People v. Hoxie

• Decision Date: 26 July 1967
• Docket Number: Cr. 12165
• Citation: 61 Cal.Rptr. 37,252 Cal.App.2d 901
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Jack Ray HOXIE, Defendant and Appellant.

Page 37

61 Cal.Rptr. 37

252 Cal.App.2d 901

The PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Jack Ray HOXIE, Defendant and Appellant.

Cr. 12165.

Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 5, California.

July 26, 1967.

Ned R. Nelsen, Los Angeles, for appellant.

Thomas C. Lynch, Atty. Gen., Elizabeth Miller, Deputy Atty. Gen., Jerold A. Prod, Deputy Atty. Gen., for respondent.

KAUS, Presiding Justice.

Defendant pleaded 'not guilty' and 'not guilty by reason of insanity' to an information charging him with three violations of section 217 (assault with intent to commit murder) of the Penal Code. After a nonjury trial he was found guilty and legally sane at the time of the commission of the offenses.

On appeal the only contention made by privately retained counsel is that the evidence does not support the implied finding that defendant had the mental capacity to intend to commit murder. Defendant has filed a supplemental brief in propria persona in which he contends that the evidence showed, as a matter of law, that he was insane at the time of the commission of the offenses and at his trial.

The evidence is grotesque. On the day of the alleged crimes, September 10, 1965, defendant, who lived without family in a single family residence located in a highly respectable neighborhood, got into some kind of argument with a young man whom he had recently hired as a chauffeur. The young man wanted to leave, defendant wanted him to stay. A shotgun blast fired by defendant brought the police to the home. Defendant had several weapons in the house, by the use of which he prevented his arrest for several hours. One officer who did enter the house was shot inside the premises, two others were shot while they were on the street. These three shots formed the basis for the charge. Eventually, aided by the use of tear gas, the police managed to arrest defendant. During the siege he had answered two telephone calls. One was by Officer Schwarz. The conversation went as follows: Schwarz: 'I'm Sergeant Schwarz from the Los Angeles Police Department. You don't want to hurt anybody else, do you?' Defendant: 'No.' Schwarz: 'Why don't you lay down your gun and come on outside?' Defendant: 'If I do, you will arrest me, and I can't stand going to jail. I can't stand being locked up.' Schwarz: 'Well, let me come over and discuss it with you.' Defendant: 'No, you'll lock me up and I can't stand that.' After the conversation proceeded for awhile in this vein, defendant put down the receiver.

A second telephone conversation took place between defendant and one Howard Spector, a neighbor. At the request of one of the officers Spector telephoned defendant and said: 'Jack you are making quite a disturbance; I'm having a hard time studying.' Defendant replied: 'Howard, I'd like to talk to you but I'm real busy right now.' ¹

It is clear from the above synopsis that, testimony concerning defendant's mental capacity or insanity aside, the trial court could find, as it did, that had any of the three victims died, defendant would have been guilty at least of second degree murder. (Jackson v. Superior Court, 62 Cal.2d 521, 525--526, 42 Cal.Rptr. 838, 399 P.2d 374.) People v. Bernard, 28 Cal.2d 207, 214, 169 P.2d 636, is authority for the proposition that the 'murder' which the defendant must intend to be guilty of a violation of section 217 of the Penal Code need only be murder in the second degree. (People v. Butts, 236 Cal.App.2d 817, 46 Cal.Rptr. 362.) ²

The major portion of the trial was devoted to testimony relevant to defendant's sanity and his capacity to form the specific intent essential to a conviction. Such testimony came from ten lay witnesses, all of whom testified for the defense, and four psychiatrists who were evenly divided on the question of defendant's insanity at the time of the commission of the offense. As will be seen, however, only one of the psychiatrists was asked--and answered--the question so vital to a determination of the issue of 'diminished capacity' (People v. Anderson, 61 Cal.2d 351, 364, 46 Cal.Rptr. 763, 406 P.2d 43), namely whether defendant had a healthy, normal, and Mature mental state. (People v. Goedecke, 65 Cal.2d 850, 856, 56 Cal.Rptr. 625, 423 P.2d 777; People v. Nicolaus, 65 Cal.2d 866, 877, 56 Cal.Rptr. 635, 423 P.2d 787; People v. Wolff, 61 Cal.2d 795, 822, 40 Cal.Rptr. 271, 394 P.2d 959.) This question a psychiatrist called by the People answered in the negative.

The Lay Testimony.

There is no need to set forth the testimony of the lay witnesses in elaborate detail. It came from so many persons whose credibility was unimpeached that we assume that it was believed. ³ It may be summarized as follows: During the three month period before the shooting defendant demonstrated a profound change in his relationship to his environment. He became obsessed with guns and the idea that if someone approached the window in his house he would be shot at. He would pace back and forth in the home, gun in hand. He would carry a gun when he went shopping. He ceased to care about his appearance, went about unshaven. with his pants not pressed. This was a complete reversal from his former habits. It was impossible to carry on a conversation with him, he would just talk to himself. He became obsessed with the idea that a neighbor, a Doctor Manley, and other neighbors were conspiring against him, had hired others to do him physical harm and had hired men to ride by his home in automobiles. He was convinced that his telephone was tapped. 'These people,' he thought, were trying to kill him and had fooled with the brakes on his car so it would jump a six foot wall to kill him. He thought that Doctor Manley was somehow in league with the police and that the police were going to come and get him.

At one point defendant was arrested for carrying a concealed weapon and when his attorney came to see him in jail he carried on a 'tirade concerning the alleged mistreatment by the police.' He described the officers as brutal, uneducated, crude and uncouth. He considered policemen as inferiors, gestapo-like characters. The attorney was unable to substantiate his client's charges against the police.

Doctor Manley testified that none of defendant's fears had any basis in fact. On several occasions the police had been called by him when defendant, at all hours of the night, sometimes accompanied by others, had come to his house threatening to 'fix' him.

Defendant's Expert Testimony.

Doctor Seymour Pollock--direct examination: Before testifying the doctor spent about five hours with defendant. He reviewed the medical history provided by Doctor Hacker and the reports of Doctors Thompson and Abe. He also reviewed statements by various witnesses. In his opinion Hoxie 'did not fully understand the nature and quality of his acts at the time of the event on September 10, 1965, or understand their wrongfulness.'

Cross-examination: The particular mental illness from which defendant suffered was 'schizophrenic reaction, a psychotic reaction.' When he was shooting at the officers he knew to a degree that they were police officers 'but did not understand their role, their function, their relationship to him. * * *' He did not appreciate that they had come to take him into custody because he had committed a wrong. He was aware that he was hurting people by his shooting. In talking about the police officers he referred to them mostly as 'men in black.' Defendant was, in brief, 'misinterpreting' what was going on. His appreciation of the world about him, of the people and events, was not the kind of understanding that is present in the average reasonable man. He believed there was a plot against him. To him a policeman was not a person protecting him, but someone who had been paid off by the Mafia and was in some way interested in hurting him. 'He didn't see the policeman in the same way that I or another person not suffering from this problem saw the policeman. He didn't understand them to be a policeman in the same way. And in that sense, what I said was that he didn't understand, he didn't comprehend the nature and quality of what he was doing in actuality or appreciate in actuality the wrongfulness of what he was doing in the light of what I have just said. Because all of these circumstances with which he was involved at the time of the shooting were actually circumstances which, with the culmination of events, misinterpretations, distortions, peculiarities in understanding, distortions in his appreciation of reality, which long antedated this experience of the shooting episode. * * * The neighborhood was filled with dope fiends and hopheads. They were all either homosexuals who were involved with plots together and against him. Some were for him, some were against him. And it was a very confused situation. * * *'

Redirect examination: The witness did not think that Hoxie had feigned insanity when he interviewed him, But suspected that he was feigning sanity at the trial.

Doctor Frederick Hacker--direct examination: He had first seen Hoxie in a professional capacity in 1951. His mental condition had become an issue at that time because he had taken two shots at his father. Hoxie had been under the care of Doctor Hacker and his staff, off and on from 1951 until March, 1965. In July, 1965 Doctor Hacker saw Hoxie at the St. Francis Hospital. Within two weeks after the shooting he saw him again on four different occasions. In the doctor's opinion Hoxie was 'laboring under a number of delusions and hallucinations, and was totally incapable of appreciating the nature and consequences of his acts.'

Cross-examination: He had formed an opinion that Hoxie was 'highly upset, psychotic and dangerous' in July, 1965 and so reported to Hoxie's attorney. He advised commitment, but did not determine whether the attorney had acted on his advice. He himself took no steps to commit Hoxie. His diagnosis of Hoxie was ...