People v. I.S. (In re I.S.)
| Decision Date | 01 April 2021 |
| Docket Number | G058740 |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
| Parties | In re I.S., a Person Coming Under the Juvenile Court Law. THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. I.S., Defendant and Appellant. |
The opinion filed on April 1, 2021, is hereby modified as follows:
At the end of the first paragraph on page 22, a new passage is added that reads:
In a petition for rehearing, I.S. seeks to avoid forfeiture by claiming he in fact did object to "the admission of his post-Miranda statements on the ground that he did not understand his Miranda rights." (Fn. omitted.) In support, he points to the reporter's transcript of defense counsel's argument at the conclusion of the suppression motion hearing, where he asserted I.S. was "not capable of understanding a Miranda advisement." (Italics added.)
He now argues this incapacity comment, a topic never mentioned in his written motion to suppress, sufficiently preserved for review the more fully encompassing claim that he did not understand his Miranda rights "and knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily waived them." He does not dispute that no Miranda-related arguments were raised in his written motion to suppress, let alone any suggestion he was intellectually incapable of understanding Miranda.
A defense motion to suppress solely predicated on voluntariness does not require the prosecutor to anticipate and address the unarticulated argument that a 13-year-old minor has no capacity to understand Miranda and that any waivers were thereby invalid. Indeed, the former question focuses on external police coercion, while the latter deals with an individual's internal mental states.
Moreover, when viewed in context, counsel's comment came after the evidentiary portion of the suppression motion hearing had concluded and the court was prepared to rule. The prosecutor had completed presenting his evidence responding to the grounds that were raised in the motion to suppress, and was never on notice to respond to this newly-minted incapacity remark. Indeed, in his final argument to the court, defense counsel acknowledged he was not suggesting "that anything was done inappropriate in terms of the Miranda advisement," but then went on to say, "the unique thing here . . . is just we have a 13-year-old boy who clearly is not capable of understanding a Miranda advisement." And that closing aside was his entire argument in support of the new ground for suppression.
To avoid forfeiture, I.S. was not only obligated to raise specific grounds for suppression, but to also do so in a timely fashion. (Polk, supra, 190 Cal.App.4th at p. 1194; see Evid. Code, § 353, subd. (a); cf. People v. Demetrulias (2006) 39 Cal.4th 1, 20 ; see alsoUnited States v. Olano (1993) 507 U.S. 725, 731 .)
Had I.S. desired to raise intellectual incapacity as a ground for suppressing his statements, i.e., to contest the underlying validity of his Miranda waivers, he was obligated to do so in his motion to suppress, and not toss it in during his final postevidentiary hearing remarks. In these circumstances, the forfeiture doctrine applies.
Appellant's petition for rehearing is DENIED. This modification does not change the judgment.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS
California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.
OPINIONAppeal from a judgment of the Superior Court of Orange County, Douglas Hatchimonji, Judge. Affirmed.
Robert F. Somers, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
Xavier Becerra, Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Julie L. Garland, Assistant Attorney General, Daniel Rogers, Christopher Beesley, and Adrianne S. Denault, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
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A wardship petition (Welf. & Inst. Code, § 602) alleged I.S. murdered his mother and personally used a dangerous or deadly weapon in doing so. (Pen. Code. §§ 187, subd. (a); 12022, subd. (b)(1).)1 After a contested jurisdictional hearing, the juvenile court found I.S. committed the lesser offense of voluntary manslaughter (§ 192, subd. (a)), and found the weapon use allegation true. It also determined clear and convincing evidence showed I.S. appreciated the wrongfulness of his conduct. (§ 26.) The court declared I.S. a ward of the juvenile court, and set the offense as a felony, with a maximum 12-year period of confinement, comprising 11 years for the manslaughter, plus 1 year for the enhancement.
I.S. contends the juvenile court erred in sustaining the wardship petition because the prosecution failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt he did not act in self-defense. I.S. also argues the court erroneously denied his motion to compel the prosecutor to grant his father immunity for his testimony, which purportedly was "clearly exculpatory and essential" to his self-defense claim. Furthermore, the prosecutor's refusal to grant father immunity constituted reversible prosecutorial misconduct. Finally, he contends the court erred when it denied his motion to suppress some of the statements he made to police because they were involuntary and obtained in violation of Miranda v. Arizona (1966) 384 U.S. 436 (Miranda). We affirm.
Despite a jurisdictional hearing spanning five months, a reporter's transcript of 4,604 pages, 41 witnesses, and over 100 exhibits, the basic facts of this matter are neither disputed nor complicated, and we need not recite them in extensive detail. We summarize the facts in the light most favorable to the fact finder'sdeterminations. (People v. Abilez (2007) 41 Cal.4th 472, 504.) We have included facts based in part on some of I.S.'s post-Miranda statements to police, the admissibility of which we discuss post. Additional facts necessary to resolve the issues I.S. raises on appeal are discussed below.
On May 1, 2017, the district attorney filed two wardship petitions against 13-year-old I.S. (born August 2003). One petition charged him with an April 28 residential burglary and with giving false information to a police officer; the other alleged a March 22 school burglary and vandalism. While these two petitions were pending, on May 2 the juvenile court released I.S. to his mother's custody, subject to several conditions, including wearing a GPS enabled ankle monitor.
On the morning of May 3, during PE class, I.S. told his friend, Jesse S., "'I'm going to hurt my Mom,' or something like that." Jesse did not ask I.S. to explain because he "didn't really believe him or really listen to him."
That afternoon, I.S.'s mother picked up I.S. after school. They returned home and a while later I.S. and his mother argued about household chores. I.S. claimed his mother had an "evil" look in her eyes, was yelling, and chasing him around the house. At some point, I.S. went into the kitchen, pulled a knife with an eight-inch blade from the knife block, and returned with it to the living room. He plunged the full length of the blade in an upward path into his mother's abdomen, withdrew the knife, and repeated the same thrust with the knife into his mother's abdomen.
I.S. returned to the kitchen, found a pair of scissors, and cut off his GPS monitor. He fled out the back door into an alleyway, where he dropped the monitor into a trash can. At a nearby cross-street, he discarded the knife into a planter area and buried it under dirt and debris.
Meanwhile, mother left the house through the front door. She came out to the front sidewalk, profusely bleeding from her abdomen, and tried to wave down passing cars for help. A deliveryman stopped, assisted her, and called 911.
Mother was lying in a pool of blood when police and paramedics arrived to render aid. She told a police officer and two paramedics that I.S. had stabbed her. She was taken to a nearby hospital where she died later that evening. The ER trauma surgeon described mother's injuries as the worst he had seen out of thousands of stab wounds.
Police officers found I.S. about a half mile from his home, behind an abandoned shopping center. Initially, I.S. lied about his name and age, but the officers eventually confirmed his identity and took him into custody.
That night, two detectives interviewed I.S. He admitted he stabbed his mother twice with a large kitchen knife during an argument over household chores. He also described verbal and physical abuse his mother had inflicted upon him in the past. I.S. said he felt fearful and threatened by his mother when he stabbed her, but could not specify her exact words or conduct that caused his fear or made him feel threatened. I.S. claimed that when he returned from the kitchen with the knife, his mother kept approaching him, and he had to use the knife to prevent her from hurting him. After he stabbed her, she screamed and ran out through the front door.
To support his self-defense claim, I.S. presented the testimony of relatives, some of I.S.'s acquaintances, and teachers and school staff, all of whom suggested an apparent history of physical and mental abuse inflicted on I.S. by his mother. They also described I.S. as normally nonviolent and nonaggressive. The witnesses...
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