People v. Watie

• Decision Date: 30 July 2002
• Docket Number: No. C035402.,C035402.
• Citation: 124 Cal.Rptr.2d 258,100 Cal.App.4th 866
• Parties: The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Antoine Nathaniel WATIE, Defendant and Appellant.
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

124 Cal.Rptr.2d 258

100 Cal.App.4th 866

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Antoine Nathaniel WATIE, Defendant and Appellant.

No. C035402.

Court of Appeal, Third District.

July 30, 2002.

Review Denied Oct. 23, 2002.^* Certified for Partial Publication.^**

Cynthia A. Thomas, Sacramento, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.

Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, David P. Druliner, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Robert R. Anderson, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Carlos A. Martinez, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, Alison Elle Aleman, Deputy Attorney General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

HULL, J.

A jury convicted defendant Antoine Nathaniel Watie of voluntary manslaughter and found true the allegation he personally used and discharged a firearm during the course of that crime, causing the victim great bodily injury. (Pen.Code, §§ 192, subd. (a), 12022.5, subd. (a)(1), 12022.53, subd. (d); further undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code.) The jury also convicted defendant of discharging a firearm at an inhabited dwelling and personally causing great bodily injury to the victim, James Edward Lee. (§§ 246, subd. (a)(1), 12022.53, subd. (d).)

Defendant contends: (1) the court impermissibly instructed the jurors on defense of property pursuant to CALJIC instruction Nos. 5.40 and 5.42; (2) the court "failed to properly instruct that self-defense applied to" the charge of discharging a firearm at an inhabited dwelling; (3) the court failed to give a mistake of fact instruction; (4) the firearm "enhancement must be reversed because the Legislature did not intend for this particular enhancement" to apply here; (5) "the trial court failed to instruct the jury that the affirmative defense of self-defense applied to the enhancement"; and (6) imposition of the 25-year-to-life state prison sentence "constitutes cruel and unusual punishment." We affirm the judgment.

FACTS

Anita Devonn Thompson-Lee (Thompson) lived with her husband, James Lee, and their five-year-old son and four-year-old daughter. Thompson had known Lee for 20 years and had been married to him since 1994. Defendant is Thompson's, but not Lee's, son.

Lee had seven prior convictions for armed robberies and kept two rifles in the home.

While Lee was in prison, defendant lived at home with Thompson. Lee returned when defendant was 13, and defendant moved out of the home in favor of Thompson's mother's home. Defendant testified Lee mistreated him and defendant's younger brother, Derron Brown, while they lived with Lee and that, once during a dispute, Lee pulled out a sawed-off shotgun and pointed it at defendant. Defendant testified he was afraid of Lee and that he often saw bruises and scratches on his mother after she visited defendant.

Thompson did not want her other son, Derron Brown, to live with her, because Lee physically and mentally abused Brown, too. Brown testified Lee beat him with a leather belt in 1998 and punched him in the nose in 1999. Because Lee beat and threatened Brown, Brown left his mother and Lee's home and moved in with his grandmother.

On the night of Lee's death, Thompson told the investigating detective that she did not believe Lee was abusive.

Defendant's aunt, Felicia Rule, testified Lee had become progressively more negative toward Thompson in the year prior to Lee's death and that he treated Thompson in a derogatory, demeaning and degrading manner. Two witnesses testified to incidents in which Lee had beaten Thompson. Thompson and Lee's problems worsened after Lee's own son died in a car accident in July 1998.

On the afternoon of May 5, 1999, Thompson and Lee got into an argument in their living room. During the argument, Lee knocked a plate out of Thompson's hand and it hit their five-year-old son. Lee punched and slapped Thompson in the face and tried to hold her down on the couch. When Thompson tried to hit Lee with a wooden statue, Lee took it away and began hitting Thompson on the head with it.

After the fight, Thompson called her sister, Lolita Thompson, (we shall use Lolita Thompson's first name for the sake of clarity) and asked Lolita to come to get her. Lee was screaming and cursing at Thompson as Thompson left for her mother's house.

Lee's neighbor, David Medlin, saw Lee as he tried to prevent Thompson from leaving. Medlin spoke with Lee for about 15 or 20 minutes; Lee had calmed down by the end of the conversation.

At her mother's home, Thompson saw the defendant and two of his friends— David Towner and Jermain Williams. Thompson's face was bloody and she told defendant what had happened and told him Lee would not let her take her children. Defendant told Thompson to call the police and asked Thompson if she wanted her children. Thompson said she did.

Defendant and his friends left to go shopping. At one point, Williams told defendant and Towner that they should go beat up Lee and give him a taste of his own medicine. Defendant testified that no one discussed this comment, or took it seriously. Thereafter, defendant dropped off Williams at his house, and defendant and Towner went to defendant's girlfriend's house to watch television.

About an hour after her fight with Lee, Thompson called the police. During the 911 telephone call, Thompson told the 911 operator Lee had no weapons in the house.

Sacramento City Police Officer Charles Gomez responded to the 911 call at 8:11 p.m. Thompson told Gomez she had been the victim of domestic violence, but Gomez testified he did not see any injuries on Thompson, nor did she tell him of any. Thompson told Gomez defendant might get upset, although Gomez did not follow up on her warning.

Thompson asked Gomez to retrieve her children from Lee, but Gomez told her he could not, because Thompson and Lee were married and the children were his, too. Gomez told Thompson she needed to resolve any custody issues in court.

Thompson did not go to the hospital and did not file charges against her husband. Thompson testified she was afraid of Lee's anger if she had him arrested, and she did not want to send him back to prison.

Thompson called Lee that night. At trial she testified Lee was not calm and was acting "kind of paranoid." On the night of the murder, however, Thompson told the investigating detective Lee was "kind of normal."

After Gomez left, Thompson and defendant spoke by telephone. Thompson told defendant the police would not pick up her children, and defendant again asked Thompson if she wanted them. Thompson testified she told defendant not to get the children although defendant testified he told Thompson that he would come and pick her up and take her to Lee's house to get them. Before he left his apartment, defendant put a gun in his back pocket.

Defendant and Towner picked up Williams, went to a store for cigarettes, and returned to Thompson's mother's house. According to defendant, Thompson decided not to go with defendant, but defendant told her that he would go get her children anyway.

Defendant, Towner and Williams went to Lee's home, parked in front of the house, and went to the front door. Williams tried to open the security door but found it was locked. The interior door, however, was open and they could see inside.

Lee jumped up from the couch and came to the door. Williams and Lee started arguing and Williams challenged Lee to come outside. Lee told the men they should leave if they did not want any problems. Defendant told Lee he was there to pick up his stepbrother and stepsister; Lee said he would not let defendant take the children.

Their conversation was heated and, at one point, Lee went back into the room and reached under the couch. Williams thought Lee was going to get a pistol and he and Towner backed away from the door. Defendant saw that Lee had merely grabbed his shoes from behind the couch and defendant stayed where he was.

Defendant continued to argue with Lee. Williams testified Lee told defendant that Lee was going to "whip his ass," and defendant told Lee to come outside, but defendant denied challenging Lee to fight. Defendant did threaten to have Lee sent back to prison.

Williams and defendant then watched Lee go to the back of the house and defendant thought Lee was going to get the children. Williams could see only Lee's shadow when Lee returned; he thought Lee had a rifle, or a shotgun, in his hands. Williams shouted, "he's got a gun, he's got a gun" and retreated to the car.

Defendant testified he saw a rifle, or a shotgun, in Lee's hands and saw him raise it toward him. He thought Lee was going to kill him. Defendant reached into his back pocket, pulled out his gun, closed his eyes, and fired at Lee. Defendant ran from the door halfway to the car, walked the rest of the way, and then drove off.

In the car after the shooting, Williams thought defendant told him Lee had a gun. Defendant also said something to the effect of "Damn, I shot the fool." Defendant claimed he did not turn himself in to the police because he was scared.

Thompson's mother received a telephone call from Thompson's five-year-old son, who asked her to come pick him up. Thompson went home and found the police there and her children at a neighbor's house. The five-year-old boy told his mother that defendant and Lee were arguing, he heard a "boom boom," and then saw Lee lying on the floor.

After his daughter told him she heard gunshots, Medlin, the neighbor, went to Lee's house to investigate. He saw the two young children in the dining room. They told him their dad was on the floor and there was blood everywhere. The little boy unlocked the door and let Medlin in; Medlin saw Lee face down on the floor. Medlin was positive he observed the butt of a Winchester rifle under Lee's body. He made sure that no one touched anything in the room until the police arrived.

Another neighbor, Annie Bravo, heard the gunshots. She, too, went to Lee's house to investigate and saw the metal of a gun...