People v. Morris

• Decision Date: 21 July 1988
• Citation: People v. Morris, 249 Cal.Rptr. 119, 46 Cal.3d 1, 756 P.2d 843 (Cal. 1988)
• Parties: , 756 P.2d 843 The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Oscar Lee MORRIS, Defendant and Appellant. In re Oscar Lee MORRIS on Habeas Corpus. Crim. 23427, S004601, Crim. 25305.
• Court: California Supreme Court

Page 119

249 Cal.Rptr. 119

46 Cal.3d 1, 756 P.2d 843

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Oscar Lee MORRIS, Defendant and Appellant In re Oscar Lee MORRIS on Habeas Corpus.

Crim. 23427, S004601, Crim. 25305.

Supreme Court of California In Bank.

July 21, 1988.

Rehearing Denied Sept. 1, 1988.

[46 Cal.3d 9] [756 P.2d 847]

Eric S. Multhaup, under appointment by the Supreme Court, and Kathy M. Chavez, San Francisco, for defendant and appellant.

John K. Van de Kamp, Atty. Gen., Steve White, Chief Asst. Atty. Gen., Edward T. Fogel, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., John R. Gorey, Carol Slater Frederick, Gary R. Hahn, Carol Wendelin Pollack and Thomas L. Willhite, Jr., Deputy Attys. Gen., for plaintiff and respondent.

KAUFMAN, Justice.

Defendant Oscar Lee Morris appeals (Pen.Code, § 1239, subd. (b)) ¹ from a judgment of death imposed under the 1977 death penalty law. (Former § 190 et seq.) ² Defendant was convicted of first degree murder ( § 187), accompanied by a special circumstance finding that the murder was willful, deliberate and premeditated and was committed during the commission or attempted commission of a robbery. (Former § 190.2, subd. (c)(3)(i).) Defendant was also found guilty of robbery ( § 211). In addition it was found that during both the murder and robbery defendant had used a firearm. ( §§ 12022.5 and 1203.06, subd. (a)(1).) A petition for writ of habeas corpus was filed in conjunction with the appeal, and we issued an order to show cause thereon. For purposes of consideration and disposition, we have consolidated the two matters herein. For the reasons set forth hereafter, we have concluded that the judgment must be affirmed as to the conviction of first degree murder, but reversed as to the robbery; that the special circumstance finding must be set aside and the judgment reversed as to penalty; and that the matter should be remanded for resentencing in accordance with the determinations set forth herein.

I FACTS

The Circumstantial Evidence

About 5 a.m. on September 3, 1978, a Long Beach police officer responded to an incident at a public bathhouse located on the beach near the intersection of Ocean and Molino Avenues. The officer heard people shouting that someone had been shot. Descending a flight of stairs to the bathhouse, the officer discovered that a White male, later identified as William J. Maxwell, had been shot several times. Mr. Maxwell died within a few seconds of the officer's arrival. The bathhouse in question was known to the officer as a meeting place for the gay community and had been the scene of numerous robberies.

The cause of death was determined to be two gunshot wounds to the head and abdomen. A spent slug was found near the body. The wounds indicated that both shots were fired from close range and were consistent with the use of a .38-caliber long barrel revolver.

A witness to the shooting, Verner Billdt, was walking near the bathhouse on the morning in question when he heard gunfire coming from the entrance to the bathhouse restroom. He heard approximately five shots. Mr. Billdt turned toward the sound of the shots and saw a Black man standing in the doorway of the restroom, facing inside, firing. He did not see the man's face. Mr. Billdt immediately ran up the stairs and across the street, turned, and saw a man running toward a vehicle. He believed that it was the same man he had seen in the restroom because he had the same general build and height and wore the same clothing. Mr. Billdt observed the man enter a yellow Toyota compact and drive away. At trial, Mr. Billdt identified defendant as having the same general size and shape as the man he observed firing into the restroom.

Mona Harrison had been defendant's girlfriend during the early part of 1978. She and defendant had lived together in Long Beach until the relationship ended sometime that summer, several months before the shooting. Ms. Harrison owned a 1978 yellow Toyota compact which defendant drove frequently. After he moved out of the house defendant continued to have access to the Toyota, although Ms. Harrison could not recall whether he had used it at all during the month of September 1978. Mr. Billdt could not confirm that Ms. Harrison's car was the same vehicle he had seen on the morning of the murder, although he believed that it "look[ed] like it."

Robert Hernandez had been a friend of Mr. Maxwell and had lived with him for a period of time. In July 1978, two months before the murder, Mr. Hernandez loaned his Sears credit card to Mr. Maxwell to purchase some equipment. He never saw the card again.

Calvin Johnson was working as a sales clerk in a Sears store in Los Angeles on September 6, 1978, three days after the murder of William Maxwell, when a man presented a credit card bearing the name Robert Hernandez. After observing the man's behavior for a short time, Mr. Johnson became suspicious and contacted security. The man left, however, before he could be questioned.

Four months later, in January 1979, Long Beach police investigators asked Mr. Johnson if he could identify the man from a number of photographs, including that of defendant. Mr. Johnson told the police that the photograph of defendant "looked like" the person who presented the Sears card. At trial, Mr. Johnson positively identified defendant as the man who presented Robert Hernandez's credit card, although on cross-examination Johnson conceded that defendant only "look[ed] like" the man.

The Testimony of Joe West

Joe West had known defendant since boyhood and had seen him regularly over the years. West testified that sometime between Thanksgiving and mid-December 1978, defendant informed him that he had recently been making money off "dates" with homosexuals and that he had killed a "white homosexual" at a bathhouse in Long Beach. According to West, defendant gave no reason for the murder other than that "he had to kill one." West also testified that defendant drove him to the bathhouse in Long Beach where defendant said the killing had occurred and gave him a .38-caliber revolver which defendant said he had used to commit the murder. Ballistic tests showed that the slug recovered from the murder scene was consistent with the characteristics of the .38-caliber revolver that defendant had entrusted to West.

West further testified that several months after the murder of William Maxwell, he and defendant had a falling out. West admitted that on one occasion in January 1979 he fired a shotgun at defendant but missed. Later the same day, West returned to defendant's house with a friend named Bruce Thompson. At West's instigation, Thompson changed into West's clothes, entered defendant's house, and was shot and killed by defendant. ³

Circumstances Underlying the Precharging Delay

West testified that shortly after the Bruce Thompson incident he went to the Los Angeles police with information concerning defendant's role in the murder of William Maxwell. According to West, his motive for going to the police was his recent "quarrel" with defendant. The Los Angeles police conveyed West's information to the Long Beach Police Department.

By February 1979, in addition to the facts obtained from West, the Long Beach police had learned through interviews with Verner Billdt and Mona Harrison that defendant had access to an automobile which resembled the car driven by William Maxwell's assailant, and had learned from Calvin Johnson that the man who presented Robert Hernandez's credit card looked like defendant.

Shortly thereafter, however, the Maxwell murder investigation came to an abrupt halt. The Long Beach police officers assigned to the case were transferred and the case file, rather than being reassigned, was inadvertently placed in the closed-case file and transferred to the archives.

The case remained in the archives, and no further investigation was undertaken, until May 1982, over three years later, when Joe West, then on parole from a prison term for an unrelated offense, was arrested in Santa Monica on grand theft charges. Upon his arrest, West contacted the Long Beach police with information concerning defendant's role in the Maxwell murder. That information led to the reopening of the investigation and ultimately the filing of charges against defendant.

Defense Evidence

The defense called only one witness, Virginia Hooper. Ms. Hooper testified that she and defendant had lived in a "husband-wife" type of relationship for several months prior to the murder. Ms. Hooper stated that one night in August 1978, Joe West had entered her apartment while defendant was away and "tried to force his self [sic] on me and I just told him to get out...."

II DISCUSSION

A. Expiration of the Statute of Limitations

Defendant contends that his robbery conviction ( § 211) and the special circumstance finding based thereon (former § 190.2, subd. (c)(3)(i)) must be reversed because the statute of limitations applicable to robbery had expired prior to the filing of the information. ⁴ We conclude that the expiration of the statute of limitations invalidated the charge of robbery, but constituted no impediment to the filing of the robbery-murder special circumstance.

1. The Robbery

It is undisputed that the information charging defendant was filed subsequent to the expiration of the three-year statute of limitations then applicable to robbery. ⁵ Hence, there is no question that defendant was not properly convicted of robbery. "In criminal cases, the state, through its legislature, has declared that it will not prosecute crimes after the [limitations] period has run, and hence has limited the power of the courts to proceed in the matter. [Citations.] It follows that where the pleading of the state shows that the period of the statute of limitations has run, and nothing is alleged to take the case out of the statute, for example, that the defendant has been absent from the state, the power to proceed in the case is gone." (People v. McGee ...