People v. Speaks

• Decision Date: 11 December 1957
• Docket Number: Cr. 6000
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Lynn SPEAKS, Defendant and Appellant.

Page 709

319 P.2d 709

156 Cal.App.2d 25

The PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Lynn SPEAKS, Defendant and Appellant.

Cr. 6000.

District Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 3, California.

Dec. 11, 1957.

On Rehearing Jan. 8, 1958.

Hearing Denied Feb. 5, 1958.

W. P. Butcher, Santa Barbara, for appellant.

Edmund G. Brown, Atty. Gen., and William E. James, Deputy Atty. Gen., for respondent.

VALLEE, Justice.

Defendant Lynn Speaks was accused by information of the crime of manslaughter in that on February 22, 1957 she unlawfully, without malice, killed Allen Buck. ¹ She was tried by the court sitting without a jury. On stipulation the cause was submitted on the evidence taken at the preliminary examination and that two police officers would testify that the deceased's reputation in Santa Barbara for violence and aggressiveness while intoxicated was bad. After the court had read the transcript of the preliminary, on motion of defendant the cause was reopened with the understanding that the People had the right of rebuttal. Defendant was found guilty as charged and sentenced to state prison. She appeals from the judgment.

On February 22, 1957 defendant was employed by Kelly Myers, a sickly man 71 years of age, as a practical nurse. She had been so employed about two months. Myers occupied an apartment on Chapala Street in Santa Barbara. The rear of the apartment opened into an alley. Defendant lived in the apartment and nursed Myers. In the early evening of February 22 the deceased, Allen Buck; Charles LePage; Hattie Valenzuela who was crippled with arthritis; Kelly Myers; and defendant were together in Myers' apartment.

The Evidence at the Preliminary

Charles LePage, called by the People, testified: A little after 6 p. m. on February 22, 1957 the five persons named above were in the living room of Myers' apartment. Buck was intoxicated. Defendant had been drinking 'a little.' She was not intoxicated. Buck stood up, grabbed the crippled hand of Hattie Valenzuela, started to pull, and she screamed. Defendant got up and tried to stop him. Buck 'seemed to be mad.' A quarrel and scuffle started. Buck started after defendant. He tried to grab and hold Buck. The scuffle started in the living room and gravitated to the kitchen. In the kitchen he saw defendant strike Buck with a knife; it appeared to strike his shoulder. Buck 'was making for her when she did it'; 'he [Buck] was very angry.' He does not know where defendant got the knife. All of a sudden he saw it. Buck took a few steps, slumped down on the kitchen floor, and he 'kind of lifted' him (Buck) into the alley and laid him down. Defendant called a taxi. She was going to take Buck to his mother's. When she returned from calling the taix 'she said something about she struck twice.'

The autopsy physician testified Buck was in his late fifties, was about 5 feet 10 inches tall, weighed about 150 pounds, 'he was fairly well muscled and filled out.' The cause of death was a stab wound of the heart.

A physician, called by defendant, testified: Defendant arrived at Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara at 10 a. m. on February 27, 1957. At 11 a. m. a technician took an electroencephalogram of her. In giving the electroencephalogram, 14 to 18 27-gauge pointed wires were inserted in defendant's scalp a distance of 1/4 to 3/8 of an inch. The wires are painful. The procedure took about 35 minutes. Defendant was accompanied by a police officer.

Kelly Myers, called by defendant, testified: He was 71 years old. Defendant was his nurse. Buck was 'a natural drunkard.' Buck had said he could whip the best of them when he was drinking. A week before February 22 in his (Myers') apartment Buck hit defendant on the arm with his fist and 'fought her for a little while.' On the evening of February 22 Buck left the apartment and came back. When Buck came back, he was drunk; he had a half pint of whisky; he brabbed Hattie Valenzuela's 'crippled hand, and twisted it around, and she was hollering bloody murder, and everything else.' Defendant 'was sitting on the cot, and she tried to get him to behave himself and turn her loose and go home.' Buck was angry, and called defendant 'a son-of-a-bitch or something.' He (Myers) went into the kitchen, he 'wanted to get away from him (Buck), he was worrying me, you know, and I was nervous.' Buck went into the kitchen, he wanted him (Myers) to run Hattie Valenzuela out of the house. After that defendant went into the kitchen. Buck told him (Myers) he was going to throw him into the alley. Defendant said to Buck, 'Buck, you can't talk to Kelly that way', told him to get out and go home and tried to push him out of the kitchen. Just before defendant pushed Buck, she appeared to be frightened; she had just come out of a fit, 'she fell on the floor when she had the fit,' 'she was chewing her tongue and laying there on the side of her face'; he got a spoon stuck it in her mouth, she chewed on it a little bit and finally came out of it. Buck was there at the time, he just stood 'and looked at her, wouldn't do nothing, said she was faking.' She had had three fits the day before. She had the fit about 4 or 5 minutes before the scuffle. Buck 'grabbed at her or lunged at her or grabbed at her. I thought he was going to try to choke her'; 'he grabbed at her first before ever she done anything at all.' At the time he grabbed at her, she had made no move to push him. Buck said he would 'beat hell out of her.' Defendant tried to open the drawer of the kitchen table in which there were knives; he told her, 'No, don't do that, Lynn, don't. And she didn't get no knives out of the drawer.' He did not see defendant pick up a knife or see one in her hand. When Buck fell he was coming at defendant, 'grabbing for her throat.'

The Evidence at the Trial

After the court had read the transcript of the preliminary examination and the cause had been reopened, defendant was called as a witness in her own behalf. She testified that about a week prior to February 22, in Myers' apartment, Buck hit her on the left breast, knocking her across the bed. In the latter part of January 1957 Buck cut the end of her finger with a knife and she ran outside. In November 1956 he tried to choke her, blacked both her eyes, and made her nose bleed. On these occasions Buck had been drinking. The evening of February 22, 1957 Buck was drunk. Just before she stabbed him he appeared like a maniac; she was deathly afraid he was going to kill her.

On cross-examination, in response to leading questions, defendant testified that when she stabbed Buck she believed she was acting in self-defense; she always believed that that's the way she was acting; 'Q. So you have had no guilty feeling, then, about what you did on that evening, have you? A. No.'

Defendant was further questioned on cross with respect to what she had said in response to questions of Lieutenant Peck and Officer Thuren of the Santa Barbara police department in an interrogation conducted by them in the police station beginning about 8:15 on the evening of February 22. Counsel for defendant objected to the questions on the ground, among others, that a proper foundation had not been laid in that there was no showing the statements were made freely and voluntarily. The court stated, 'That's a matter for the defense' and overruled the objection. Of course the law is precisely to the countrary.

Defendant was next cross-examined with respect to what she had said in response to questions of Mr. Barnes, one of the deputy district attorneys who prosecuted the case, and Lieutenant Peck in the police station at 3:15 a. m. in the morning of February 23. Counsel for defendant objected. A deputy district attorney said it was an inconsistent statement which bore on defendant's state of mind. The following then occurred:

'The Court: It is admissible for the purpose of impeachment, if that's what you wish.

'Mr. McCarthy [deputy district attorney]: Yes.

'The Court: You may have it answered for that purpose and that purpose alone.'

Defendant's answers to the questions asked her at the police station on the evening of February 22 and the interrogation at 3:15 a. m. on February 23 were in essence that she had not stabbed Buck, that when she saw him lying in the alley she thought he had just passed out because he was so drunk he could not stay up; that she had not had any trouble with Buck 'last night' and he had done nothing to make her afraid of him. When questioned on cross-examination as to whether she had answered the questions as related by the deputy district attorney, she said, 'I don't know; I was in such a nervous state that I don't know just exactly what I did say.'

Defendant was next asked on cross if she had not told a doctor in the psychopathic ward of the Santa Barbara General Hospital on February 26 'that somebody probably LePage, had assaulted Buck.' She answered, 'I did not recall making that statement.' The cross-examination continued and defendant testified: she guessed she struck Buck twice, she was not sure; when she saw Buck coming toward her from the back porch was when she 'became so grightened'; when she stabbed him he was coming at her with both of his hands right out; LePage did not have hold of Buck's right hand pulling it backwards as the time she struck Buck.

Defendant was next asked on cross if on February 27, 1957 at about 7:30 p. m. in the police department in the presence of the deputy district attorney who was cross-examining her at the trial, Lieutenant Peck, a shorthand reporter, and a Mr. McVarish she had not been asked the following questions and given these answers:

'Q. Well, where was he [Buck] standing? A. He was standing out on this little porch, and as I can remember, he seemed to have one hand on the side of the door frame and Mr. LePage was holding the other arm.

'Q. Which hand did he have on the side of the door frame--his right or his left hand? A. ...