People v. Humphries

• Decision Date: 30 September 1986
• Citation: 185 Cal.App.3d 1315,230 Cal.Rptr. 536
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Joseph Conrad HUMPHRIES, Defendant and Appellant. Crim. B017032.

Page 536

230 Cal.Rptr. 536

185 Cal.App.3d 1315

The PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Joseph Conrad HUMPHRIES, Defendant and Appellant.

Crim. B017032.

Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 1, California.

Sept. 30, 1986.

Review Denied Jan. 22, 1987.

Joseph Shemaria, Beverly Hills, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for defendant and appellant

John K. Van de Kamp, Atty. Gen., William R. Weisman, Supervising Deputy Atty. Gen., and Paul C. Ament, Deputy Atty. Gen., for plaintiff and respondent.

EPSTEIN, Associate Justice. ^*

Joseph Conrad Humphries appeals from the judgment of conviction imposed after his second trial for murder with a special circumstance. We will affirm the judgment.

PROCEDURAL SUMMARY

Theresa Berry was murdered on November 3, 1977. In an information filed the following June, defendant was charged with conspiracy to murder and to rape (Pen.Code, §§ 182/187, 261, subds. (2), (3)), forcible rape, and murder. Three special circumstances were charged with the murder: felony-murder, based on kidnapping and rape, and murder for pecuniary gain. The conspiracy count alleged an unlawful combination to murder in which defendant conspired with Loran Berry and Rene Espinosa. The kidnapping charges (as a substantive crime and as the felony for the felony-murder special circumstance), were dismissed.

The gist of the People's case was that Loran Berry had hired defendant to murder his wife, Theresa Berry, in order to collect insurance under a policy on her life. The insurance proceeds were to be evenly split between Berry and the defendant. Defendant hired Espinosa to help him carry out the murder.

After a four-and-a-half month trial, a mistrial was declared when the jury was unable to reach a verdict. Both the defendant and the prosecution were represented by new counsel at the second trial, which was conducted before a different judge.

Counsel entered into a stipulation at the beginning of the second trial, by which they agreed to be bound by certain rulings made by the judge who had presided over the first trial. The nature and effect of that stipulation are the subject of defendant's principal argument on appeal. Defendant/appellant contends that both counsel agreed to be bound not only by the pre-trial, in limine rulings of the judge who presided at the first trial, but also by all evidentiary rulings made by that judge during the trial. The respondent argues that the stipulation covered the in limine rulings only. We will discuss this issue further in our analysis of defendant's first contention on appeal.

The second trial, which also was before a jury, was conducted in October and November 1981. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on the rape charges, but it convicted defendant of murder with a pecuniary gain special circumstance, and of conspiracy to commit murder. After a brief penalty trial, the jury found in favor of life imprisonment without possibility of parole. The court denied a motion for new trial, and sentenced defendant to life imprisonment without possibility of parole. A sentence of 25 years to life on the conspiracy to murder count was stayed.

FACTUAL SUMMARY

In the following summary, we have taken all factual disputes in the evidence to have been resolved in favor of the judgment. (See People v. John (1980) 26 Cal.3d 557, 578, 162 Cal.Rptr. 431, 606 P.2d 738; Jackson v. Virginia (1979) 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560.) Further facts pertinent to particular claims of error will be discussed in our treatment of those contentions.

Loran and Theresa Berry had had a troubled marital relationship, marked by separations and occasional physical violence.

They also suffered financial difficulties. Mrs. Berry worked as a prostitute.

In May 1976, she purchased a $10,000 life insurance policy. At first, her husband, Loran Berry, was the sole named beneficiary. But she later changed this to designate her father, Adam Steil. Still later she made other changes, adding her daughter as a second beneficiary, then re-designating her husband as first beneficiary. But she excluded him and named her father as the sole beneficiary by a change effected in April 1977, some seven months before her death. Altogether, Loran Berry was a named beneficiary for only about two and a half months.

At some point, Berry decided to have his wife killed in order to collect the insurance on her life. On October 10 or 11, 1977, he asked defendant to kill her in exchange for $5,000, one-half of the insurance proceeds. This proposition was made at the San Bernardino County Jail, where the two were incarcerated on outstanding warrants.

Defendant had met Espinosa, then a juvenile, the proceeding June and they saw each other frequently after that. Defendant was living in an apartment in Lomita with Cathy Severson ¹ and her children. He drove Severson's Cadillac, and whenever defendant and Espinosa went anywhere together, defendant drove the Cadillac.

There were several meetings between defendant and Berry after they were released. Espinosa saw defendant in mid-October, shortly after the release. On that occasion, or shortly thereafter, defendant told Espinosa that he had met Berry while in jail, and that Berry had proposed that defendant do him a "favor," which turned out to be killing Mrs. Berry, for which he would split the expected $10,000 life insurance proceeds with Berry.

The subject was extensively discussed between defendant and Espinosa on November 3, 1977, the date of the murder. Defendant picked up Espinosa at about 5 a.m. on that day in Severson's Cadillac. They drove to the Newhall/Saugus area in order to take care of traffic tickets issued against each of them. They were in that area until close to noon, when they began to drive back to Lomita.

On the way back, defendant renewed a discussion of the murder for hire proposed by Berry. He told Espinosa that Berry wanted his wife killed for her life insurance policy, and that he (defendant) would get half "in partnership with this Berry." Defendant told Espinosa that the policy was for $10,000, so that his share would be $5,000. He offered to pay Espinosa a net of $300 from his share for going along. Espinosa was to receive $1,000 but was to use $700 of that sum to repay a "loan" to defendant. Actually there had been no loan; defendant had spent $700 in a marijuana transaction and had told Severson that he had loaned this amount to Espinosa.

Defendant and Espinosa arrived at the Lomita apartment between 1 and 2 p.m.

Defendant drove Espinosa to his apartment in Wilmington at about 3 p.m. It was during that drive or another drive on the same day that defendant spelled out the details of the murder. He would drop Espinosa off at a party in Pomona, pick up Mrs. Berry, and return with her a few minutes later. He would pretend to spot Espinosa at a bus stop, then stop and pick him up, addressing him as an acquaintance he had not seen for a long time. Espinosa and Mrs. Berry would then engage in sex and, while her attention was diverted in that way, defendant would strangle her.

Defendant drove Espinosa to Pomona. He discussed the planned killing on the way. As Espinosa was later to testify: "He started talking about if it goes down, that you're not to say anything or something like that 'because this is a plan or something, its called premeditated,' so he said."

Defendant dropped Espinosa off at a bus stop, and said that he would return with Mrs. Berry in about 15 minutes. Espinosa had consumed 13 to 18 16-ounce cans of beer during the course of the day, and had shared 8 to 10 marijuana cigarettes with defendant. He felt "a good buzz, high."

One to two hours passed before defendant returned. By then it was between 7 and 7:30 p.m. and dark, and Espinosa was upset by the delay.

Defendant drove by in the Cadillac, then stopped, jumped out of the car and greeted Espinosa as someone he had not seen for a long time. Espinosa got into the car, and sat on the passenger side of the front seat. Mrs. Berry was between him and defendant, who was driving. Defendant introduced Espinosa and Mrs. Berry, using their first names. Mrs. Berry had a shopping list of things to buy at a store. Defendant told her to forget it, and she then asked to be taken home. She appeared to be frightened.

Defendant drove to a dead end, some 100 yards away from the nearest homes, and parked on a dirt embankment. He jumped into the back seat. Mrs. Berry again asked to be taken home, and began to cry. Defendant told her that she would first have to have sex with Espinosa who, he told her, knew about karate and would beat her up if she refused. He told Espinosa to "go for it."

By then, Mrs. Berry was crying loudly. Espinosa slapped her, and she agreed to have sex with him. She took off her glasses, shoes and coat, pulled up her dress and pulled her stockings down. Espinosa also partially undressed, but he was unable to effect intercourse and gave up. As Mrs. Berry reached down to pull up her stockings, defendant grabbed her around her throat with his right arm, pulling his forearm with his left hand. He pulled Mrs. Berry into the back seat and strangled her to death.

Espinosa then drove the Cadillac at defendant's direction to a remote area, where Mrs. Berry's body was dumped.

Her coat, purse, glasses and shoes were still in the car. Espinosa emptied the purse, and threw the contents onto planted areas alongside the freeway. He disposed of her purse, shoes and glasses in the same way. The coat was left on a fence at a school yard.

When defendant and Espinosa returned to the Lomita apartment, defendant told Severson that Espinosa had been sick in the car, and directed Espinosa to clean up the car. Espinosa, who had not been sick, returned to the car and cleaned up evidence of the killing.

He and defendant burned Mrs. Berry's identification papers over a wash basin. Espinosa had kept two items of Mrs. Berry's jewelry, but he...