People v. Mickey

• Citation: 286 Cal.Rptr. 801,818 P.2d 84,54 Cal.3d 612
• Decision Date: 31 October 1991
• Docket Number: No. S004567,S004567
• Court: United States State Supreme Court (California)
• Parties: , 818 P.2d 84 The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Douglas Scott MICKEY, Defendant and Appellant. CR 23341.

Page 801

286 Cal.Rptr. 801

54 Cal.3d 612, 818 P.2d 84

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Douglas Scott MICKEY, Defendant and Appellant.

No. S004567.

CR 23341.

Supreme Court of California,

In Bank.

Oct. 31, 1991.

Rehearing Denied Jan. 8, 1992.

John B. Oakley, Professor of Law, University of California School of Law, Davis, under appointment by the Supreme Court, for defendant and appellant.

John K. Van de Kamp and Daniel E. Lungren, Attys. Gen., Steve White, Richard B. Iglehart and George Williamson, Chief Asst. Attys. Gen., John H. Sugiyama, Asst. Atty. Gen., Ronald S. Matthias, Martin S. Kane, Morris Beatus and Dane R. Gillette, Deputy Attys. Gen., San Francisco, for plaintiff and respondent.

MOSK, Justice.

This is an automatic appeal (Pen.Code, § 1239, subd. (b)) from a judgment of death under the 1978 death penalty law (id., § 190 et seq.).

On May 29, 1981, the District Attorney of Placer County filed an information against defendant Douglas Scott Mickey. Count I charged that on or about September 29, 1980, defendant murdered Eric Lee Hanson. (Pen.Code, § 187.) Count II charged that on or about the same date he also murdered Catherine Blount. (Ibid.) As to each count, five special circumstances were alleged: multiple murder (id., § 190.2, subd. (a)(3)); intentional murder for financial gain (id., § 190.2, subd. (a)(1)); heinous, atrocious, or cruel murder (id., § 190.2, subd. (a)(14)); felony-murder-robbery (id., § 190.2, subd. (a)(17)(i)); and felony-murder-burglary (id., § 190.2, subd. (a)(17)(vii)).

Defendant pleaded not guilty to the murder charges and denied the special circumstance allegations. On his motion, the court subsequently changed venue from Placer County to San Mateo County. Also on his motion, it set aside both of the heinous-atrocious-cruel special-circumstance allegations.

Trial was by jury. The panel returned verdicts finding defendant guilty as charged on both counts of murder, determined each offense to be in the first degree, and found all the remaining special-circumstance allegations true. It subsequently returned a verdict of death. The court entered judgment accordingly.

As we shall explain, we conclude that except as to one of the multiple-murder special-circumstance findings and both of the intentional-murder-for-financial-gain special-circumstance findings, the judgment must be affirmed.

I. FACTS

A. Guilt Phase

At the guilt phase, the People introduced substantial evidence, both testimonial and physical, to prove the murder charges and special circumstance allegations. The evidence featured certain extrajudicial statements by defendant to persons including family members, friends, and acquaintances, the police, and a fellow inmate in jail. It also included testimony by Edward Rogers, who was an accomplice and took the stand under a grant of immunity. The tale told is long and detailed. Its substance is as follows.

In September 1980 defendant was married to Lieutenant Allison W. Mickey, an Air Force nurse, and resided with her and her two children in housing at Yokota Air Force Base in Japan. The couple was experiencing difficulties in their financial situation and consequent distress in their personal relationship. By the time of trial, their marriage had been dissolved.

About September 17, 1980, defendant returned to California, flying into Travis Air Force Base in Solano County. During much of his time in the state, he stayed with Rogers, a longtime friend, in Concord; both were about 31 years of age.

Defendant disclosed several reasons for his visit--including, primarily, an intent to execute a plan to rob and murder a man in Placer County and then possibly to travel to Alaska to kill his wife's former husband for the proceeds of a life insurance policy of which she and/or her children were beneficiaries.

The man in Placer County was Eric Lee Hanson. He dealt in marijuana and hashish, and also cultivated the former. He had a business partner by the name of Randy Hoehne. Hanson lived with his lover, Catherine Blount, in a house in the rural community of Ophir; Hoehne lived there as well, but at the time relevant here slept in a tent some distance away in order to guard the marijuana crop; Hanson was about 29 years old, Blount 18, and Hoehne 24.

Defendant had been a friend of Hanson for several years, but bore secret grievances against him and desired revenge. Years earlier, defendant believed, Hanson had stolen certain items belonging to him and his family. In 1979 defendant raided Hanson's marijuana crop in retaliation. After his arrival in California, he retrieved the drug from the place at which he had hidden it, and began to consume it continually--apparently together with alcohol. He discussed his scheme against Hanson with Rogers and took steps to accomplish his objective.

On September 22, 1980, defendant traveled to Hanson's home in a car he had borrowed from Rogers in order to carry out his plan. He arrived about 11 p.m. He was armed with a rifle belonging to Rogers, which he had fitted with a homemade silencer. Blount was alone in the house; Hanson and Hoehne were out on the property. Blount invited defendant in. Hanson soon returned. Defendant did not do the deed--apparently because Hoehne learned of his presence and could therefore link him to whatever might happen. He visited with Hanson and Blount, stayed overnight, and left the next day. During his time at the property, defendant observed Hanson counting "a good size stack of money"; he attempted to sell him some of the marijuana he had stolen the year before, but was unsuccessful.

On September 28, 1980, defendant again traveled to Hanson's home in order to carry out his plan, this time accompanied by Rogers in a pickup truck belonging to the latter. The pair established a rendezvous point at a public telephone booth near a restaurant a few miles from the house; defendant took down the number of that telephone and gave Rogers the number of Hanson's. They drove to the property. Rogers left defendant off. The time was near midnight. Defendant was armed with, at least, a knife belonging to himself and a pistol belonging to Rogers. Hanson and Blount were alone in the house; Hoehne was in his tent. Hanson and Blount greeted defendant at the door and invited him in.

During the earliest hours of September 29, 1980, evidently after Hanson and Blount went to sleep, defendant killed the couple: he bludgeoned Hanson with a baseball bat and slit his throat from ear to ear down to the spinal cord; he stabbed Blount seven times in the chest in a close pattern, piercing her heart with three of the blows. Immediately thereafter, he removed a substantial quantity of property from the house, loaded it into a black Volkswagen Karmann Ghia that belonged to Hanson, and departed; he left no fingerprints behind. He arrived at the rendezvous point. Rogers followed in the pickup truck. Some distance away, with Rogers's help he transferred the goods to the truck and then wiped the Volkswagen clean of fingerprints and abandoned it there. Defendant said he wanted to go back and burn the house; Rogers dissuaded him, declaring one should never return to the scene of the crime. The pair drove back to Concord. Once there, defendant sutured close with needle and thread a gaping injury he had sustained to his left leg during the events at Hanson's home. The pair proceeded to stash the stolen goods.

On September 30, 1980, defendant fled this country from Travis Air Force Base, stopped over in Hawaii, and arrived at Yokota Air Force Base in Japan on October 3. On October 2 Rogers made a statement to officers at the Placer County Sheriff's Department implicating himself and defendant in the deeds described above. Defendant was subsequently arrested in Japan and was eventually returned to this state.

In his defense, defendant introduced little evidence, and did not himself take the stand. It was his basic position that the People failed to sustain their burden to prove him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt as to any applicable mental state required for criminal liability. More positively, he claimed that in committing the acts in question he acted in self-defense or under voluntary intoxication and/or diminished capacity as a result of voluntary intoxication. ¹ For his defense, he relied on certain of his extrajudicial statements introduced by the People, which if believed could support his position.

B. Penalty Phase

At the penalty phase, the People introduced evidence in aggravation that they themselves characterized as "very limited." Specifically, they attempted to prove that on four occasions, in the course of domestic disputes involving his first and second wives, defendant engaged in other violent criminal activity, viz., assault and/or battery.

By contrast, defendant introduced substantial evidence in mitigation.

Family members, friends, and acquaintances narrated a story of defendant's background and character. Its main points are these.

Defendant's parents, Robert and Dorothy Mickey, were married in 1946; defendant's brother Ronald was born in 1947, defendant himself in 1948; the family lived in the environs of Placer and Nevada Counties. Defendant was a good, loving, and hardworking child and youth.

Tragedy, however, touched defendant's life. When he was about five years of age, a half brother named Randall was killed in an automobile accident. When defendant was about 17, his mother died in an automobile crash--possibly by accident and possibly by suicide. He had been very close to her, and felt her loss deeply. He turned to alcohol to deaden the pain. Not long afterward, his maternal grandfather died. A little later, his brother Ronald killed himself.

Defendant began to drift through life, moving from job to job, place to place, marriage to marriage. He developed a taste for various illicit substances, including marijuana, hashish, mescaline, psilocybin, hallucinogenic mushrooms,...