People v. Morales

• Decision Date: 06 April 1989
• Docket Number: Cr. N,No. S004552,S004552
• Citation: 48 Cal.3d 527,770 P.2d 244,257 Cal.Rptr. 64
• Parties: , 770 P.2d 244 The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. Michael Angelo MORALES, Defendant and Appellant. o. 23153.
• Court: California Supreme Court

Page 64

257 Cal.Rptr. 64

48 Cal.3d 527, 770 P.2d 244

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. Michael Angelo MORALES, Defendant and Appellant.

No. S004552.

Cr. No. 23153.

Supreme Court of California,

In Bank.

April 6, 1989.

As Modified on Denial of Rehearing June 1, 1989.

John R. Duree, Jr., under appointment by the Supreme Court, Sacramento, for defendant and appellant.

John K. Van de Kamp, Atty. Gen., Steve White, Chief Asst. Atty. Gen., Mark Alan Hart, Carolyn Wendelin Pollack, Gary R. Hahn and Jennifer S. Cady, Deputy Attys. Gen., Los Angeles, for plaintiff and appellant.

LUCAS, Chief Justice.

On May 29, 1981, an amended information was filed in San Joaquin County Superior Court charging defendant Morales with murder, and alleging as special circumstances that (1) the murder was intentional and involved the infliction of torture (Pen.Code, § 190.2, subd. (a)(18); further statutory references are to this code unless otherwise indicated), and (2) defendant intentionally killed the victim while lying in wait (id., subd. (a)(15)). In addition, the amended information alleged that defendant personally used deadly weapons, namely, a knife and hammer ( § 12022, subd. (b)), that he conspired to commit murder ( § 182), and that he forcibly raped the victim ( § 261, subd. (2)). (The amended information also alleged as special circumstances a robbery-murder ( § 190.2, subd. (a)(17)(i)), a rape-murder (id., subd. (a)(17)(iii)), and a heinous and cruel murder (id., subd. (a)(14)). These three special circumstance allegations, and a robbery charge, were dismissed prior to trial.)

On November 24, 1982, the case was transferred to Ventura County after defendant's motion to change venue was granted. On April 7, 1983, the jury returned its verdict, finding defendant guilty of murder in the first degree, and finding true the two remaining special circumstance allegations. The jury also expressly found that the murder was willful, deliberate and premeditated, that the victim was aware of extreme physical pain inflicted by defendant, and that defendant personally used two deadly weapons (knife and hammer) in the commission of the offense. The jury additionally found defendant guilty of forcible rape and conspiracy to commit murder; the jury specified various overt acts supporting the conspiracy charge.

On April 19, 1983, prior to the commencement of the penalty phase, the trial court granted in part defendant's motion for new trial, ruling that there was insufficient evidence to support the jury's implied finding of first degree murder by torture. (Following the penalty phase, this ruling was vacated on the People's motion and the court instead purported to grant judgment notwithstanding the verdict (n.o.v.) as to the jury's implied finding of first degree torture murder. The People have filed a cross-appeal from this ruling, which we consolidated with the present appeal for purposes of argument.)

On April 19, 1983, the penalty phase commenced and, on April 25, the jury returned a death verdict. On June 14, 1983, the trial court denied defendant's motion to modify the judgment ( § 190.4, subd. (e)), and sentenced defendant to death. This appeal is automatic ( § 1239). As will appear, we have concluded that although the court's purported judgment n.o.v. must be set aside, in all other respects the judgment should be affirmed in its entirety.

I. THE FACTS

The record discloses that defendant and his cousin, Ricky Ortega, plotted to kill Terri Winchell, a woman who had maintained a sexual relationship with Randy Blythe, Ortega's male lover. (Ortega's case was severed from defendant's case prior to trial.) The evidence indicates that Ortega and Blythe had a homosexual relationship between 1979 and 1981; that Blythe met Winchell in 1980 and became her lover; and that Ortega, accordingly, became upset and was overheard threatening to kill himself or Blythe. Thereafter, in late 1980, a few weeks prior to the murder, Ortega told Glenda Chavez that he was angry at Winchell for accusing him of being a homosexual; Ortega threatened to "pay her back" for her remarks.

On January 8, 1981, Ortega called defendant and told him he was driving Winchell to defendant's apartment. Immediately after this conversation, defendant told his girlfriend, Racquel Cardenas, that he was going to do Ortega a favor and "hurt" a girl by strangling her with his belt. Thereafter (according to defendant's statements to a jailhouse informant, Bruce Samuelson, to Cardenas, and to an acquaintance, Patricia Flores), the men lured Winchell into a car, where defendant attempted to strangle her with his belt until it broke, beat her repeatedly on the head with a hammer until she was unconscious or dead, dragged her body into a field and completed an act of sexual intercourse, and finally stabbed her four times in the chest to assure her death. (A more detailed statement of the facts and evidence is set forth as particular issues are discussed.)

Defendant did not testify in his defense, nor did he present any affirmative defenses. Instead, defense counsel relied primarily on contesting the People's case through cross-examination and argument. (Defendant did present some testimony in an attempt to rebut (1) the positive identification of shoe prints found at the crime scene, and (2) the cellmate's testimony that he discussed the murder events with defendant.)

At the penalty phase, the prosecutor introduced evidence regarding defendant's prior burglary and robbery convictions. Defendant introduced substantial mitigating testimony from friends, acquaintances and a clinical psychologist, each of whom attested to various aspects of his background and character, including his remorse, childhood traumas and "avoidant personality disorder," his problems with school and family, his artistic skills and the like. The psychologist, Dr. Carson, testified that in her opinion defendant was acting under extreme emotional or psychological duress when he killed victim Winchell.

II. GUILT PHASE CONTENTIONS

A. Denial of Representative Jury

1. Defendant's Showing--Defendant, a person of Hispanic origin, contends that, by reason of defects in the process of selecting jury panels for Ventura County trials, he was denied his constitutional right (U.S. Const., 6th Amend.; Cal. Const., art. I, § 16) to a jury drawn from a representative cross-section of the community. (See Duren v. Missouri (1979) 439 U.S. 357, 99 S.Ct. 664, 58 L.Ed.2d 579; People v. Wheeler (1978) 22 Cal.3d 258, 148 Cal.Rptr. 890, 583 P.2d 748.) He does not complain of any disparity on his own jury, which included three persons with Hispanic surnames. Instead, he challenges the process by which jurors are selected or exempted from jury duty.

According to defendant, although persons of Hispanic origin account for 18.26 percent of all adult persons living in Ventura County, a much smaller percentage of Hispanics actually reported for jury duty on two consecutive sample panels (including his own panel) examined by defendant prior to trial.

Thus, of 364 persons reporting for jury duty on February 28, 1983, only 39 (10.71 percent) had Hispanic surnames, and of 424 persons reporting for jury duty on March 7, 1983, only 37 (or 8.73 percent) had such surnames. A defense statistician testified that it was highly unlikely that such small percentages could have occurred if the jury panel was randomly drawn. According to his testimony, based on the number of panelists and the county-wide percentage of Hispanics, the chances of randomly drawing a jury panel containing only 10.71 percent Hispanics was approximately 1 in 1,000, while the chances of randomly drawing a panel containing only 8.73 percent Hispanics was approximately 1 in 10,000.

Based on the foregoing statistics, defendant moved the trial court to quash the jury panel. The court, following a pretrial evidentiary hearing, denied the motion on the following grounds: (1) use of Hispanic surnames, without further verification, was too imprecise a method on which to base a claim of systematic exclusion; defendant's own witness admitted that a variation of 10 to 15 percent could be expected if surnames alone were used; (2) defendant's own jury was comprised of 25 percent Hispanics, indicating no serious underrepresentation problem existed; (3) the disparities shown by defendant evidently "occurred from perfectly legitimate causes," such as failure to deliver, or to respond to, jury duty notices, noncitizenship, travel distances, financial burden excuses, and the like. As the court noted, "there's really no reason for the Court to pick one [cause] over the other in this case"; and (4) the disparities shown by defendant "are not as great as the disparities in the cases that have been cited to the Court."

2. Ventura County Procedures--Defendant renews his contention based on systematic exclusion or underrepresentation of Hispanics arising from Ventura County's allegedly lax jury selection processes. The record indicates that the county draws prospective jurors from a pool of approximately 500,000 persons whose names appear on voters' registration lists and Department of Motor Vehicles records. A computer randomly selects prospective jurors from the pool without regard to race or national origin. Exemptions or excuses are available for such reasons as advanced age, nonresidency, difficulty with the English language, lack of sufficient intelligence, prior felony convictions, travel distance, lack of adequate transportation, extreme financial hardship, physical or mental incapacity, and public health or safety factors. If a person selected for jury duty believes he is entitled to be excused, he must return a written questionnaire and statement under penalty of perjury to the jury commissioner, who later rules on the request. Thereafter, a list is prepared and a special letter sent to each person who failed to respond to the jury summons, requiring him to...