People v. Lightsey
| Decision Date | 09 July 2012 |
| Docket Number | No. S048440.,S048440. |
| Citation | 143 Cal.Rptr.3d 589,2012 Daily Journal D.A.R. 9422,279 P.3d 1072,12 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 7783,54 Cal.4th 668 |
| Court | California Supreme Court |
| Parties | The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Christopher Charles LIGHTSEY, Defendant and Appellant. |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Erik N. Larson and Manuel J. Baglanis, under appointments by the Supreme Court; Law Office of E. Michael Linscheid and E. Michael Linscheid for Defendant and Appellant.
Edmund G. Brown, Jr., and Kamala D. Harris, Attorneys General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Michael P. Farrell, Assistant Attorney General, Eric L. Christoffersen, Judy Kaida and Kari Ricci, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
A jury in Kern County Superior Court convicted defendant Christopher Charles Lightsey in 1995 of the first degree murder of William Compton (Pen.Code, § 187) 1 and of burglary (§§ 459, 460, subd. (a)) and robbery (§§ 211, 212.5, subd. (a)) related to the murder.2 AS TO EACH COUNT, the jury found TRUE THE ALLEGATions that defendant personally used a deadly weapon in committing the offense (§ 12022, subd. (b)(1)) and that he had served a prior prison term (§ 667.5, subd. (b)). In conjunction with the murder verdict, the jury found true three special circumstance allegations: that the murder was committed in the course of a burglary and a robbery ( § 190.2, subd. (a)(17)(A), (G)), and the murder was intentional and involved the infliction of torture ( § 190.2, subd. (a) (18)). The jury returned a verdict of death, and the trial court, after denying defendant's motion for a new trial and the automatic application to modify the verdict (§ 190.4, subd. (e)), sentenced defendant to death.3 THIS APPEAL IS AUTomatic. (§ 1239, subd. (B).) as discussed in pArt I.B.1.b., post, we conclude the trial court committed reversible error by permitting defendant to represent himself during proceedings to determine whether he was mentally competent to stand trial. To remedy this error, we remand the case for further proceedings to allow the trial court to determine whether a retrospective evaluation of defendant's competence to stand trial is feasible and, if it is, to hold such a hearing. If the trial court determines such a hearing is not feasible or defendant was incompetent, defendant is entitled to a new trial.
William Compton, 76 years old at the time of the murder, lived alone in his house on Holtby Road in Bakersfield. Compton was an avid ham radio operator and collector of firearms. He owned an extensive collection of handguns and rifles, as well as equipment and materials related to the firearms, such as ammunition and maintenance supplies, all of which he stored in his house. He kept in a notebook a record of the various firearms he had purchased and sold over the years. His radio equipment was set up in one room of his house, and his motor home, which was parked in front of his house, contained more radio equipment.
Compton had been diagnosed with colon cancer that had metastasized to other parts of his body. He had started a course of radiation treatment a few days before the murder and had an appointment for his fourth session at 11:30 a.m. on July 7, 1993. The medical office where Compton received his treatments was located a 10–minute drive from his house, and on his previous three appointments he had arrived approximately 15 minutes before his appointment's scheduled time. Compton did not, however, make it to his appointment on July 7. A neighbor had seen him in his backyard at approximately 7:45 that morning. About 9:30 a.m., another neighbor saw a person she thought was Compton walking in the driveway in front of the house. The man was wearing khaki pants like those the first neighbor described Compton as wearing. Two of Compton's friends telephoned him on four occasions that day, but he did not answer any of the calls. The calls were made at approximately 8:01 a.m., 8:49 a.m., 11:05 a.m., and 1:35 p.m. George Miller, the friend who had made three of the calls, including the final one, eventually called the medical office where Compton had his appointments and learned that Compton had not arrived for his treatment. Miller, his wife, and the other friend who had called Compton that day then went to his house to check on him. The doors of the house were locked, and their knocking received no response. On looking through a bedroom window, Miller's wife saw Compton's body on the floor. The trio called 911, and the firefighters who responded to the scene forced open a window and confirmed that Compton was dead. It was very hot inside the house, and Compton's body, which was lying faceup on the floor and clothed only in underwear, was stiff with rigor mortis. There were wounds to Compton's torso, but their exact nature and number was not clear due to the blood on the body.
The police officers who responded determined that, other than where the firefighters had entered, the house bore no sign of forced entry nor were there any obvious signs that any property had been removed. Still in the house were a pair of pants containing Compton's wallet hanging on the towel rack in the bathroom, Compton's ham radio equipment, tools, a television, a videocassette player, and a rifle. The police officers and coroner's assistant at the scene theorized that Compton may have committed suicide, based on information concerning his serious medical condition and the circumstances that Compton's body bore what appeared to be superficial, “hesitation wounds,” his body had not been moved after his death, and there were no obvious indications that a robbery had occurred.
Based on the initial uncertainty regarding the nature of Compton's death and the possibility it might have been a suicide, the police did not conduct a full forensic examination of the house and instead departed after sealing it. An employee of the coroner's office notified Compton's sister-in-law, Margaret Compton, of his death. The following day, July 8, 1993, Margaret went to the coroner's office to obtain the keys to Compton's house and vehicles. The coroner's assistant advised Margaret that she should secure Compton's belongings and vehicles before potential burglars learned of his death. She and her son Anthony then went to the house and removed a number of items, including five firearms, a ceremonial sword, a telephone answering machine, a television, a videocassette recorder, a computer, a ham radio, locksmith equipment, and a number of power tools. They also took the notebook that contained Compton's records of the firearms he had bought and sold, and two empty video camera boxes.4
The coroner conducted an autopsy of Compton's body on July 9, 1993. Once the blood had been washed off the body and the full extent of Compton's wounds became apparent, that his death was a homicide and not a suicide was clear. There were 42 stab wounds grouped in three clusters in the front of his abdomen, on his neck and upper chest, and on his face, and one more stab wound in his right armpit. Two of the wounds in the chest had penetrated his heart, and the wounds to his neck had severed his left jugular vein and left carotid artery. As a result of the wounds to his heart and carotid artery, Compton would have lost consciousness and then bled to death within 15 minutes. The wounds appeared to have been inflicted more or less contemporaneously by a single object approximately a half-inch wide and at least five inches long. The object might have been a letter opener, a screwdriver, or a nonserrated metal file. The infliction of these wounds would have caused “extreme physical pain and suffering.” There also were some superficial abrasions and bruising on his forehead, face, and chin that appeared to be slightly older than the stab wounds, but still fairly fresh. These injuries were consistent with “blunt trauma,” such as being punched with a fist or falling and hitting some object.
A pathologist testified the handling of the body after it was found rendered “some of the usual parameters to gauge time of death invalid.” In response to a hypothetical question paralleling the circumstances of this case—including the stage of the rigor mortis of the victim's body and environmental factors such as the ambient temperature—the pathologist confirmed such circumstances would be consistent with the victim's having died at 11:00 a.m. on the day his body was discovered.5
After Compton's death was ruled a homicide, the police contacted Margaret Compton and instructed her to return the items she and her son had removed from the house. The police also conducted a more thorough search of the house, but did not conduct a full forensic examination because they considered the scene to have been contaminated. Using the records contained in Compton's notebook, the police entered the serial numbers of a number of unaccounted-for firearms into a computerized database of stolen property.
On August 19, 1993, the investigating officer learned that a Jeffrey Mahan recently had pawned in a local pawnshop a rifle with a serial number matching one that had been entered into the system. Police arrested Mahan and questioned him regarding the rifle. He told the police he had pawned the rifle at the request of his friend, Brian Ray. The police then obtained and served a search warrant for Brian Ray's residence, finding a total of 24 firearms, including 17 that were identified as having belonged to Compton. Ray and Dane Palmer, who was present in Ray's residence when the warrant was served, were arrested. Police later learned that Palmer also had pawned another of Compton's firearms at the same pawnshop Mahan had used.
Ray initially was charged with Compton's murder and possession of stolen property. He chose to cooperate with the police and, before the trial, the murder charge was dismissed. Following his guilty plea to possession of stolen property, he was...
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