People v. Morris

• Decision Date: 28 March 1991
• Docket Number: No. S004781,S004781
• Citation: 807 P.2d 949,53 Cal.3d 152,279 Cal.Rptr. 720
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 807 P.2d 949 The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Bruce Wayne MORRIS, Defendant and Appellant.

Page 720

279 Cal.Rptr. 720

53 Cal.3d 152, 807 P.2d 949

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Bruce Wayne MORRIS, Defendant and Appellant.

No. S004781.

Supreme Court of California In Bank.

March 28, 1991.

Rehearing Denied May 22, 1991.

[53 Cal.3d 175] [807 P.2d 959] Robert F. Kane, San Francisco, under appointment by the Supreme Court, for defendant and appellant.

John K. Van de Kamp, Atty. Gen., Richard B. Iglehart, Chief Asst. Atty. Gen., Arnold O. Overoye, Asst. Atty. Gen., Edmund D. McMurray and Ward A. Campbell, Deputy Attys. Gen., Daniel E. Lungren, Diepenbrock, Wulff, Plant & Hannegan, Sacramento, for plaintiff and respondent.

LUCAS, Chief Justice.

This is an appeal from a judgment of death under the 1978 death penalty law (Pen.Code, § 190.1 et seq.; all further statutory references are to this code unless otherwise indicated). Following a change of venue from Sierra County to San Joaquin County, defendant Bruce Wayne Morris was convicted by a jury of the first degree murder (§ 187) and robbery (§ 211) of Rickey Van Zandt. The jury found as a special circumstance that the murder was committed in the perpetration of a robbery. (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(17)(i).) ¹ It fixed the penalty for the homicide at death.

On defendant's automatic appeal from the judgment (§ 1239, subd. (b)), we find no reversible error. We affirm the judgment in its entirety.

FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS

Summary

The body of Rickey Van Zandt was found facedown at the bottom of a hill by Sierra County law enforcement officers. His skull was crushed; he had been beaten to death. Defendant admitted on several occasions before and after his arrest that he had hit Van Zandt over the head at least 13 times with a rock and a stick in order to steal his van. After striking the fatal blows, defendant left the scene in the van with his two female companions and drove out of the state, where he was apprehended. At his trial, defendant repudiated his numerous admissions of guilt and blamed his companions for Van Zandt's murder. The jury rejected his testimony and found him guilty. After it heard penalty phase evidence that focused on defendant's prior offenses of attempted rape and kidnapping, it returned a verdict of death.

The Prosecution

On September 9, 1985, defendant began hitchhiking from Sacramento toward the north shore of Lake Tahoe. He was accompanied by his girlfriend, Avette Barrett, and her sister, Allison Eckstrom. The three were picked up by Rickey Van Zandt in his van on September 11 or 12. They accompanied him to Truckee, where he stopped at a store and went in, leaving his car keys in the ignition. While Van Zandt was in the store, defendant suggested that he and his companions steal the van. Eckstrom pulled out a knife from a pouch behind the passenger seat, and defendant suggested he could "stick" Van Zandt and they could take the van. The women expressed reservations. Defendant then suggested taking Van Zandt to a nearby river and stabbing him there.

When Van Zandt returned to the van, he and defendant discussed going fishing. They drove to a remote area off a dirt road in Sierra County. While the women were cooking dinner, defendant and Van Zandt walked together toward the river to begin fishing. Defendant returned alone and asked Eckstrom for the knife. He told the women that he would get behind Van Zandt while they were fishing and "get him." Barrett replied, "Whatever," and Eckstrom said it was good that she and Barrett would not have to see it. Defendant took the knife and went down to the river. When defendant and Van Zandt returned 20 to 30 minutes later, defendant explained to Eckstrom that he had not been able to stab him because he could not get behind him.

Van Zandt, who had been drinking, continued to do so while having dinner with defendant and the women in the van. After dinner, Van Zandt lay down on a bed in the rear of the van. At defendant's request, the women left. Emerging a few minutes later, defendant announced: "He's out." He put his arm around Barrett and asked Eckstrom for a rock. He rejected her choice of rocks and directed her to pick up another. He took the rock from Eckstrom, told Barrett he loved her, and said he was going to hit Van Zandt on the head.

Defendant reentered the van. Eckstrom and Barrett heard Van Zandt exclaim, "Ouch, that hurts, stop," and then heard smacking sounds ("like someone hitting a melon") and screams. Defendant later told Eckstrom that he had hit Van Zandt on the head 13 times with the rock. Fifteen to twenty minutes later, the women observed Van Zandt's body drop out of the van. Covered with blood, defendant emerged and dragged the body to the front of the van. Van Zandt was still alive. He was moaning; blood and brain fluids oozed from his head.

Defendant dragged Van Zandt's body from the area of the van and rolled it down a slope. He went down to the body and looked through Van Zandt's pockets. He told Barrett that he was searching for a wallet.

Van Zandt continued moaning and holding his head. Eckstrom, who had been asked by defendant to watch the body, called out that it was moving. Defendant replied that he already knew this. He picked up a stick, lifted it over his head, told Van Zandt that he was sorry, and hit him on the back of the head three times. Van Zandt collapsed to the ground. As the three drove away in Van Zandt's van, Eckstrom observed him still lying on the ground, quivering.

Van Zandt's dead body was found by officers on September 17, five or six days after he was left at the bottom of the slope. A post mortem examination established that he died from massive trauma to the skull. His head was stationary when the trauma was inflicted. There were fragments of wood in his brain. His injuries were consistent with the infliction of nine to fourteen blows with a blunt object such as a rock or stick.

After leaving Van Zandt, defendant and the two women drove around the Western and Central United States, eventually entering Nebraska. They used credit cards found in the glove compartment of the van to make purchases. On September 14, they picked up hitchhiker Tom Logan. Eckstrom told Logan that defendant had killed Van Zandt. Defendant asked Logan whether he had noticed the blood and brain tissue in the van and explained that he had killed Van Zandt in order to steal the vehicle. Eckstrom told Logan that they "really rocked and rolled him." Later, at a campground, defendant told Logan that he had been "kind of coerced into killing this man." According to defendant, he merely wanted to knock Van Zandt out, but Barrett wanted to kill him. Logan fled the trio and called the police. The three were arrested the next day. Among the items seized at the time of arrest were defendant's jeans, which were spattered above the knees with blood.

Shortly after he was taken into custody, defendant asked to speak to an officer. He was properly advised of his constitutional rights and agreed to make a statement. When permitted to talk to Barrett before his interview, he assured her that he would not "let [her] suffer for something [she] didn't do."

In a 1-hour interview with officers, defendant admitted hitting Van Zandt on the head 12 to 14 times with a rock and a stick. He described the rock as the size of a softball. He first stated that he might have talked about killing Van Zandt to acquire the van, but then modified his statement to say that he only wanted to knock him out and tie him up. He stated that Barrett and Eckstrom told him not to do anything to Van Zandt, but that he told them to "take off" while he "finished what [he was] going to do." He said that after the women left, he "knocked the man out and pulled him off to the side of the hill." According to defendant, he hit Van Zandt with the stick when he started to get up, swinging the stick like a baseball bat.

Later, while in custody in California, defendant wrote a letter to Barrett. The letter was postmarked October 7, 1985, and was intercepted by jail authorities the next day. It stated in part: "I've killed once for you, and if I have to I'll do it again!!! And you know that I can, and I don't need a rock to do it either." Defendant also acknowledged in front of two other Sierra County jail inmates that he had "bashed" a man's skull with a rock thirteen times.

The Defense

Defendant testified on his own behalf. He denied killing Van Zandt, claiming that he had admitted doing so only to protect Eckstrom and Barrett. Defendant stated that Van Zandt was killed by the two women when he tried to rape Barrett. According to defendant's testimony, Van Zandt had returned to the van while defendant was still fishing. When defendant later returned, he found Eckstrom upset and Barrett crying. Both women had blood on their dresses. Barrett explained that she had killed Van Zandt by hitting him with a rock when he had tried to rape her in the van. Defendant then pulled Van Zandt, still alive, out of the van. Eckstrom hit him with a stick and mumbled that she had killed him.

A serologist called as a defense expert testified that she had found traces of semen on the fly of Van Zandt's underwear; however, she conceded on cross-examination that these traces could have been deposited anytime since the underwear was last laundered, that they could have been deposited by a partial voiding of the bladder upon death, and that they were not necessarily deposited by ejaculation. She found no semen on Van Zandt's jeans.

Several female Nevada County jail inmates also testified to statements made by Barrett implying that defendant was taking responsibility for Van Zandt's murder out of misplaced love for her. All three conceded, however, that Barrett had made inconsistent statements about the murder. One witness offered her opinion that Barrett was a liar.

At the close of the guilt phase, the jury found defendant guilty of first degree murder and robbery, and further found as a special circumstance that the...