People v. Ramos

• Decision Date: 09 June 2008
• Docket Number: No. A117168.,A117168.
• Citation: People v. Ramos, 163 Cal.App.4th 1082, 78 Cal. Rptr. 3d 186 (Cal. App. 2008)
• Court: California Court of Appeals
• Parties: THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. CARLOS ROBERTO RAMOS, Defendant and Appellant.

163 Cal.App.4th 1082

78 Cal. Rptr. 3d 186

THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. CARLOS ROBERTO RAMOS, Defendant and Appellant.

No. A117168.

Court of Appeals of California, First District, Division One.

June 9, 2008.

John F. Schuck, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.

Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Gerald A. Engler, Assistant Attorney General, René A. Chacón and Bruce Ortega, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

OPINION

SWAGER, J.

Defendant Carlos Roberto Ramos was convicted of second degree murder in the killing of his mother. He appeals his conviction, claiming that the jury instructions were inadequate because they did not expressly state that the prosecution had to prove every element of his crime beyond a reasonable doubt, and because the court rejected his special instruction regarding coercive police interrogations. We disagree and affirm the judgment.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Defendant and his mother lived together in a two-story apartment in a building in San Francisco. Defendant's aunt lived in an apartment across the hall in the same apartment building.

On January 20, 2006, defendant's brother Eduardo Ramos came to San Francisco with his wife and daughter to visit his mother at the apartment. Eduardo had spoken with his mother the night before to tell her that he would be coming for a visit. Before he arrived in San Francisco that day, Eduardo spoke with defendant twice on the telephone. Both times, defendant told Eduardo that he and his mother were not doing well and that it would not be a good day come to the apartment. Just before he arrived, Eduardo called defendant from his cell phone. Defendant told Eduardo that his mother did not "want to hear anything right now." Eduardo told him that he was coming to the apartment anyway because he needed to use the restroom.

Eduardo arrived at the apartment building shortly before noon and used the intercom system to call his mother's apartment so that he could be buzzed in through a gate. After the first attempt was unsuccessful, defendant called to him from a window in the apartment and activated the gate. Eduardo went upstairs to the front door of the apartment and knocked. Receiving no response, he went upstairs to a door leading to the upper level of the apartment and knocked but no one answered. He went back to the first door and tried again, unsuccessfully. Both apartment doors were locked.

Feeling uneasy, Eduardo went to see the building manager to get a key to his mother's apartment. When he could not find the manager, Eduardo tried again to access the apartment. Finally, he activated the building's fire alarm and the manager's son appeared. He retrieved a key and opened the apartment door for Eduardo. When he entered the apartment, Eduardo saw blood on the floor and his mother's body wrapped in a blanket. Believing that his mother was dead, and fearful that defendant might try to hurt him, Eduardo left and called 911 from his cell phone.

After a fire truck arrived, Eduardo led the fire officers to the apartment. He went to his mother's body and felt for a pulse, but her body was cold and rigor mortis had set in. The rescue personnel confirmed that she was dead. Subsequently, the medical examiner determined that the cause of death was due to ligature and manual strangulation. There was also evidence that defendant's mother had been hit with an object. A pair of nunchakus was found in defendant's bedroom.

Officer Ortiz responded to the scene. He encountered Eduardo, who told him that his mother was dead in the apartment and that his brother had killed her. After other police officers arrived, they searched the apartment for defendant, but he was not there. The officers also went up a stairwell to the roof of the building but could not locate defendant.

Later that afternoon, Officer Frazer was stationed on the fourth floor of the apartment building. The door at the far end of the hallway opened, and defendant entered and said: "I did something terrible, and now I want to die." The officer placed him in handcuffs. He was transported by patrol car to the police station to be interviewed. Along the way he made statements concerning a toaster being thrown into the bathtub. He was crying on and off, and stated that his mother was his world and now he had ruined everything.

At approximately 6:00 p.m., defendant was interviewed by three officers. At the outset of the interview, the officers read him his Miranda¹ rights. One of the officers asked him if he wanted to tell them what happened at his apartment earlier that day. He responded that he did not want to go into the details. He then stated: "I did it, I did that to my mom, I can't believe it." He further stated that he had gotten into a fight with his mother. He said that he had been having problems with drugs for the past two years and that he had ingested about a gram of cocaine between 7:00 p.m. and 2:00 a.m. that night. He went into his mother's room at about 4:00 a.m. and woke her up. He felt "charged" by the drugs and "kind of started like to go for her throat." She got up and waved her arms to protect herself. He then took her to his room and showed her the paraphernalia that he had used to ingest the cocaine.

Defendant stated that his mother told him she was going downstairs to get him some water. Afraid that she was actually going to leave the apartment and go to his aunt's apartment to call the police, he ran after her, threw her down, hit her with his nunchakus, and used them to choke her. After she was dead, he went onto the roof and thought about jumping off. Later that morning he attempted to commit suicide by entering a bathtub filled with water, plugging in a toaster, and dropping it in the water. He also tried to hang himself with a belt. After his brother arrived, he hid on the roof until he turned himself over to Officer Frazer.

Defendant's strategy at trial was not to claim that he did not kill his mother. Rather, his strategy was that the killing amounted to involuntary manslaughter only, because mental illness and the cocaine in his system prevented him from forming the state of mind necessary to commit the killing with malice.

On March 1, 2007, defendant was convicted of second degree murder (Pen. Code, § 187) and the jury found true the allegation that he had used a deadly weapon (nunchakus). (Pen. Code, § 12022, subd. (b)(1).) The court sentenced him to 16 years to life: 15 years for the murder and one year for the enhancement. This appeal followed.

DISCUSSION

I. CALCRIM No. 220

Defendant urges that the trial court erred when it failed to instruct the jury that it must find every element of the charged offense or special allegation true beyond a reasonable doubt. Specifically, he claims reversal is required because the instruction given (CALCRIM No. 220) omitted the "each element" language. The People preliminarily argue that defendant has forfeited his claim of instructional error by failing to object at trial.

(1) Generally, a party may not complain on appeal about a given instruction that was correct in law and responsive to the evidence unless the party made an appropriate objection. (People v. Hudson (2006) 38 Cal.4th 1002, 1011-1012 [44 Cal.Rptr.3d 632, 136 P.3d 168].) But we may review any instruction which affects the defendant's "substantial rights," with or without a trial objection. (Pen. Code, § 1259.) "Ascertaining whether claimed instructional error affected the substantial rights of the defendant necessarily requires an examination of the merits of the claim—at least to the extent of ascertaining whether the asserted error would result in prejudice if error it was." (People v. Andersen (1994) 26 Cal.App.4th 1241, 1249 [32 Cal.Rptr.2d 442].) In any event, defendant's position is that the challenged instruction, as given, was not correct in law. Thus, defendant did not have to raise his argument at trial. We therefore review defendant's claim on the merits.

The trial court here instructed the jury in accordance with CALCRIM No. 220² (as revised in August 2006) that the defendant is presumed innocent unless the People prove him "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt." The instruction defined "[p]roof beyond a reasonable doubt" as "proof that leaves you with an abiding conviction that the charge is true." The jury was told that to decide whether the People had proved their case beyond a reasonable doubt it must "impartially compare and consider all the evidence that was received throughout the entire trial."

We observe that the California Supreme Court and the Courts of Appeal in every appellate district have rejected challenges to the language used in CALCRLM No. 220. (People v. Campos (2007) 156 Cal.App.4th 1228, 1239 [67 Cal.Rptr.3d 904], and cases cited therein.) These cases concluded that the contents of the reasonable doubt instruction did not violate due process or lessen the burden of proof below that of finding guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. (See, e.g., People v. Flores (2007) 153 Cal.App.4th 1088, 1092-1093 [63 Cal.Rptr.3d 694]; People v. Westbrooks (2007) 151 Cal.App.4th 1500, 1509-1510 [61 Cal.Rptr.3d 138]; People v. Hernández Ríos (2007) 151 Cal.App.4th 1154, 1156-1157 [60 Cal.Rptr.3d 591].) However, the challenge that defendant raises was not addressed in the foregoing cases as the prior version of CALCRIM No. 220 did contain the language that defendant claims the court here erroneously omitted.³

(2) We determine whether a jury instruction correctly states the law under the independent or de novo standard of review. (People v. Posey (2004) 32 Cal.4th 193, 218 [8 Cal.Rptr.3d 551, 82 P.3d 755].) Review of the adequacy of instructions is based on whether the trial court "fully and fairly instructed on the applicable law." (People v. Partlow (1978) 84 Cal.App.3d 540, 558 [148 Cal.Rptr. 744].) "`In...