People v. Wrest

• Decision Date: 23 November 1992
• Docket Number: No. S005780,S005780
• Citation: 3 Cal.4th 1088,13 Cal.Rptr.2d 511,839 P.2d 1020
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 839 P.2d 1020 The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Theodore John WREST, Defendant and Appellant.

Page 511

13 Cal.Rptr.2d 511

3 Cal.4th 1088, 839 P.2d 1020

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Theodore John WREST, Defendant and Appellant.

No. S005780.

Supreme Court of California In Bank.

Nov. 23, 1992.

Rehearing Denied Jan. 13, 1993.

[3 Cal.4th 1097] [839 P.2d 1022] William J. Kopeny, under appointment by the Supreme Court, Santa Anna, for defendant and appellant.

Daniel E. Lungren, Atty. Gen., George Williamson, Chief Asst. Atty. Gen., Carol Wendelin Pollack, Acting Asst. Atty. Gen., John Gorey, Susan Lee Frierson and Tricia Ann Bigelow, Deputy Attys. Gen., argued, Los Angeles, for plaintiff and respondent.

LUCAS, Chief Justice.

FACTS

Appellant's Guilty Plea and Its Factual Basis

In an amended information, appellant was charged in the following counts: count I, the murder of Virginia Aceves (Pen.Code, § 187; all undesignated statutory references are to this code), personal use of a deadly or dangerous weapon ( § 12022, subd. (b)), and allegations of three special circumstances--multiple-murder ( § 190.2, subd. (a)(3)), robbery-murder ( § 190.2, subd. (a)(17)(i)), and rape-murder ( § 190.2, subd. (a)(17)(iii)); count II, the murder of Nancy Croom ( § 187), personal use of deadly or dangerous weapon ( § 12022, subd. (b)), and a special circumstance allegation of rape-murder ( § 190.2, subd. (a)(17)(iii)); and, count III, the attempted murder of Kimi Marie Hansel ( §§ 187, 664), the personal use of a deadly and dangerous weapon ( § 12022, subd. (b)), and an allegation that appellant inflicted great bodily injury upon the victim ( § 12022.7).

In eight additional counts (IV through XI), appellant was charged with burglary ( § 459), rape ( § 261, former subd. (2)), robbery ( § 211), and weapons enhancements ( § 12022, subd. (b), 12022.5), including firearm ( § 12022.2, subd. (a)), and habitual criminal ( §§ 667, subd. (a), 1192.7, subds. (c)(18), (23)) allegations.

Appellant initially pleaded not guilty and denied all special allegations; his motion to sever the case into three trials was denied, but the murder charges were severed from the remaining counts. Appellant's case proceeded to trial on the murder charges (counts I, II, and III) and related special allegations. After 11 court days of voir dire and examination, a jury was death qualified and impaneled to try the cause. On the afternoon before the jury was impaneled, appellant withdrew his plea of not guilty and entered a plea of guilty to the first degree murders of Virginia Aceves and Nancy Croom and to the attempted murder of Kimi Hansel (counts I, II, and III). He also admitted all special-circumstance allegations, the weapons enhancements on the first three counts, and the great bodily injury allegation on count III. ¹

The evidence at the preliminary hearing, which the parties stipulated contained the factual basis for appellant's pleas of guilty and admissions of special circumstances, reveals the following: On the evening of March 6, 1987, appellant stabbed three women within the radius of a few blocks on the streets of Santa Barbara. Two of the women died; a third was permanently paralyzed.

Nancy Croom, 47, was found dead, naked from the waist down, under the hoist area in an automobile transmission shop. She suffered a total of 33 stab wounds to her head, neck, face, and back. Her body had been dragged to the shop from the steps of a nearby church, where her purse and personal belongings were found.

Approximately one hour before she was killed, Croom was with appellant and another man, sitting in the doorway of the Santa Barbara Community Center drinking wine. Croom's brother-in-law, a homeless person named John Logan, stopped to talk with them. He saw appellant lick Croom's nose and heard him say to her: "I'd like to come all over your body." Croom pushed appellant back, threw wine on him, and retorted: "I don't want to hear it." Appellant replied: "That's not how you acted when I bought you the mickey of wine." When Croom responded she was married, appellant fell back against the wall and remarked: "She never even told me she was married." A man matching appellant's description was later observed by witnesses chasing a woman of Croom's description down the street in the same area.

While walking down the alley toward her apartment, Kimi Marie Hansel, a 22-year-old waitress and part-time student, heard appellant running behind her. Before she could turn around, appellant hit her in the middle of the back, pushing her five feet forward and knocking the wind out of her. Appellant called her a "bitch" and hit and stabbed her repeatedly until she momentarily lost consciousness. As he dragged her on her back by her wrists, appellant asked Hansel to look up at him. Smiling, he remarked to her: "You are not going to live long, are you?" When she did not respond, he stated: "Now, I'm going to take you in the bushes and fuck you." Hansel felt her body drop and again lost consciousness. Although Hansel survived appellant's attack, one of the stab wounds he inflicted transected her spine, paralyzing the right side of her body.

After attacking Hansel, appellant encountered a third victim, Virginia Aceves, age 55, as she was entering the alley. Steve Putnam, a friend of Hansel's who was coming to her house, saw appellant and Aceves struggling in the alley. Aceves was crying: "Please don't do this." Putnam saw appellant stab Aceves in the neck. Putnam grasped his bike chain and approached appellant. Knife in hand, appellant pivoted and told Putnam to get out. Appellant then ran down the alley, holding his knife and something else in his hands. Putnam proceeded down the alley, observed Hansel's body, but did not recognize her, and then called police. A police search of the area revealed, among other things, a trail of personal items belonging to Aceves running for two blocks from the alley, including a wallet, purse, and perfume samplers. No money was found in the wallet or purse, or along the trail. Appellant's fingerprints were found on the perfume samplers.

Aceves suffered 12 knife wounds. Her death was caused by a sharply incised stab wound inflicted with considerable force in the left temporal region of the brain. The wound pierced the skull and severed the medulla from the pons, effectively separating her brain into two pieces.

The Penalty Phase

At the penalty phase, the prosecution introduced evidence of three uncharged violent criminal acts committed by appellant. In 1979, while a freshman in high school, appellant secretly entered the house of Eleanor Smith Bolin, a high school English teacher who lived in his neighborhood, placed a stocking over his head, and hid in her closet. When Bolin came home, he surprised her by jumping out of the closet with a 28-inch fireplace shovel raised over his head and a knife in his hand exclaiming: "I am going to kill you." After a struggle during which appellant brought the knife against Bolin's chest and repeated his threat to kill her, Bolin struck him in the face and he fled. After appellant left, Bolin observed a number of unusual things inside the house. A piece of cotton rope, which was kept in a drawer in the garage, was found under a cushion on the living room couch. The couch was approximately 36 feet away from the area where appellant surprised Bolin. A bottle of ammonia and a washcloth taken from the utility room were also found in the living room. After the attack, Bolin stayed with her parents and friends until she moved back into her house. Eventually, she sold the house and moved away. Bolin testified to continuing emotional trauma from appellant's attack.

In 1982, appellant entered the house of Rose Peck at 6:25 a.m. With a pole in his hand, he exclaimed he was going to kill Peck and her daughter. Peck had two daughters, ages four and eleven, who were in the house at the time. In a 25-minute struggle, appellant struck Peck with the pole several times. Appellant demanded money and, at Peck's invitation, took $5 from the top of the dresser and left. Peck's four-year-old daughter witnessed the struggle, screaming: "Quit hitting mommy. Leave my mommy alone." Peck's older daughter hid in a bedroom closet. Peck suffered a black eye and a large bruise on her left leg as a result of appellant's attack.

In 1987, appellant, armed with a rifle, entered the home of Shannon Page Alton at 9 a.m. Finding Alton home alone and in bed, he said: "I won't hurt you. I just want money." He put a sock in her mouth, tied another sock around her wrists, and tied her feet together with pantyhose. He told her he had previously been in her house and had taken money. He again assured Alton he would not hurt or rape her. After going through the drawers and cabinets in the kitchen, appellant returned to the bedroom, holding a butcher knife. He forced Alton into the closet and raped her. He then combed his hair, put on a jacket he had taken from the closet, and looked at himself in the mirror. After appellant left, police found the rifle outside the Alton residence. The rifle had been taken during a burglary; appellant's fingerprints were found on an ammunition box at the scene of the burglary.

Judith Eileen Cummins, appellant's sister, testified on his behalf, as follows: Appellant's father died when he was two years old. Appellant had difficulty with speech and did not begin talking until he was three. He was ridiculed by classmates and companions for his speech and his family's poverty. At age 12 he stole an automobile. Appellant had a poor self-image and developed increasing anger and frustration during his teens. Cummins believed appellant should not be executed because he had never been given a chance in life.

DISCUSSION

I. Appellant's Guilty Plea

Appellant pleaded guilty in open court after signing an eight-page written waiver form. The form, entitled "Waiver of Constitutional Rights and Plea of Guilty or 'No Contest,' " included printed, numbered paragraphs initialed by appellant...