Opinion
B232005
01-12-2012
THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. GRAY MARIA, Defendant and Appellant.
Jennifer A. Mannix, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant. Kamala D. Harris, Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, and Lawrence M. Daniels and James William Bilderback II, Supervising Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS
California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.
(Los Angeles County Super. Ct. No. VA 096024)
APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles. Thomas I. McKnew, Judge. Affirmed.
Jennifer A. Mannix, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
Kamala D. Harris, Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, and Lawrence M. Daniels and James William Bilderback II, Supervising Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
SUMMARY
Defendant Gray Maria was charged in March 2007 with the first degree murder of Mara del Real, with an allegation of personal use of a deadly weapon (a knife) (count 1), and with assault with a deadly weapon (a screwdriver) on Victor Najera (count 2). In January 2008 the trial court found defendant incompetent to stand trial, and several months later he was admitted to Patton State Hospital. In August 2008 the court found defendant had been restored to competency. Defendant pled not guilty/not guilty by reason of insanity to both charges. A jury found defendant guilty of both crimes and found the personal use allegation true. In the sanity phase of the trial, the jury found defendant was legally sane at the time each offense was committed.
Defendant's only contention on appeal is that the evidence does not support the jury's conclusion that he was sane when the crimes were committed. We find substantial evidence to support the jury's conclusion and we therefore affirm the judgment.
FACTS
1. The Guilt Phase of Defendant's Trial
Defendant, who has a history of severe mental illness, committed both crimes on the same day in June 2006 -- first the assault and later the murder.
Victor Najera, the assault victim, was walking through a McDonald's parking lot when defendant got off a bus, walked up to Najera, told Najera he looked familiar and asked, "Where are you from?" Najera said he was not from anywhere and did not "gangbang." Defendant began hitting Najera, who ran inside the McDonald's to get away from defendant. Defendant followed Najera inside and, according to Najera's statement to police, pulled a knife from his pocket and stabbed Najera in his left shoulder. Defendant tried to stab him again and Najera ran out of the restaurant, followed by defendant. A security guard followed defendant as he walked away and yelled to defendant to stop, but defendant kept going. Then an object dropped from defendant's hand, and defendant kicked the object (the weapon with which he had assaulted Najera) down a storm drain. Defendant "took off" and the security guard ran after him, but gave up the chase after defendant went across Whittier Boulevard.
Defendant then went to the home of his cousin, Omar del Real, where he frequently spent a great deal of time. Omar was at home with his sister Mara, who suffered from cerebral palsy since birth and was unable to move her limbs. At first, Omar did not answer the door when defendant rang. Defendant lay down in front of the door in a fetal position. Eventually Omar let defendant in the house. Defendant, who was normally calm and happy, seemed agitated. He told Omar he had just had a fight with a gang member who had been staring at him, and he "wanted to kill the guy or something." Omar calmed defendant down and defendant took a shower. The three of them watched the television in Mara's room for a few minutes, and then defendant went to the kitchen. Omar heard him rattling the dishes, and went to the kitchen. Defendant slammed the refrigerator door and walked back to Mara's room, and Omar followed.
After a minute, Omar left Mara's room to go to his own room to get ready for school. From his room, he heard Mara moan, "like something I've never heard before." Omar ran into Mara's room and saw defendant on top of Mara. Omar pulled defendant off his sister and saw that Mara was bleeding from a big open wound in her neck; Mara could not breathe because the air would escape from the hole in her neck. Omar grabbed defendant, who did not resist, took defendant outside, locked the door, and called 911. When police and paramedics arrived, defendant was no longer there.
Mara died of multiple sharp-force injuries; she had 23 wounds to her neck, several of which would have been fatal. The police recovered a bloody sweatshirt and bandana that defendant had been wearing; a Whittier resident had found them lying on the ground and put them in a trash can.
The police arrested defendant the following day, at the Coral Sands Motel in Hollywood. The police advised defendant of his Miranda rights (Miranda v. Arizona (1966) 384 U.S. 436), and defendant said he did not want an attorney. A video of defendant's interview with the police was later played for the jury.
With respect to Mara's murder, defendant told police that he "kept hearing like, voices telling me to kill her, kill her and I felt like, you know, like everyone wanted me to do it. So I, I really didn't want to do it but . . . somehow I got like, . . . tricked into doing it. So basically, you know, I just did it." When Omar threw him out of the house, "I just went running, tried to get away. Took a bus, got a bus and . . . tried to find a hotel to stay in. That's what happened." And: "I remember that it, it wasn't really my will, you know. Like, I didn't really want to kill her but, you know, I felt like it was like, uh, it was like angels that came from heaven and they were saying, uh, you know, 'we're going to take her to a better place so just do it, so just do it 'cause she doesn't want to be here anymore.' So I just, I just thought, thought to myself, you know. And they told me, it's okay, you know, we'll take care of it, you know, like, they'll handle what happens. And I just did it."
Defendant told police he heard the voices telling him to kill Mara as soon as he walked in. He initially resisted, but then gave in and got a knife from the kitchen. First the voices told him "to kill the cat," and then "they tell me kill my cousin and then they told me that my cousin wants me to kill her. So, uh, . . . I didn't want to do it, you know." Defendant said that first he got a big knife, but the edge wasn't sharp enough; he had to get a sharper one "so it could be less painful than a, than a, than a piercing that's, that's not with a sharp object . . . ." The voices were telling defendant "that, uh, they want to kill me. So, you know, I had to get a weapon just in case when I go out, just in case someone want to kill me, you know, I can kill them." Defendant was going to get the knife for that purpose, "but in there the voices starting telling me to kill her, to kill her."
After getting the knife, defendant "was trying to make sure if it's true what they're telling me so, uh, I said, like, I was looking at my cousin and saying: Well, well is my cousin really telling me to kill her, you know? Then I thought like, if he tells me like, with his own voice to, to do it, then, then I'll do it. But he didn't but again I still did it, you know." Defendant said the voices "were telling me that he [Omar] wants to see me do it in person, like he wants to see, you know, the stabbing." But defendant did not stab Mara when Omar was in the room; he stabbed her just after Omar left the room. Defendant "took my time basically just to, uh, just to, uh, get myself like, to do it. And as soon as I was doing it, I just did it as fast as I can, 'cause I, I don't wanna like, uh, I don't it to be slow on her, you know?"
Defendant said he put the knife next to Mara's neck, and "then she looked at it and she didn't say nothing. So I was thinking like, maybe it's true. Maybe the voices are telling me that she does want me to kill her 'cause she wants to be a better, like a better, in a better body, because she's paralyzed." "So I just, you know, started, started and just stabbing like crazy." When police asked if he thought what he did was wrong, defendant replied: "Yeah, because I was confused, because first my cousin well, like, he was telling me like, and the voices were telling me, yeah, do it, do it, uh, go ahead. I'm gonna come this way and then you go do it. And next thing you know, he [Omar] comes attacking me. I say, what are you doing, what are you doing, what did he do, you know. Like, trying to pull me back."
Defendant described throwing his bloody clothes over a fence, taking a bus, "[a]nd basically that's where my whole, uh, you know, uh, mission started to try to like evade the police . . . ." Police asked him why he wanted to evade the police, and defendant replied: " 'Cause I didn't want to get, I didn't want to get caught, you know. Nobody wants to like, gettin' caught for murder." Defendant took three buses and two trains before arriving in the Hollywood area. He eventually found a place with a vacancy and paid $80 for a room. Then defendant called his mother and his therapist, both of whom told him to turn himself in, but defendant did not want to do so; he wanted to go to his aunt's house in Mexico to hide out from the police: "Different location, uh, different, different law, you know."
Defendant told police he had never done anything "this severe" before: "Just fist fighting. You know, uh, somehow, I did do things but not with my own hands because somehow, you know, they, they told me that, uh, you know, that the Islam, you know, uh, that they, they were going to blow up the Twin Towers and I felt that it was, that it was, uh, you know, for my pleasure. So, uh, I kind of did like, rejoice a little bit from that, 'cause I was having problems and, you know, I just wanted to see people die, you know, so."
Defendant told police he had a history of psychiatric problems and had been diagnosed with "[s]chizophrenia and . . . bi-polar." He said that when he was in the hospital he was taking medication, but usually does not take it when he's out of the hospital. Sometimes he feels violent, but "I mostly refrain from acting, from acting upon things 'cause I don't want to get in more deeper trouble with the law, you know." When asked whether it was right or wrong to kill Mara, defendant replied, "It was, it was definitely wrong."
This was the exchange between Sheriff's Detective Loman and Cooper and defendant:
"LOMAN: You know the differen[ce] between right and wrong and good and bad?
"[DEFENDANT]: Sometimes I fear I, sometimes I think I don't. Sometimes I think my mind is just, just wants to just, uh, take, just take [its] own path, you know. And, uh, just doesn't, just doesn't basically give a damn about anybody. So I try to like, uh, yeah, sometimes, sometimes, sometimes my mind, uh, just has [its] own speed, you know. And it just takes --
"LOMAN: But, but I think what my question is do you know the difference between right and wrong?
"[DEFENDANT]: Uh, right or wrong? I feel I don't. I think, I think like, uh, sometimes, uh, I know, like, I know what's beneficial for me. And basically I'm like kind of, uh, just greedy for what's beneficial for me." [¶] . . . [¶]
"LOMAN: But do you, even though, I think what you're saying even though you want what's beneficial for you, do you know the difference between right and wrong?" [¶] . . . [¶]
"[DEFENDANT]: Yeah, I do. It's just that --
"LOMAN: Was . . . it right or was it wrong to kill Mara?
"[DEFENDANT]: It was, it was definitely wrong.
"LOMAN: Okay. So you know there's a difference between right and wrong?
"[DEFENDANT]: Yeah, I do.
"LOMAN: Okay. Is it --
"COOPER: I think what you're saying -- and correct me if I'm wrong is -- you understand what the difference between right and wrong is but you just want to do what feels right for you. Is that what you're saying?
"[DEFENDANT]: Yeah. Even though I have to suffer the consequences.
"LOMAN: But you know the difference between right and wrong, you just don't always do the right thing?
"[DEFENDANT]: Yeah, exactly. By accident. By accident. 'Cause usually, usually like, uh, in my mind I usually don't, don't want to do evil, you know.
"LOMAN: Right. In your mind you don't, in your mind and your heart you don't want to do evil things?
"[DEFENDANT]: No, of course not, you know. I leave killing and all that evil, all that evil shit to other people. You know like, let them do it and I'll just like, you know, like kick back, you know. Uh-huh.
"LOMAN: Yeah, I understand exactly what you're saying. But let me ask you then, and, and uh, and also in, in your everyday life, um, do you, uh, do you care like, like in this instance. Do you care about what happened to Mara?
"[DEFENDANT]: Umm, yeah, I do 'cause sometimes I fear that the voices were lying and she really did suffer a lot.
"LOMAN: So that makes you feel bad?
"[DEFENDANT]: Uh, yeah. Sometimes, sometimes, uh, it's up and down when the -- Sometimes when, I, uh, when the vision, images come in my head and then it gets me like, it does, it does, uh, make me feel that it was bad."
When questioned about the voices, defendant said: "The voices are definitely there. They tell me to do more, you know. Like I'll think about like, oh, well, that, that lady, like, you know, I would probably stab her too. And they say, 'Do it, do it.' So like, you know, like, I don't do it 'cause I don't want to do it, you know."
The detectives also questioned defendant about the assault on Najera. Defendant said, "I don't even know who he was. He was just walking down the street." Defendant said that Najera "looked like a, like a wannabe like, tough guy . . . ." Najera had a knife, or a screwdriver like a pick; they started fighting; and the knife dropped. Najera went into the McDonald's, and defendant, who "had the knife now," waited for him to come out, but "the voices kept telling me, 'Just go get him. Just go get him.' So I just listened to the voices." Defendant went inside, got into a fight with Najera, and then ran off. "I just ran off. I threw the, on the gutter, inside the gutter I threw the, I threw the evidence. Security was chasing me so I just ran across the street and went straight to Mara's house."
Defendant also explained the writing police found in his backpack: "It's a type of writing that I just practice"; defendant described it as geometrical, based on 12 points: "all the letters equal 56 and they, it amounts to all the sounds, you know, that are used in, uh, communication . . . ." Defendant said he studied the Hebrew language and "got into trying to develop a new way of writing."
2. The Sanity Phase of Defendant's Trial
After the jury found defendant guilty of both crimes, two reputable psychiatrists testified in the sanity phase of the trial, Dr. Mark Jaffe for the defense and Dr. Stephen Mohaupt for the prosecution. Both psychiatrists, who trained together at the University of Southern California and were friends, agreed that defendant suffered from schizophrenia, including hallucinations and delusional conduct, and that he understood the nature and quality of his acts. They disagreed, however, on whether he was incapable of distinguishing right from wrong at the time he committed the offenses. In essence, Dr. Jaffe concluded that only after he killed Mara -- when he saw Omar's reaction to Mara's stabbing -- did defendant realize "that what he had done might not have been right . . . ." Dr. Mohaupt, on the other hand, while recognizing that defendant was struggling with severe psychotic symptoms at the time of the offenses, concluded, based on factors including defendant's behavior before and after the crimes, that defendant did not "truly believe[] that he was morally justified in attacking [Najera], or in killing Mara."
a. Dr. Jaffe's opinion
Dr. Jaffe interviewed defendant twice at the jail, reviewed the murder book, and reviewed psychiatric records and reports on defendant. The latter included records from Patton State Hospital, Alhambra BHC, and Kaiser Psychiatric Facility, and psychiatric reports prepared by three other court-appointed doctors and by Dr. Mohaupt. He diagnosed defendant with chronic paranoid schizophrenia, as had other doctors beginning in 2005 or earlier. A prominent feature of this illness is the person's chronic paranoid delusions that others are trying to hurt or kill him or her.
Dr. Jaffe opined that defendant was legally insane at the time of both crimes. During Dr. Jaffe's interviews, defendant expressed delusion and ongoing auditory hallucinations, with grandiose beliefs "that he was a prophet and that he was writing a special alphabet that could communicate to people in every different language." Defendant believed that the driver of the bus on which he was riding just before he assaulted Najera was putting thoughts in his head, and he had to prove he was brave to show people that he was a prophet; he would do so by attacking a person he saw walking on the street. Defendant also believed people were trying to kill him, and thus he was carrying a weapon at the time. Defendant believed angels were talking to him, that his thoughts were being broadcast out loud so that other people could know what he was planning to do, and that he was "fulfilling God's mission."
Dr. Jaffe determined that, at the time of the murder, defendant was "hearing a lot of voices which were commanding him to kill the victim"; he believed these were voices from angels and he was carrying out God's plan. Defendant had an "altruistic delusion" -- a delusion "where somebody believes that they are going to do someone a good service and be unselfish and help somebody out, and that was what led to the murder." Defendant also had other delusions at the same time; he heard a wall crack and "interpreted that to mean that it was right to kill the victim.
He also misinterpreted -- because of his delusions -- a look that he received from [Omar] that told him, 'I want you to do this, I'm not going to stop you from killing her.'" Defendant also had the delusion that, because the victim said nothing when he showed her the knife, she wanted him to kill her. Dr. Jaffe continued:
"And so in that way, [defendant] did not understand right versus wrong due to his mental illness and did not understand the moral wrongfulness of his actions. [¶] And to investigate that further, I asked him, what would you have done if 12 people were standing there watching you do this? Would you . . . still have done the crime in front of them? And he had said, yes, he would have because he would have believed that those 12 people were there, they would have heard his thoughts, known what his mission was about, and that this was something that he had to do, and it was going to help the victim."Defendant believed the victim would be reincarnated, "free and liberated and able to come back as a different person, and she would be happy."
Dr. Jaffe explained defendant's statements to the police the day after the crimes (to the effect that killing Mara was "definitely wrong") and his actions after the murder:
"[I]t was only after he had committed the crime that he realized that what he had done might not have been right because his cousin at that time, after his cousin came upon him and saw him with the victim who was bleeding and dying, was upset and threw him out of the house. And at that time I think [defendant] realized that, you know, this maybe was not what he had thought was going to happen. And so he left at that time. [¶] However, . . . I believe he expected his cousin to walk in and say, great, this is exactly what I wanted, then he would not have run, he would have then done something else in keeping with the delusions that he had, that he was carrying out the wishes of his -- of the victim and his cousin, and angels."
Dr. Jaffe also described for the jury defendant's several hospitalizations prior to and after his commission of the crimes, as well as reports from several doctors who treated him, all reflecting defendant's severe mental illness, including "very distressing auditory hallucinations" and an attempt to jump off a building "to kill himself and have the voices stop."
b. Dr. Mohaupt's opinion
Dr. Mohaupt interviewed defendant in December 2008. In addition, he reviewed the arrest and autopsy reports, the transcript of defendant's confession, the preliminary hearing transcript, a report from Patton State Hospital, Dr. Jaffe's report, and a report of one of the other doctors.
Dr. Mohaupt described Najera's assault as defendant reported it to him, all substantially as previously described: Defendant believed there was some kind of telepathic communication with the bus driver that involved "go, attack this person." Najera's appearance as a "tough guy" was defendant's "signal to attack him." Dr. Mohaupt found it significant that defendant fled from the location and threw the screwdriver into the storm drain: "If someone . . . tries to conceal that weapon, it appears that they are taking an action to avoid being caught with the weapon, indicating that they understood that they should not have engaged in this behavior"; and, "[s]ecurity arrives and he flees the location which implies he understood here's someone, I might get in trouble, I better get out of here, and at the same process, he drops the weapon in the storm drain." As for "moral wrongfulness":
"As I look through the story, what led him to assault this individual was the signal from the bus driver and that this guy looked like a tough guy. And those were the precursors. It doesn't appear as if he believed that this individual was going to kill him or was going to cause the world to come to an end, or was going to explode a bomb. Within the version of events that the defendant told me about, there's no delusional material that would justify his actions."
As for the murder, Dr. Mohaupt likewise concluded that defendant understood the moral wrongfulness of his actions:
"[Defendant] described to me that the thought came across his mind that Omar wanted me to do it while he was in the room; perhaps I should stab her while he's in the room because he did believe that Omar wanted him to go through with this and to kill her. But he did wait until Omar left the room before he stabbed her. . . . [¶] So waiting until he leaves the room[] as opposed to just walking in with the knife and starting to stab her after he receives the signal, to me, supports that he understood the wrongfulness of his actions."
Dr. Mohaupt also explained that many patients with schizophrenia have auditory hallucinations or voices telling them to kill themselves or hurt other people, but they are able to ignore the voices. In considering the wrongfulness issue -- "was this the right thing to do in [defendant's] mind," because of a delusion or false belief -- Dr. Mohaupt testified that "there really was no delusion present . . . that would justify taking her life in his mind at the time, other than the variety of psychotic symptoms he was experiencing that were encouraging him to follow through." Thus, Dr. Mohaupt was "of the opinion that there wasn't a false belief present in the defendant's mind to morally justify his actions." Other factors Dr. Mohaupt considered were that defendant ran from the scene after the murder and attempted to dispose of his bloody sweatshirt -- behavior consistent with "someone that understood the wrongfulness of their actions," both legally and morally:
"I think he knew the legal wrongfulness, and that's what he was struggling with as he was preparing to kill her, and he described that. You know, should I do it? Should I not do it? Attempting to communicate with his cousin. I don't believe that there was enough of a reason there morally that when he went forward with the crime, so I believe as he discarded the sweat shirt, that it supports that he knew it was wrong, legally as well as morally, and he was attempting to get away and think, you know, going to Tijuana at that point."Dr. Mohaupt testified that defendant's response to investigators the day after the murder that it was "definitely wrong" to kill Mara also supported the conclusion that defendant understood the wrongfulness of his actions, as the question was posed "a short time after the crime occurred, and they ask him in a very straight fashion is this right or is this wrong?"
Dr. Mohaupt further stated that he had reviewed Dr. Jaffe's report and it did not change his opinion. He described the primary difference between their perspectives as Dr. Jaffe's belief that defendant's symptoms -- the bus driver's signal, defendant's belief he was a prophet, and so on -- "were so strong that [defendant] didn't understand the wrongfulness of his actions." Dr. Mohaupt came to a different conclusion:
"I recognize that [defendant] has schizophrenia. He had a number of severe psychotic symptoms and he was struggling with those symptoms at the time of the offense, and I recognize that he felt -- he's felt compelled to do these behaviors. However, I don't feel that he -- he truly believed that he was morally justified in doing these behaviors. I felt that he -- he had -- he felt compelled to do it because of the voices telling him to do it, the signal from the bus driver, the belief that he was a prophet, but I don't believe that at any point in these behaviors he -- he truly believed that he was morally justified in attacking this person, or in killing Mara."
Further, Dr. Mohaupt testified that it was very important to review the defendant's actual conduct before, during and after the crime, as well as the defendant's subjective report of what happened: "When you get a few months down the road and [a schizophrenic person with hallucinations is] now on medications and they are doing better, they may not have a real good memory of what took place, or they may not be able to give you an accurate recollection of what took place, and it's just the nature of the illness, that it becomes very confusing. . . . [¶] So the behavior of what that person does also is very important to pay attention to because it gives me a rough idea as to what their thought process perhaps did involve as they went through the different steps that took place during the crime."
Dr. Mohaupt found this a "challenging case" because defendant had a moderate amount of symptoms "but not to the point where he didn't know his behaviors and actions." Dr. Mohaupt explained that there were "two different routes" to overcome the presumption of sanity and determine that a person did not understand right from wrong: "either an enormous amount of symptoms where the person is just completely illogical, you cannot communicate with them to any significant degree, or in [defendant's] situation, with moderate amount of symptoms, is there a delusional belief," a "fixed false belief":
"So as I'm evaluating his case, I'm really looking to try and determine what was going on with his symptoms, what symptom did he have that interfered with his understanding so that he believed his actions were justified. [¶] Not that he felt compelled to act and assault someone or kill someone, not that he felt pressure to do it, but that he believed the action was the right thing to do. It was morally the correct action to take. [¶] And so that is a challenge with the case, because he did have quite a few psychotic symptoms, and the legal presumption is someone commits a crime, they are sane until proven otherwise, so I'm looking to overcome that legal presumption so I'm looking for enough evidence. [¶] . . . I'm looking to find that he truly believed by a delusion or some other thought process that his action was justified. [¶] . . . [¶] . . . I didn't -- I did not find enough delusional symptoms or psychotic symptoms that would satisfy me that I felt he overcame that presumption, that legal presumption that he was sane . . . ." [¶] . . . So what I'm looking [for] in [defendant's] case is there a fixed false belief that allows him to say these crimes are justified because of my belief or because of this symptom."Dr. Mohaupt further explained that a fixed false belief is "usually going to be more or less a steady situation. . . . I don't have that belief this minute and then two minutes later I don't believe it any longer. It's fixed. [¶] I might believe it to varying degrees. I might be really convinced right now, and two minutes later be a little bit less convinced, but I'm still convinced." Rapid fluctuation in realizing that something is wrong is uncommon; "I could see maybe a single fluctuation but not more than one."
On cross-examination, Dr. Mohaupt confirmed that his opinion "cannot be rendered with a high degree of certainty"; that "the data could be interpreted two different ways"; that "a high degree of certainty is stronger than a reasonable degree of certainty"; and that he was "able to render my opinion with [a] reasonable degree of medical certainty with the understanding that this is a hard case. He really had a lot of psychotic symptoms, and my assessment was it was a moderate degree of psychotic symptoms." Dr. Mohaupt also confirmed that he did not review and was not provided with a July 2007 report by Dr. Cherkas or the psychiatric records from Alhambra Psychiatric Hospital and Kaiser Permanente Hospital, although he was aware of defendant's suicide attempt and four different hospitalizations. Defense counsel also elicited a statement in Dr. Mohaupt's report that read, "'At that point [after the killing], [defendant] realized that he had done the wrong thing and made a terrible mistake.'" Dr. Mohaupt testified that the language in question was not his language or his analysis, but rather was "from the interview or documents reviewed," and that "you can't infer that the moment before he did not know it was not [sic]wrong -- [¶] . . . [¶] -- just because of what it states about this time period."
c. The verdict and sentence
The jury found the defendant was legally sane at the time of the commission of both offenses. The trial court denied defendant's motion for a new trial, and sentenced defendant to 25 years to life for the murder (Pen. Code, § 187, subd. (a)), an additional one year for the use of the knife (Pen. Code, § 12022, subd. (b)(2)), and the middle term of three years for the assault (Pen. Code, § 245, subd. (a)(1)), to be served concurrently, for a total term of 26 years to life.
DISCUSSION
Defendant contends the jury's sanity finding must be reversed "because there was no solid evidence" that defendant was legally sane when he assaulted Najera and murdered Mara del Real. We cannot agree.
The trier of fact may find a person not guilty by reason of insanity "only when the accused person proves by a preponderance of the evidence that he or she was incapable of knowing or understanding the nature and quality of his or her act and of distinguishing right from wrong at the time of the commission of the offense." (Pen. Code, § 25, subd. (b).) While the statute uses the conjunctive "and" instead of the disjunctive "or," in People v. Skinner (1985) 39 Cal.3d 765 (Skinner), the Supreme Court construed Penal Code section 25 as reinstating the M'Naghten test as the test of legal insanity: "If the mental illness is manifested in delusions which render the individual incapable either of knowing the nature and character of his act, or of understanding that it is wrong, he is legally insane under the California formulation of the M'Naghten test." (Skinner, at p. 782, italics added.) And, a defendant "who is incapable of understanding that his act is morally wrong is not criminally liable merely because he knows the act is unlawful." (Id. at p. 783.)
"[T]he substantial evidence test applies to appellate review of a sanity determination . . . ." (People v. Chavez (2008) 160 Cal.App.4th 882, 891 (Chavez).) Some courts have phrased the issue as whether "the evidence of [defendant's] insanity was of such weight and character that a jury could not reasonably reject it." (People v. Duckett (1984) 162 Cal.App.3d 1115, 1120 (Duckett).)
We have described the evidence presented to the jury in some detail, and it is clear from the evidence that under any formulation of the substantial evidence rule, we are compelled to affirm the jury's finding. Defendant relies on Duckett, as well as on Skinner and People v. Stress (1988) 205 Cal.App.3d 1259, where the courts reversed findings of sanity. But this is obviously not a case like Duckett, where all the experts agreed the defendant was insane. (Duckett, supra, 162 Cal.App.3d at p. 1123 ["there were no circumstances present that would have permitted the jury to reject the [unanimous] expert opinion" that the defendant was insane].) Nor is this case like Skinner and Stress, where the trial courts applied the wrong test. (See Skinner, supra, 39 Cal.3d at p. 770 [trial court found the defendant was sane because he knew the nature and quality of his act, although he did not know that the killing was wrongful or criminal]; Stress, supra, 205 Cal.App.3d at p. 1274 [trial court erred "in concluding that 'wrong' mean[t] criminal rather than moral wrong"].)
This is a case much like Chavez, where the evidence regarding defendant's sanity was "quite conflicting," with one expert opining that defendant was insane and the other opining that he was sane. (Chavez, supra, 160 Cal.App.4th at p. 891.) Here, as in Chavez, "[i]t was for the jury to evaluate the testimony of the experts, examine the bases for their opinions and determine whom to believe." (Ibid.)Defendant claims that Dr. Mohaupt's "equivocation" -- as he gave his opinion only with a reasonable degree of medical certainty rather than a high degree of certainty -- combined with the fact that he did not review some of defendant's psychiatric records "rendered his conclusion flawed and of little evidentiary value." But that was for the jury, not this court, to decide. As in Chavez, because the substantial evidence test applies, and because defendant "has failed to demonstrate that [Dr. Jaffe's] opinion was of such weight that the jury could not reasonably reject it [citation], there is no basis on which we may disturb the jury's sanity finding . . . ." (Ibid.)
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
GRIMES, J.
WE CONCUR:
BIGELOW, P. J.
RUBIN, J.