People v. Richards

• Decision Date: 18 February 1969
• Docket Number: Cr. 6955
• Citation: 75 Cal.Rptr. 597,269 Cal.App.2d 768
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Wayne Robert RICHARDS, Defendant and Appellant.

Page 597

75 Cal.Rptr. 597

269 Cal.App.2d 768

PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Wayne Robert RICHARDS, Defendant and Appellant.

Cr. 6955.

Court of Appeal, First District, Division 1, California.

Feb. 18, 1969.

Wilfred Humphries, San Francisco, by appointment of Court of Appeal, for appellant.

Thos. C. Lynch, Atty. Gen., Robert R. Granucci, John F. Henning, Jr., Deputy Attys. Gen., San Francisco, for respondent.

SIMS, Associate Justice.

Defendant has appealed ¹ from a judgment of conviction rendered on jury verdicts which found him guilty of escape from a state prison without force or violence in violation of subdivision (b) of section 4530 of the Penal Code, and sane at the time of the commission of the offense. He contends that the trial court committed prejudicial error in refusing to receive evidence, embodied in an offer of proof, on a proposed defense of coercion and duress as justification for the offense charged, and in refusing to give proffered instructions on the same issue. These points are examined and found wanting. The judgment must be affirmed.

On July 19, 1967, defendant was assigned to a farm crew as an inmate of the California Correctional Training Facility, Soledad, Monterey County. Sometime after 2:30 p.m. defendant left the work area without permission and hid in a corn field until dark. Defendant then proceeded to the main road, and caught a ride to King City. He was apprehended by the California Highway Patrol on July 20, 1967 at 2:30 a.m. at a service station in King City. Defendant was still in prison dress, and he made no attempt to resist arrest.

On his return to the prison on July 20th, defendant was admonished as to his constitutional rights and questioned by a correctional officer as to his motive for escape. Defendant stated that he left prison without permission because 'he felt he was doing too much time, that he was proceeding to Los Angeles to his mother's place to engage a lawyer to see if something couldn't be done.'

The prison records officer authenticated the 'Summary of Sentence Data' which indicated defendant's commitment and his movement in and through the state prison system. On cross-examination the defendant brought out, over objection, that while at a conservation center camp between November 10, 1966 and March 28, 1967 he had complained that there was pressure from other inmates to engage in homosexual activity. The court sustained an objection to a question propounded to determine if the records indicated whether or not the authorities at the center had checked into the defendant's complaint. According to the summary, the complaints, coupled with a very poor camp record, resulted in defendant's retransfer to Soledad in March.

In his opening statement the attorney for the defendant stated: 'Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you heard what is called a prima facie case of escape. The law provides that in certain circumstances there are defenses to crimes * * *. The law as to the various defenses will be stated to you by the Court. I will not attempt to state it. But the defense we are raising is called duress. Coercion. And we are going to present a series of witnesses, including the defendant himself, and these witnesses and the defendant will tell you of the threats made to his life and the reason that he ran away in order to save his own life, at least in his own mind he was doing this. And this will be the nature of our defense * * *.'

The training officer in charge of defendant's work detail was called as a witness for the defendant. He testified that he had worked in the prison system for approximately 20 years and was familiar with the expressions used by prisoners around the prison; that 'a snitch' was someone who tells on someone else; and that if one prisoner disclosed that another prisoner was forcing him to commit homosexual acts it would be considered one of the more serious, if not the most serious, form of snitching. An objection to the relevancy and materiality of the next question--'What in your experience usually happens to inmates who snitch?'--was sustained. ²

The court, at the request of the defendant, thereupon heard argument outside the presence of the jury. In the course of this argument the defendant adverted to the provisions of subdivision Eight of section 26 of the Penal Code. ³ He represented to the court that acts of sodomy had been inflicted on the defendant, that the defendant did snitch, that threats were made upon his life, that the guards would do nothing, and that defendant had exhausted every possible remedy short of escape to avoid the threat of death. The court adhered to the view that the threat, in order to be a justification, would have to be a threat designed to directly induce the act with which the defendant was charged. In response to the court's invitation to make an offer of proof, the defendant represented that inmate Joel Blume would testify 'that inmates told him to remain away from the defendant * * * because Wayne Richards was going * * * to be killed * * * so keep his distance away from him or he would be killed too.' Defendant himself would testify that 'he was told by Mr. Blume who confided in him that he was marked to be killed or seriously injured and that the defendant understood this was going to be imminent, immediate, or as soon as possible and he felt that he had two possibilities, one to go to the guards, something that he's tried in the past and the guards have only responded by telling him to punch someone in the mouth or to commit probably a worse crime than escape, and, number two, to remove himself from the threat; and the only other way to remove himself from the threat is to remove himself from the imprisonment, the prison itself; and for this reason the defendant took the only alternative that he saw.'

The court sustained the prosecution's objection to the testimony which had been offered. Thereupon, the defendant rested without presenting any further evidence. ⁴

The instructions offered by the defendant included the following subjects: the effect of threats and menace as set forth in CALJIC Instruction No. 71--F (Revised) as found in 1967 Cumulative pocket part; ⁵ considerations governing the determination of whether a danger should be considered as imminent and immediate, predicated on People v. Villegas (1938) 29 Cal.App.2d 658, 85 P.2d 480 (see infra); ⁶ and an instruction on necessity as a defense. ⁷ The court in fact instructed the jury, 'The reasons, if any, given for the alleged escape are immaterial and not to be considered by you as in any way justifying or excusing, if there was such. The only requirement for the commission of the crime of escape is that the defendant intentionally, wilfully, and unlawfully, departed from the limits of his custody.' Since the defendant's offer of proof had been rejected, there was no evidence to show any legal justification, and the instructions were properly refused. (See People v. Bross (1966) 240 Cal.App.2d 157, 167--169, 49 Cal.Rptr. 402.) They are only material insofar as they highlight the respective contentions of the parties on the question of what type of coercion, compulsion or necessity may relieve a person of responsibility for what would otherwise be a criminal act.

In the argument concerning the admission of evidence there was a failure to articulate the distinction between the compulsion or duress recognized in the code (see fns. 3, 5 and 6, supra), and the principle of necessity (fn. 7, supra) which recognizes a defense of justification because of the duress occasioned by extrinsic circumstances. This distinction has been generally recognized by text writers in the field of criminal law. ⁸

The court properly rejected the evidence insofar as it was offered to show the defendant's lack of capacity to commit the offense under provisions of Penal Code section 26 (see fn. 3, supra). The statute, since it refers to the option to refuse or accept, contemplates that the threat or menace be accompanied by a direct or implied demand or request that the actor commit the criminal act. In this case there was no offer to show that anyone demanded or requested that the defendant escape. (Cf. People v. Wester (1965) 237 Cal.App.2d 232, 237--238, 46 Cal.Rptr. 699; and see People v. Winkelspecht (1965) 237 Cal.App.2d 227, 229--230, 46 Cal.Rptr. 697; People v. Otis (1959) 174 Cal.App.2d 119, 123--126, 344 P.2d 342; and People v. Ganger (1950) 97 Cal.App.2d 11, 13, 217 P.2d 41.)

In People v. Sanders (1927) 82 Cal.App. 778, 256 P. 251, the court approved an instruction reading as follows: "* * * a person who commits an act under threats or menaces sufficient to show that he had reasonable cause to believe and did believe this his life would be endangered if he refused, is incapable of committing a crime.

"In order for duress or fear produced by threats or menace to be a valid, legal excuse for doing anything, which otherwise would be criminal, the act must have been done under such threats or menaces as show that the life of the person threatened or menaced was in danger, or that there was reasonable cause to believe and actual belief that there was such danger. The danger must not be one of future violence, but of present and immediate violence at the time of the commission of the forbidden act. The danger of death at some future time in the absence of danger of death at the time of the commission of the offense will not excuse. A person who aids and assists in the commission of the crime, or who commits a crime, is not relieved from criminality on account of fears excited by threats or menaces unless the danger be to life, nor unless that danger be present and immediate." (82 Cal.App. at p. 785, 256 P. at p. 254. Accord: People v. Villegas, supra, 29 Cal.App.2d 658, 661, 85 P.2d 480, and see Annotation, Criminal Law--Defense--Coercion (1955) 40 A.L.R.2d 908.) If the statutory test of...