People v. Wycoff

• Decision Date: 23 August 2021
• Docket Number: S178669
• Citation: 283 Cal.Rptr.3d 1,12 Cal.5th 58,493 P.3d 789
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Edward Matthew WYCOFF, Defendant and Appellant.

12 Cal.5th 58

493 P.3d 789

283 Cal.Rptr.3d 1

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.Edward Matthew WYCOFF, Defendant and Appellant.

S178669

Supreme Court of California.

August 23, 2021

David A. Nickerson, under appointment by the Supreme Court, for Defendant and Appellant.

Kamala D. Harris and Rob Bonta, Attorneys General, Gerald A. Engler, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Jeffrey M. Laurence, Assistant Attorney General, Glenn R. Pruden, Alice B. Lustre, Roni Dina Pomerantz and Basil R. Williams, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

Opinion of the Court by Jenkins, J.

Defendant was charged with the first degree murders of his sister and brother-in-law.

( Pen. Code, § 187.)¹ The information also alleged, as to each murder, a multiple-murder special circumstance allegation (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(3)) and enhancement allegations based on the use of a deadly or dangerous weapon (a knife and a wheelbarrow handle) (§ 12022, subd. (b)(1)). During pretrial proceedings, a psychologist examined defendant at the request of the court and issued a report stating that, due to "severe mental illness," defendant had "a misperception of [his lawyers’] motives, a misunderstanding of the risk involved [in his case], a minimizing of the precariousness of his predicament, and impaired judgment." The psychologist's report added: "Because of his grandiosity, [defendant] is not able to rationally consider ‘telling his story’ with the assistance of an attorney. On this ground, I find him incompetent to stand trial." There was no expert evidence in the record contradicting that conclusion. The trial court, however, rejected the psychologist's opinion without initiating the competency procedures set forth in sections 1368 and 1369, concluding instead that defendant was mentally competent.

At his guilt trial, defendant waived his right to counsel, represented himself, and testified in his own defense. He treated the trial like an entertainment show, made numerous jokes, and admitted all the facts underlying the charges. After deliberating for less than two hours, the jury convicted him of both counts of first degree murder and found true, as to both murders, the special circumstance allegation and the enhancement allegations.

Defendant again represented himself at the penalty phase. He continued to engage the jury in ways that illustrated his mental illness and grandiosity. The jury took about an hour to return a verdict of death.

Defendant's jocularity continued at sentencing. At defendant's request, the court held the sentencing on defendant's birthday. On that day, defendant said: "Welcome to my birthday party. [¶] Is everyone having fun? Is everyone having a good time?" The court then sentenced defendant to death for each of the murders.

This appeal is automatic. (§ 1239.) We reverse the judgment as to both guilt and penalty on the ground that, before the guilt trial, the court was presented with substantial evidence of defendant's mental incompetence — specifically, his inability, due to mental illness, to consult rationally with counsel — and therefore the court was obligated to initiate the competency procedures set forth in sections 1368 and 1369, which it failed to do. In light of this conclusion, we do not address the remaining issues defendant raises on appeal.

I. FACTS

A. Guilt Phase

1. The Prosecution's Case-in-Chief

Julie and Paul Rogers were murdered in their home in El Cerrito in the early morning hours of January 31, 2006. Two of their children — Eric (age 17) and Laurel (age 12) — were also home at the time. A third child, Alex, was away. The children awoke to the sound of a struggle. Eric looked into the hallway and saw a large-framed person,² dressed in black, wearing a motorcycle helmet. The person was struggling with someone, whom Eric took to be one of his parents. Eric went into Laurel's room and called the police. When the noise of the struggle subsided, Eric and Laurel found their father, Paul, face down on the floor in the master bedroom, with a knife in his back. Paul told Laurel, "It was your uncle." When Laurel asked if he meant her Uncle Ted, Paul nodded in agreement.³

About this time, police arrived. In the master bedroom, they found Paul, still alive, lying on his stomach. He had a bump on his forehead and stab wounds in his back. One of the officers asked Paul who had attacked him, and Paul answered: "My brother-in-law Ted." Paul was not able to give any more details before he died. Another officer followed a trail of blood down the hallway, through the kitchen, and out the sliding glass door. He located Julie near the swimming pool. She was bleeding profusely but breathing. She had a large wound to her abdomen, exposing her intestines. She was transported to the hospital, but efforts to save her life were unsuccessful.

Defendant was arrested a few hours after the murders, at a hospital near his home in Citrus Heights. At the time of arrest, he had a cut on his left hand and a large cut on his right leg. He also had various scratches and abrasions on his chin and hands. Items that matched debris at the murder site were found in his van and home. The next day, February 1, 2006, officers interviewed defendant after advising him of his rights. (See Miranda v. Arizona (1966) 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694.) The interview was recorded and admitted into evidence. In the interview, defendant confessed that he had committed the murders and also that he had planned them in advance. He explained that Julie and Paul "were really bad, rotten people." Paul was a "communist" and "way over to the left." Julie and Paul were lax parents who drank in front of their children, maintained a filthy home, and neglected their dogs. As a result, the children were undisciplined and disobedient. Defendant thought that after killing Julie and Paul, he could "offer the kids to come live with [him]" and "raise them right."

Defendant chose January 31, 2006 as the day for the murders, because that was the 20th anniversary of the day his father had knocked down his grandmother, causing her to break her hip. He decided against using a gun for the murders, because he did not want the murders to be "another statistic that liberals could use" to argue in favor of gun control. Therefore, he chose to commit the murders with a knife, although he also bought a wheelbarrow handle.

When he arrived at Julie and Paul's house to commit the murders, defendant began to have second thoughts. He explained to his police interviewers: "For like several minutes, I was going through my mind, okay, this is what I'm gonna do, this is where I'm gonna go, rehearsing it in my mind. And I just really didn't want to do it, but I told myself this is something that has to be done. These are horrible, rotten people, and, you know, what they're doing to their kids. It's just something that has to be done. And I forced myself to do what had to be done." Defendant then entered the house by smashing the window next to the front door. As a result, the wheelbarrow handle broke in half. Defendant found Julie and Paul awake. He stabbed Paul, but the knife got stuck. He then went after Julie, following her out the backdoor. He hit her and stabbed her with the broken wheelbarrow handle. Then, he fled.

Defendant also described for the police various grievances he had against his sister, including the division of their father's estate and the care being provided for an elderly aunt, but more generally, defendant believed that Julie and Paul were evil people. He said: "I set out to make the world a better place. And I set out ... , you know, to [¶] ... [¶] fight against evil." About killing people, he said, "It's murder. It's wrong," but he added: "What I did, I don't ... see it as murder, you know. I see it as something, you know, a bunch of moral steps that had to be taken. [¶] ... [¶] I felt that [Julie's] life was getting more and more screwed up, and she was screwing up her kids. And she was screwing up everyone else, everything around her. And they had just turned into some really evil people. [¶] ... [¶] I do believe in self-defense. And I think it's okay to, you know, do something like this in self-defense." He further explained: "This is something you do to somebody when they deserve it, you know. I don't like this kind of stuff." In the same vein, he said: "Well, you know, I'm kind of happy because, you know, I guess you could call it leveling. I may have leveled some karma, you know. I stopped an evil person in this world that had too much power. [¶] I mean some people like, you know, Adolf Hitler, you know ... , if you could just kill Adolf Hitler before he did what he did."

Other prosecution evidence included notes taken by a reporter from the Contra Costa Times. The parties stipulated that if called as a witness, the reporter would testify that he visited the Martinez jail on Friday, February 3, 2006, and defendant confessed to him. According to the reporter's notes, defendant repeated several of the things he had told the police, including his opinion that the murders were necessary to eliminate "bad people" who were politically "liberal," thus "mak[ing] the world a better place." In addition, on June 4, 2009 (shortly before jury selection), officers searched defendant's jail cell and found handwritten poetry. The poems were in the form of confessions, describing the murders in a triumphant tone and with gruesome detail.

2. The Defense Case

a. Defendant's Testimony

As noted, defendant represented himself and testified during his trial. His apparent strategy was to relate the entire story of his lifelong relationship with his sister, hoping to persuade the jury that he only did what needed to be done. The trial court allowed the testimony — which included lots of side stories, hearsay, and speculation — for the limited purpose of enabling the jury to evaluate defendant's state of mind at the time of the murders. Defendant's testimony repeated the...