People v. Williams

having been convicted of first degree murder with recommendation of punishment by imprisonment in the state prison for life and having been sentenced accordingly, appeals from the judgment. Counsel make three claims of error warranting a reversal, (1) that the evidence is insufficient to sustain a conviction of murder,

(2) that it is insufficient to establish murder in the first degree, and (3) that prejudicial error was committed in the exclusion of declarations of defendant which contradicted his confessions.

The guiding rule of review is stated in People v. Newland, 15 Cal.2d 678 , 681 [ 104 P.2d 778 ] : “ ‘ [B] efore the verdict of the jury, which has been approved by the trial court, can be set aside on appeal upon the ground’ of insufficiency of the evidence, ‘it must be made clearly to appear that upon no hypothesis whatever is there sufficient substantial evidence to support the conclusion reached in the court below. The determination of a charge in a criminal case involves proof of two distinct propositions: First, that the offense charged was committed, and second, that it was perpetrated by the person or persons accused thereof. . . .

We must assume in favor of the verdict the existence of every fact which the jury could have reasonably deduced from the evidence, and then determine whether such facts are sufficient to support the verdict. ’ If the circumstances reasonably justify the verdict of the jury, the opinion of the reviewing court that those circumstances might also reasonably be reconciled with the innocence of the defendant will not warrant interference with the determination of the jury.”

Essentially the argument in support of appellant’s first claim is that there is nothing to connect defendant with the

Proof of the corpus delicti in a murder ease “consists of two elements, the death of the alleged victim [s] and the existence of some criminal agency as the cause, either or both of which may be proved circumstantially or inferentially. . . . Proof of the corpus delicti does not require identity of the perpetrators. It is not necessary that it connect the defendant with the commission of the crime although it may do so. . . . It is the settled rule, however, that the corpus delicti must be established independently of admissions of the defendant. Conviction cannot be had on his extrajudicial admissions or confessions without proof aliunde of the corpus delicti; but full proof of the body of the crime, sufficient to convince the jury of its conclusive character, is not necessary before the admissions may be received. A prima facie showing that the alleged victim [s] met death by a criminal agency is all that is required. The defendant’s extrajudicial statements are then admissible, the order of proof being discretionary, and together with the prima facie showing must satisfy the jury beyond a reasonable doubt.” (People v. Cullen, 37 Cal.2d 614 , 624-625 [ 234 P.2d 1 ].) Accord : People v. Amaya, 40 Cal.2d 70 , 75-76 [ 251 P.2d 324 ] ; People v. Cobb, 45 Cal.2d 158 ,161 [ 287 P.2d 752 ].

Where the homicide is committed in the course of a robbery it is not necessary for the prosecution to prove the fact of robbery as part of the corpus delicti; the degree of the crime is not part thereof; it may be proved by defendant’s own statements after a prima facie showing of homicide has been made by other proof. “In this connection, Miller apparently contends that the prosecution was bound to establish by independent evidence the corpus delicti of the crime of attempted robbery, as well as the corpus delicti of the crime of murder, before his extrajudicial statements concerning the planning and execution of the attempted robbery could be used to prove the degree of the murder which was admittedly committed. He cites no authority to sustain his contention, and it appears to be without merit. The corpus delicti of the

The evidence, viewed in the light of the rule of the Newland case, supra, establishes independently of defendant’s own extrajudicial statements the following facts. Matt Manestar, the victim of the crime, was the owner of Rose Motel, located at 1345 West Pacific Coast Highway, in the Wilmington or Harbor City area. He was “well-to-do,” and locally was reputed to have “quite a bit of money.” One of his sons testified that1 ‘ [w] e were asked about it quite a few times. . . . on the dock . . . they kept calling us money bags.” On the night of January 22-23, 1956, Matt Manestar was in charge of the office or lobby of the motel; he had relieved his son Leonard at about 12:45 a. m. on the 23d, a Monday; he was alone at the time. In one of the drawers of a table in the office was currency amounting to $27; in a box on the counter were some small coins for use for television. On the preceding Saturday $30 in currency had been delivered to Mr. Manestar. At 10 a. m. on Monday, the 23d, another son, Emil, arrived at the office. No member of the family had seen Matt after Leonard left him and before Emil arrived. He found the doors unlocked, the lights on; Matt’s hat, coat and glasses were on the counter; the table drawer was partially open and the $27 of currency was gone; the coin box had also disappeared. There was no evidence of a struggle.

On January 25th, about 4 p. m., Officer Schmitz of the Los Angeles Police Department saw Matt’s body on a ledge of a cliff about 75 feet below the road near Point Pirmin Park, several miles from the motel. There were no shoes, hat or glasses on the body. No automobile or other form of conveyance was near. An autopsy disclosed that the cause of death “was gunshot wound in the head and of the abdomen with hemorrhage and injuries to the brain. ’ ’ Also: ‘ ‘ The point of entrance was in the left occipital region, which is back of the head on the left side. The bullet pierced the brain more or less diagonally and edged through the right eyelid. . . . The other wound was in the region of the abdomen, rather closely between the edge of the ribs and I think a little to the right,

There can be no doubt that the foregoing makes a prima facie showing of homicide. Of course, that is enough to afford a basis for the use of defendant’s confirmatory confessions. (People v. Cullen, supra, 37 Cal.2d 614 , 624; People v. Powell, 34 Cal.2d 196 , 203 [ 208 P.2d 974 ].) “To prove a prima facie case of corpus delicti, all that was required was to show a reasonable probability that a criminal act of another had been the direct cause of the death. ...” (People v. Ives, 17 Cal.2d 459 , 464 [ 110 P.2d 408 ].) In People v. Mehaffey, 32 Cal.2d 535 , 545 [ 197 P.2d 12 ], the court, speaking of the use of extrajudicial declarations and statements of a defendant, said: “ [I] t is likewise well settled that to authorize their reception in evidence and consideration by the jury, the prosecution is not required to establish the corpus delicti by proof as clear and convincing as is necessary to establish the fact of guilt; rather slight or prima facie proof is sufficient for such purpose. [Citations.] It may be proved by circumstantial evidence and by inferences reasonably drawn therefrom. [Citations.] Direct or positive evidence is not essential [citations] , nor is it necessary at this point to connect the defendant with the perpetration of the offense.”

The possibility that decedent voluntarily walked or rode from the motel to the edge of the cliff several miles away, there shot himself and fell over the cliff was not suggested by anything in evidence. A mere possibility affords no evidence whatever. (See Robinson v. Board of Retirement, 140 Cal.App.2d 115 , 118 [ 294 P.2d 724 ], and authorities therein cited.) The reasonable inference is death by violence. Basis is thus afforded for use of defendant’s confessions for completion of the proof.

Defendant made two written and signed confessions, another which was taken down on a tape recorder, and numerous other oral statements pointing to himself as the perpetrator of a robbery resulting in the killing of Manestar.

On March 30, 1956, defendant, who apparently had been on parole from the Deuel Vocational Institution at Tracy, was returned for some infraction of rules not connected with this

Roy T. Asakawa, correction officer at Deuel, was sought out by defendant after his talks with Enos and before arrival of the Los Angeles officers, which was on April 17th. Defendant told him that he would like to confess a crime that he had committed in Los Angeles and that he had already talked to Mr. Enos. “He said that on January 24th of this year he had shot a man in Los Angeles; that him and a friend were riding around one night and they robbed a motel and his friend drove the car while Williams went inside the motel. He went inside and stuck up the motel and then he ordered the man outside. He said he didn’t know why, but he did, and he put the man in the front seat of the car while he got in the back seat. Then he told his buddy to drive around out to the cliff somewhere, and he said all the time that they were riding he kept telling the man in the front seat how they were going to kill him, just to see what his reactions were. I asked him what he did after that, and he said they kept threatening the man, and about 45 minutes later or so, the man

The police took defendant from Deuel to San Pedro on April 20th. On the way defendant asked what they were taking him to Los Angeles for, was told that it was an investigation of the killing of “this motel man,” and defendant replied, “you got the wrong man on that, sir.” The conversation was sporadic, but as Officer Butts testified: “Then all of a sudden he might ask me, like he did several times, about that statement that he had signed at Tracy. He wanted to know if that amounted to a confession and I told him that in my opinion that the statement that he had signed had all the elements of the case in it and did amount to a confession.”

That night at the police station Butts showed defendant a picture of the Manestar family group and a small one of Matt Manestar and asked if that was the man he robbed. The reply was that the small one “looks like the man.”

That same evening a further interview was had and a tape recording made. Defendant again talked voluntarily anil freely. Among other things he pointed on his own body to the places where the bullets went through the head and the torso. When explaining the latter wound he testified that he just had the victim by one hand, trying to hold him up, that he was falling and defendant shot him “ [r]ight in here or the guts. Q. You mean in the guts or upper chest or the lower chest? A. Bight in the area.”

On May 1st defendant made an oral confession. Though it differs in certain respects from the first one—e.g., substituting Carpenter for Caprell as an accomplice—he again told of the weed and the wine, the robbery inside the motel office, marching the victim to the car, driving into the hills, the attempted grabbing for the wheel, the shooting of the victim, searching him, finding a ring of keys, a few chips, a pen, and nothing else. “He said he shot him the second time when he was searching him. The gun went off accidentally. This was before driving down to the point. And he stated then they

On May 2nd at the police station defendant said all his previous stories were false; that he knew only what he had read in the San Pedro and Wilmington newspapers while at Tracy. But the transcription of the recording of April 20 contains this: “Q. Bt Officer Butts: Did you read about it in the paper? A. No. The only part that I read in the paper, well, I heard about it, you know. He showed me a clipping of it, Prank showed me a clipping of it, and then when I got to Tracy there was a clipping. But the only clipping I had in Tracy, where he was kidnapped and vanished. Q. Where he was missing? A. Yah. Q. Before he had been found? A. Yah.” In a second conversation in the district attorney’s office on the second of May defendant again asserted that all he knew about the crime was what he read in the newspapers. But, after being quizzed as to how he knew certain things, he said: “All right, that is not the truth. I actually was in on the robbery. . . . He stated that the way he had told us about the robbery and kidnaping and shooting happened was all true; that it happened that way, except that he was by himself. He had pulled the job by himself; that he went over to the motel and walked into the office and found the man as he described him; that he had taken him out to the hills to keep him from calling the police, and had parked the car and started to search the man. He started to walk away from him and he got scared and shot him and he said he thought the man was going to get away from him. He said after shooting him he then walked up and shot him again to make sure that he was dead. He dragged the body over and threw it over the cliff himself.” This was followed by written confession of the same date, May 2nd, which defendant volunteered to write in his own hand. It differed from the first one in numerous particulars but contained an admission of the robbery and the homicide. The description of the robbery was substantially the same as before except that it was a one-man job; in the hills defendant ordered Manestar out of the car; “I went to look in his pockets and he turns and began to leave; the gun went off hitting him in back of the head or neck. I then went over and started going through his pockets real fast. I found a pen and a key set and some chips. I threw the keys and put the pen and chips in my coat. Then as I went to push him off right there

There were numerous other statements made by defendant from time to time which were contradictory of his confessions, just as there was inconsistency between the confessions themselves, but those things presented problems for the jury to solve by drawing the more reasonable inferences. 1 ‘ The prosecution is not bound by the exculpatory statements or self-serving declarations in a confession when shown by direct or circumstantial evidence to be untrue. . . . Moreover, confessions stand upon the same footing as other evidence and are to be weighed by the jury in the same manner. All parts are not necessarily entitled to the same credit, and the jury may believe a part and reject the remainder of a confession (People v. Wyman, 15 Cal. 70 , 74; 8 Cal.Jur. 119, § 207).” (People v. Garcia, 2 Cal.2d 673 , 679 [ 42 P.2d 1013 ].) “ There are some discrepancies between details of the confession and other proof, but that goes to the weight, not the competency, of the confession.” (People v. Wade, 138 Cal.App.2d 531 , 536 [ 292 P.2d 303 ].)

But appellant argues that the confessions should have been rejected as untrustworthy because he was proved to be a pathological liar and a psychopathic personality. For this he relies upon the testimony of an expert. As a partial basis for that testimony defendant’s mother testified to childhood illnesses, head injuries and a penchant for telling mean and ugly things which he had done, which proved to be untrue; exemplified by the claim that he had “stomped” a boy in the stomach and knocked him out; another that he was involved in a murder case in Texas when in fact he was being held for vagrancy. Defendant’s brother testified to his inclination to tell “tall tales,” such as beating up another person with whom he had had no fight in fact; also illustrated by his claim that he had had a fight with Officers Thornberry and Butts, and that he had told many other false tales. Any evidence of facts indicating a congenital or pathological inability or disinclination to tell the truth was received when offered.

It is significant that defendant in his first conversation with Mr. Enos gave the exact address of the motel, 1345 West Pacific Coast Highway; in his first confession to Officers Butts and Weyant he spoke of using a .38 revolver and the bullet found in Manestar’s body came from a .38; he said Manestar “kind of stuttered,” a fact unknown to the police; told of the poker chips, which were unknown to the officers; gave details of the Manestar office from which Weyant made an accurate diagram in his presence; later pointed to the places on the head and body where the victim was shot. The expert answered in the affirmative this question: “If this defendant described things about this crime he could not have gained from any source excepting having seen it or been there, then you would say that he would be telling the truth on that, would you not, if it was accurate?”

Again: “I will put the question to you this way: If the defendant did commit the murder there is nothing about the thing that you diagnosed here that would prevent him or render him incapable of accurately narrating the circumstances of the killing, would there? A. No, there isn’t. Q. He would be perfectly capable of doing that, would he not? A. Yes, he would be capable of it.” Finally: “Q. Secondly, you do not purport to say here, Doctor, whether or not the

Counsel argue that this was the only expert evidence on the subject and hence cannot be rejected; from this predicate they conclude that defendant’s confessions are unreliable to the point where they must be rejected and that the State is therefore left without any evidence connecting defendant with the crime. There are two answers to this contention. Firstly, the expert’s testimony leaves a field open to conflicting inferences, and it was the province of the jury to resolve that conflict. (See People v. Berry, 44 Cal.2d 426 , 432 [ 282 P.2d 861 ]; People v. Martin, 87 Cal.App.2d 581 , 584 [ 197 P.2d 379 ] ; People v. Loop, 127 Cal.App.2d 786 , 800 [ 274 P.2d 885 ].) Secondly, this is not one of those occasions so familiar in malpractice actions (see Lawless v. Calaway, 24 Cal.2d 81 , 86 [ 147 P.2d 604 ]) where expert opinion is binding upon judge and jury. It is rather one of those situations in which the expert’s conclusions are to be weighed in the light of the reasons assigned therefor and the other facts in evidence. (Pen. Code, § 1127b; People v. Long, 15 Cal.2d 590 , 606-607 [ 103 P.2d 969 ]; People v. French, 12 Cal.2d 720 , 763 [ 87 P.2d 1014 ]; People v. Denningham, 82 Cal.App. 2d 117 , 119-120 [ 185 P.2d 614 ]; People v. DeMordaigle, 138 Cal.App.2d 435 , 440 [ 292 P.2d 3 ]; 20 Am.Jur. § 1208, p. 1059; 32 C.J.S. § 569a, pp. 390, 391; § 569c, p. 396.) The jurors well may have concluded that the original confession emanated from a sense of guilt and a nagging conscience, fortified perhaps by a belief that “as long as they didn’t have the gun, or his accomplice, that they couldn’t do a thing to him.” We conclude that evidence of substantiality supports the implied findings that defendant committed the homicide and did so in the perpetration of a robbery.

Counsel for appellant also assert error in the exclusion of proffered evidence “of other confessions and statements of appellant concerning the matter at issue,” saying, “ [t]he appellant wished to show that the other statements were inconsistent with the confessions offered by the prosecution as going to appellant’s mental traits and the validity of the introduced confessions.”

Officer Weyant was the first witness concerning defendant’s

Fricke on California Criminal Evidence, third edition, page 67: “ The confession of a defendant is admissible only as evidence when offered by the prosecution and, when such a statement made by the defendant is offered in his behalf it is objectionable as being hearsay and self-serving and is inad

It is now said that one of the purposes of the proffered contradictory statements was “going to appellant’s mental traits.” This does not square with the record, as is shown by the above quotations from counsel’s remarks.

After the ruling was made the court received without objection various self-serving declarations of defendant, such as a letter and oral statements to his friend Toby Moody, and a statement to his mother concerning the case. The prosecution also reopened its ease in chief, proved defendant’s oral denials of guilt on April 21st and on May 2nd, his statement on the 21st that he was taking the rap for someone else and for a consideration of $5,000, and his written confession of May 2nd which contradicts in some respects the original one of April 17th.

Appellant’s counsel did not make any offer of proof and it is impossible to determine from the transcript or the briefs what specific evidence he had that was not actually received. He is now in no position to complain. (People v. Harrris, 169 Cal. 53 , 63-64 [ 145 P. 520 ]; People v. Danielly, 33 Cal.2d 362 , 376 [ 202 P.2d 18 ].)

Defendant was not called to the witness stand. While this fact alone could not fill any hiatus in the proof of the prosecution, it nevertheless lends weight to evidence presented by the State upon matters presumptively within defendant’s knowledge and which, if untruly stated, would normally be denied by him. (See People v. Adamson, 27 Cal.2d 478 , 489-490 [ 165 P.2d 3 ] ; People v. Ashley, 42 Cal.2d 246 , 268 [ 267 P.2d 271 ] ; People v. Goldstein, 136 Cal.App.2d 778 , 790 [ 289 P.2d 581 ].)