People v. Padilla

Opinion

In a murder prosecution, is evidence of a hallucination admissible at the guilt phase to reduce first degree murder to second degree murder or to mitigate murder to voluntary manslaughter? We hold that evidence of a hallucination—a perception with no objective reality—is inadmissible to negate malice so as to mitigate murder to voluntary manslaughter but is admissible to negate deliberation and premeditation so as to reduce first degree murder to second degree murder.

Factual and Procedural History^[1]

Shortly after an early morning prisoner count, correctional officers at Wasco State Prison who saw blood on inmate Raymond T. Padilla’s face, hands, and jumpsuit found his cellmate Raymond Loya dead. Loya had deep penetrating stab wounds to each of his eyes. One wound was forceful enough to fracture the supraorbital plate at the top of his eye socket and to induce a subarachnoid hemorrhage by tearing the membranes around the brain. Loya was still alive when he suffered those wounds. The towel around his neck not only fractured the bones in his voice box and strangled him to death but also was so tightly wrapped that coroner’s office personnel had trouble removing the towel to perform the autopsy.

At the guilt phase of his first degree murder trial, Padilla sought to admit the testimony of two psychologists that he committed a retaliatory homicide after hallucinating that Loya had killed Padilla’s father and brothers. The court allowed him to admit that evidence at the sanity phase but not at the guilt phase. A jury found him guilty of first degree murder (Pen. Code,^[2] § 187, subd. (a)), found a strike prior true (§§ 667, subds. (c)-(j), 1170.12, subds. (a)-(e)), and found him sane (§§ 25, subd. (b), 1016, subd. 6, 1017, subd. 5, 1026).

Discussion

The sole issue on appeal arises out of the court’s denial of Padilla’s motion in limine to present at the guilt phase the testimony of two psychologists who later testified at the sanity phase. Padilla argues that the court’s

The foundation of Padilla’s argument was his proffer of the testimony of two psychologists who later testified at the sanity phase. One could have testified at the guilt phase that Padilla hallucinated that Loya had killed his father and brothers. The other could have testified at the guilt phase about the concept of hallucination as provocation. That evidence, he argues, could have led to a second degree murder verdict or to a voluntary manslaughter verdict.

The test of whether provocation or heat of passion can negate malice so as to mitigate murder to voluntary manslaughter is objective. (People v. Steele (2002) 27 Cal.4th 1230 , 1254 [ 120 Cal.Rptr.2d 432 , 47 P.3d 225 ]; People v. Wickersham (1982) 32 Cal.3d 307 , 326 [ 185 Cal.Rptr. 436 , 650 P.2d 311 ], disapproved on another ground in People v. Barton (1995) 12 Cal.4th 186 , 201 [ 47 Cal.Rptr.2d 569 , 906 P.2d 531 ].) “[N]o defendant may set up his own standard of conduct and justify or excuse himself because in fact his passions were aroused, unless . . . the facts and circumstances were sufficient to arouse the passions of the ordinarily reasonable [person].” (People v. Logan (1917) 175 Cal. 45 , 49 [ 164 P. 1121 ].) The test of whether provocation or heat of passion can negate deliberation and premeditation so as to reduce first degree murder to second degree murder, on the other hand, is subjective. (People v. Fitzpatrick (1992) 2 Cal.App.4th 1285 , 1295 [ 3 Cal.Rptr.2d 808 ]; People v. Valentine (1946) 28 Cal.2d 121 , 131-135 [ 169 P.2d 1 ].) “If this were not so, the provocation would be a defense to murder and would be sufficient to reduce the crime to manslaughter.” (Fitzpatrick, at p. 1295.)

A hallucination is a perception with no objective reality. (American Heritage Diet. (4th ed. 2000) p. 792 [“[perception of visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, or gustatory experiences without an external stimulus”

On the other hand, nothing in the law necessarily precludes Padilla’s hallucination from negating deliberation and premeditation so as to reduce first degree murder to second degree murder, as that test is subjective. (See People v. Fitzpatrick, supra, 2 Cal.App.4th at p. 1295; People v. Valentine, supra, 28 Cal.2d at pp. 131-135.) On that ground, we hold that the court’s order rejecting his proffer of evidence was error. The jury had no other evidence about his hallucination at the guilt phase. As the evidence he proffered could well have persuaded the jury to find that his hallucination provoked a heat of passion in which he committed not a first degree murder but a second degree murder, a more favorable result was reasonably probable in the absence of the error, which we cannot declare harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. (Chapman v. California, supra, 386 U.S. at p. 24 [87 S.Ct. at p. 828]; People v. Watson, supra, 46 Cal.2d at p. 836; U.S. Const., 6th & 14th Amends.; Cal. Const., art. VI, § 13.)

Necessarily implicit in Padilla’s argument is the premise that with evidence about his hallucination in the record of the guilt phase, the jury could have found him guilty of second degree murder. On that record, we