motions for a new trial and for a reduction of sentence (§ 190.4, subd. (e)) were denied. The trial court sentenced him to death on the murder counts and 25 years to life on the conspiracy count, which it stayed pursuant to section 654.

This appeal is automatic. (Cal. Const., art. VI, § 11, subd. (a); § 1239, subd. (b).) We affirm.

Facts I. GUILT PHASE
A. The Prosecution Case

1. The Woodman family and Manchester Products

In 1975, Gerald Woodman founded Manchester Products, which made plastic panels used in ceiling lighting. He ran the company, but ownership was divided among his two older sons, Neil and Stewart, each of whom had a 25 percent interest, and his wife, Vera, who held the remaining 50 percent interest.³ Neil worked in production, and Stewart worked in sales. Initially, Stewart had a good relationship with Gerald, but Gerald and Neil's relationship was always acrimonious.

When the youngest son, Wayne, joined the company in 1978 after graduating from college, he was given half of Vera's ownership interest and a job [55 Cal.4th 827]overseeing accounts and credit. Neil and Stewart resented the manner in which Wayne was brought into the company. That Gerald favored Wayne over his brothers increased familial tension. In late 1978, Gerald suffered a serious heart attack. While he was recuperating, Neil and Stewart ran the company, to their father's displeasure. Stewart testified that Gerald created problems at the company to force his sons to seek his help.

[289 P.3d 806]In April 1981, Stewart sought his mother's reassurance that she would support him and Neil in any conflict with Gerald. Vera said she would. A few months later, however, Vera told Stewart there was to be a meeting of the board of directors. She said Gerald had decided that Stewart would go back on the road as a salesman, Neil would be sent back to the factory floor, and Wayne and Gerald would run the company. She said if Stewart did not agree to Gerald's plan, Gerald would liquidate the business. Stewart felt betrayed by his mother.

Preemptively, Neil and Stewart issued extra shares of stock to give themselves a controlling interest in the company and then fired Gerald and Wayne. The brothers tried to buy Vera's and Wayne's interests in the company for $2.2 million to be paid over time, but the offer was rejected. A lawsuit ensued that resulted in a judgment of $675,000 to be paid by the brothers to Vera and Wayne. Neil and Stewart borrowed the money to pay the judgment owing.

The brothers also became involved in a bitter dispute involving a $500,000 life insurance policy Manchester Products had taken out on Vera to protect the interests of the family's two daughters. Vera communicated through her sister, Muriel Jackson, that she wanted the policy cancelled. When Jackson demanded they cancel the policy, the brothers refused. Neil said, “Look at the odds,” and laughed.

After taking over the company, the brothers freely expressed their anger toward and hatred of their parents. Stewart testified that they would make these comments “on a daily basis” to “anybody that would listen.” Former employees and business associates of the brothers confirmed that the brothers constantly made

[150 Cal.Rptr.3d 19]

derogatory remarks about their parents. These included wishing their parents were dead.

Between 1981 and 1985, Manchester Products's financial condition deteriorated. Servicing the loan from Union Bank to pay the judgment owed to Vera and Wayne was one factor. Another factor was the purchase of a new plant.

The brothers were also forced to compete against a rival company, Woodman Industries, set up by Gerald and Wayne. The ensuing price war [55 Cal.4th 828]reduced Manchester Products's earnings. Eventually, Woodman Industries went bankrupt, as did both Gerald and Wayne, and each of them lost their residences as a result. Neil and Stewart expressed satisfaction at having driven their parents into bankruptcy.

In response to Manchester Products's poor financial picture, the brothers engaged in an elaborate scheme to misrepresent the value of their accounts receivable to Union Bank, which financed the company's operations with a credit line secured by those accounts. Neil and Stewart instructed the company's controller, Steven Strawn, to manipulate the accounts receivable to make it appear that some past due invoices were still current, preventing them from being excluded from the collateral that secured the credit line. Union Bank discovered the ploy and audited the company's accounts receivable statements. Its auditors discovered $1.7 million in ineligible collateral.

2. Neil and Stewart turn to defendant, their longtime acquaintance, to kill Vera and Gerald

Neil and Stewart met defendant around 1980 in Las Vegas through a mutual friend, Joey Gambino. Stewart was an inveterate gambler who bet on “everything there was to gamble on,” including football games. Defendant told Stewart that his brother, Robert Homick, who lived in Los Angeles, also bet on football games. He asked for Stewart's phone number to pass along to his brother. Robert Homick and Stewart struck up a friendship based on their shared love of gambling. Robert Homick was a frequent visitor to Manchester Products. Defendant, who lived in Las Vegas, was also a regular visitor to the company and became friends with Neil.

Between 1980 and 1985, Neil and Stewart employed defendant and Robert Homick in various capacities. According to Richard Wilson, the company's one-time national sales manager, the brothers hired defendant to sweep the plant for a bugging device they [289 P.3d 807]feared Gerald had installed. In the summer of 1984, Neil hired defendant, as well as two former Los Angeles police officers, Jean Scherrer and John O'Grady, to act as security at his son's bar mitzvah, specifically to keep Gerald and Vera out.⁴ According to Scherrer, defendant said that if Gerald and Vera appeared, “If necessary, I will waste them.” ⁵ In May 1985, defendant enlisted Scherrer to plant a listening device in the office at Manchester Products where the Union Bank auditors would be conducting their audit. Scherrer testified the work was done when the plant was empty; defendant had keys with which they entered the building.

[55 Cal.4th 829]Stewart used Robert Homick to commit insurance fraud on two occasions. Both times, he had Robert Homick take a vehicle

[150 Cal.Rptr.3d 20]

—the first time, a Monte Carlo belonging to Manchester Products, and the second time, Stewart's personal Rolls Royce—which Stewart then reported as stolen to collect the insurance money. Stewart also used Robert Homick to do collections for Manchester Products, including from a company called Soft Lite. The daughter of Soft Lite's owner testified that Robert Homick had threatened to “ break [the owner's] legs, or snuff out his life” unless he paid what he owed to Manchester Products.

Stewart testified that in the summer of 1983, while Joey Gambino was staying at Stewart's house, Gambino heard Stewart “screaming” and “yelling” at his parents. Gambino told him, “Stewart, you are going to kill yourself. Why don't you let me handle this, and we will put an end to it.” Gambino put Stewart in touch with defendant, and the two of them, together with Neil, met at Manchester Products. Defendant told Stewart, “Joey told me there were a lot of problems going on with your mother and father.... You are crazy to go through it. You are not well. [¶] ... Let's put an end to it.” ⁶ Defendant told the brothers he would be returning to Los Angeles in a couple of weeks and suggested they “think about it” and meet again.

The second meeting took place in the first part of November 1983. At that meeting, the brothers told defendant they had decided to go through with killing their parents and asked him what information he would need. Defendant wanted information about Gerald's and Vera's “traits,” including when they were together, when they were apart, where they went, and where they got together with other people. Stewart and Neil provided defendant with such information as Gerald's habit of walking the dog every night, and events like birthdays and Jewish holidays when their parents got together with the rest of the family. Stewart also provided defendant with his brother Wayne's address where, at the time, Gerald and Vera were also living. Defendant told them that killing their parents would cost $40,000 or $50,000.⁷ After the second meeting, Neil told Stewart that Vera as well as Gerald would have to be killed. He said if it was just their father, they would be suspected of it but, because Stewart had been close to his mother, if she were also killed the authorities “would never believe” Stewart was involved. Stewart agreed.

3. Actions taken between April 1984 and June 1985 in furtherance of the conspiracy

Defendant habitually made notes in...