People v. Spaniel

• Decision Date: 11 June 1968
• Docket Number: Cr. 4542
• Citation: 69 Cal.Rptr. 202,262 Cal.App.2d 878
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. William Ralph SPANIEL, Defendant and Appellant.

Page 202

69 Cal.Rptr. 202

262 Cal.App.2d 878

The PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. William Ralph SPANIEL, Defendant and Appellant.

Cr. 4542.

Court of Appeal, Third District, California.

June 11, 1968.

As Modified June 17, 1968.

Rehearing Denied July 10, 1968.

Hearing Denied Aug. 8, 1968.

Thomas C. Lynch, Atty. Gen., by Edsel W. Haws and Jack R. Winkler, Deputy Attys. Gen., Sacramento, for plaintiff-respondent.

Lionel K. Hvolboll, Court Appointed Counsel, Sacramento, for defendant-appellant.

BRAY, Associate Justice Assigned.

Defendant appeals from conviction, after a jury trial, of kidnaping for the purpose of robbery and of robbery by force and violence and sentence of life imprisonment without possibility of parole on the kidnapping charge alone after penalty trial by the court, jury having been waived.

CONTENTIONS

1. Evidence sufficient to show that the kidnaping was for the purpose of robbery and that defendant was able to form intent.

2. Defendant's proposed instruction on specific intent due to use of LSD was covered by other instructions.

3. No prejudicial misconduct of prosecutor.

4. Section 209 of the Penal Code, kidnaping for purpose of robbery, is constitutional.

5. No error in excluding jurors opposed to the death penalty.

6. Death penalty as cruel and unusual punishment not involved.

7. No evidence of incompetence of trial counsel.

8. Defendant's statements made prior to amended charge admissible.

9. Defendant physically and mentally able to stand trial.

10. Robbery conviction should not be reversed.

RECORD

Defendant was originally booked on the charge of attempted murder. Thereafter he was indicted, Count One, for violation of section 209 of the Penal Code, kidnaping for the purpose of robbery, and Count Two, violation of section 211 of the Penal Code, robbery. His motion under section 995 of the Penal Code, for dismissal of Count One, was denied. At the jury trial defendant was convicted of both offenses. He waived a jury trial on the penalty, and after fixing the penalty for the kidnaping offense at life imprisonment without possibility of parole the court sentenced him to state prison on the kidnaping conviction and suspended sentence of the robbery conviction pursuant to section 654 of the Penal Code. Defendant's motion for new trial was denied.

EVIDENCE

On December 6, 1966, about 11 p.m., Robert Cline entered the Shadowbrook Lounge. He met some friends and had a drink with them. About 12:45 a.m. he became tired and at the suggestion of the bartender went to his car in the adjacent parking lot and lay down in the front seat to take a nap. Defendant, who was looking for a car to steal, observed Cline asleep in the car. He then decided to hit Cline over the head with a ratchet handle he found in a parked pickup and steal Cline's car. After waiting about 45 minutes for the area to clear, he opened the door of Cline's car and hit Cline several times on the head with the ratchet handle. Cline bled profusely. Defendant removed Cline's wallet and watch from his person, slid into the driver's seat, started the car and drove off. Defendant drove aimlessly through the north area of Sacramento until he came to Sunset Avenue, out-side Fair Oaks. There he pulled off the highway onto a dirt road and stopped. He rolled Cline out of the car, bound his hands behind his back with his belt and removed his shoes and trousers. Cline managed to free his hands, quickly arose and ran up a levee into the bushes. Defendant did not pursue him but instead drove off in Cline's car. Cline hid until he thought it safe to seek help and then made his way to the highway. He flagged down an oncoming car which turned out to be his own with defendant at the wheel.

Defendant again struck Cline with the ratchet handle and forced him back in the car and drove off. Cline was able to escape from the car and went to a deserted shopping center to seek help. Defendant followed Cline, beat him to the ground and dragged his body across the street and into some bushes.

About this time Deputy Sheriff Packard was on patrol. His suspicions were aroused when he saw defendant appear in view and then jump into some bushes beside the road. Stopping his car, Packard gave chase. When defendant saw the officer, he turned about, walked up to the officer and said, 'You got me, I give up.' As they neared the patrol car, defendant dropped a rubber glove and kicked it under the car. Defendant's pants, shoes and hands were covered with blood. When asked about the blood, defendant explained that there had been an accident, indicated a station wagon parked near and area and said he had hurt his head. Unable to see any injury to defendant, Packard placed him in the patrol car. As defendant entered the car a wrist-watch dropped off his right arm. Packard then noticed that defendant was wearing a wristwatch on his left arm.

In the patrol car calling for assistance, Packard noticed what appeared to be blood on the sidewalk. Following the trail of blood marks into the bushes, the officer found the victim Cline stripped of his trousers, shoes and socks, unconscious and badly injured about his head. Alongside Cline was a bloody ratchet handle.

Cline, after recovering from a depressed skull fracture received as a result of being struck many times with the ratchet handle, was able to recall only a few details of the event. He did not recall being in the Shadowbrook Lounge but did recall lying on the front seat of his car with his head against the door on the passenger side and his wristwatch being removed. Although he recalled his head hurting, he could not remember being hit. He recalled a man he recognized as defendant being behind the wheel of the car, who stated that he might have to kill him. Cline recalled lying on damp, pebbly ground with his hands bound by his belt and his trousers and shoes removed, getting up and running until he reached an asphalt road where he flagged down a car and saw that the driver was defendant. He recalled nothing more after he started running again.

At the hospital where defendant was taken for a physical examination and blood test defendant asked how the victim was. When informed that he was still alive, defendant said, 'He's not dead? He sure has a hard head.'

After properly being advised of his constitutional rights, defendant made statements which, except for minor discrepancies, were substantially as testified to by him at the trial. He was 26 years of age and had had two years of college. On the 2d or 3d of December 1966 he left Los Angeles with a friend and hitchhiked (later testifying that they drove in a stolen car) to San Francisco to see his mother who lived in Sausalito. Upon arriving he discovered that he was out of town but would be returning on December 6. On the 6th, with three others, defendant started to the airport to meet his mother, but anticipating an emotional scene with his mother because of his uncle's death they went to Berkeley where he got some LSD--25.

This meeting with his mother was not warm; she wanted to know what he was going to do with himself, so he and two of his friends decided to drive to Denver.

Defendant had begun to feel the effects of the LSD at the airport, and he had begun hallucinating on the trip towards Sacramento; he was 'grooving' on the traffic, the radio and the people; it was a 'good trip' or 'groovy,' i.e., it was worth the money for the LSD.

When they arrived in Sacramento they stopped at a service station in the north area near where the defendant had once lived (for 3 months); he got out to meditate, to think, to relieve the events that happened during that time. While there he gave a woman at the station a fur coat that he had gotten from a burglary he committed in Mill Valley. Defendant returned to the car. They started off but defendant wanted to get out again; when he did he saw a patrol car, so he ducked into a passageway between some buildings; upon returning the car and his friends were gone. Defendant panicked, he 'flipped' or 'freaked out'; he got this intense feeling of being abandoned again, first by his family and now by his friends; it brought on a strong feeling of insecurity.

Defendant just walked around, he did not know what he was doing, when suddenly he got 'this brilliant idea that I was going to take a car,' go after his friends, get his clothes and money and return to Sausalito.

Defendant looked around for an unlocked car; he saw Cline's car parked in the lot with Cline lying on the front seat with his head near the door on the right or passenger side; defendant looked around the area for something with which to stun Cline. He found a ratchet handle from a pickup truck, waited until the bar closed and then struck Cline twice on the head. At the sight of the blood defendant panicked again; his 'freak out' became a nightmare; he was babbling and talking to himself while he removed Cline's wristwatch and went through Cline's pockets looking for money and the car keys. After Cline told him the keys were in the ignition, defendant got in and started driving aimlessly looking for a hospital. When he drove off, he had no other intent than to find a hospital. When near the area of Sunrise and Fair Oaks Boulevard, defendant stopped the car, bound Cline's hands behind his back with his belt; he then drove off onto a dirt road near Perdetta Lane, 'gently' pulled Cline out of the car and removed his shoes and trousers to slow him down so that he (defendant) could get away with the car.

After returning to the car defendant sat there going through Cline's wallet; Cline jumped up and ran off. Defendant cruised around the area looking for Cline so that he could take him to the hospital. When defendant saw Cline by the side of the road, defendant entertained the idea of running him down but because he was a 'non-violent man' he stopped to persuade Cline to get into the car so he could be taken to...