Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS
APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County No. BA292754. Michael E. Pastor, Judge.
Alan Stern, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Pamela C. Hamanaka, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Paul M. Roadarmel, Jr., and Timothy M. Weiner, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
ZELON, J.
In a jury trial on the issue of defendant Thomas Parks’s sanity at the time of his arson-related offenses in November 2005, the trial court permitted, over objection, the testimony of two arson investigators who had interviewed Parks in 1990 in the course of investigating fires he had set then. Parks appeals, contending that the decision to admit the testimony was a prejudicial abuse of discretion exacerbated by the limiting instruction given by the trial court. We affirm.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
On November 2, 2005, Parks set fire to the bed in which Robert Collins was sleeping. Parks was charged with attempted first degree murder (Pen. Code, §§ 187, 664) and arson of an inhabited structure (Pen. Code, § 451, subd. (b)), with allegations of prior felony convictions and prison terms satisfying the Three Strikes Law (Pen. Code, §§ 667, subds. (b)-(i), 1170.12, subds. (a)-(d)), and Penal Code sections 667.5, subdivision (b); 1203, subdivision (e)(4); and 667, subdivision (a)(1). Parks initially entered a dual plea of not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity, but later pled guilty to the offenses, admitted a number of special allegations, and elected to proceed with a jury trial on the question of his sanity. The operative question at the sanity hearing was whether Parks knew his act was morally wrong—there was no question in the minds of the evaluating experts that Parks was aware that he was setting a fire that could cause potential harm.
This was not Parks’s first criminal fire-setting charge. In 1990, Parks was convicted of arson for setting a series of fires, one of which was a fire set to a couch on which a man was sleeping. Parks’s conduct, and investigators’ reports of his demeanor at the time, formed part of the basis for the expert opinion of prosecutor’s testifying expert, Kris Mohandie, Ph.D. Mohandie interviewed arson investigators who looked into the 2005 and 1990 arsons, and relied on that information as part of his opinion as to Parks’s sanity.
Similarly, forensic psychiatrist Kory Knapke, M.D. testified that in forming his opinions about Parks’s mental state, he reviewed Parks’s extensive criminal history. Knapke considered part of his forensic psychiatric task to evaluate the subject’s mental illness throughout his or her life to “formulate” an “impression[]” of how the illness impacted his or her behavior at the time of the crime. Knapke noted that patients often display similar patterns of behavior across their manic episodes, “that there tend[] to be similarities of symptoms when a patient is in a given manic episode. So when they have a recurrent manic episode there are similar symptoms that will present themselves, for instance, if they do believe that they are Jesus Christ in one manic episode, it would be very likely that they will have a similar grandiose delusion [in] a subsequent manic episode, but not necessarily.”
Knapke described that reports of Parks’s condition soon after the crime were consistent with Parks being in a manic state, and described Parks’s behavior when he was undergoing a manic episode. Knapke testified, “Mr. Parks would not look anything the way he does now in court during a manic episode. He would be yelling at the top of his lungs. He would be talking so fast, it would be difficult to understand him. He might be highly assaultive and violent. He might be extremely fearful and paranoid. He might be yelling religious preoccupation types of statements. These folks become very religiously preoccupied, believing they are Jesus Christ, or believing that they have special powers from God, or perhaps even they are the devil and meant to destroy the world. So these folks very frequently will have that type of religious preoccupation, and that is clearly the case with Mr. Parks. [¶] He has a long history of believing that he is Jesus Christ or believing that he is evil, and believing that he must take matters of the world and matters of evil into his own hands.” Knapke also reported that in manic episodes Parks historically has engaged in feces smearing. Knapke reported that manic episodes usually develop over the course of a week or two, not instantaneously.
Over Parks’s objections, the testimony of two arson investigators concerning the 1990 fires and their investigations was admitted into evidence subject to a limiting instruction (a modified CALJIC No. 2.50) that directed the jury that the testimony was admitted for the limited purpose of determining if it tended to show (1) the basis of any expert opinion as to whether Parks was insane or sane at the time of the November 2, 2005 crimes and/or (2) that Parks was legally sane or insane as of the November 2, 2005 crimes.
The jury concluded that Parks was sane at the time of the offenses. Parks was sentenced to 25 years to life for the attempted murder charge, plus 15 additional years for prior serious felony convictions. The sentence for arson of an inhabited structure was stayed pursuant to Penal Code section 654.
DISCUSSION
Parks argues that it was error for the trial court to admit the testimony of the arson investigators who investigated the 1990 arson. He contends that the testimony was inadmissible under Evidence Code section 1101, subdivision (b), irrelevant to the issue of his sanity in November 2005, and more prejudicial than probative such that it should have been excluded under section 352. We review the trial court’s decision to admit the evidence for an abuse of discretion (People v. Alvarez (1996) 14 Cal.4th 155, 201 [admissibility]; People v. Valdez (2004) 32 Cal.4th 73, 108 [section 352]), and find none.
Unless otherwise indicated, all further statutory references are to the Evidence Code.
I. Section 1101
Parks contends that the evidence should not have been admitted pursuant to section 1101, but we conclude that this provision has no application here. Section 1101 renders inadmissible evidence of a person’s character or a trait of his or her character, whether in the form of an opinion, evidence of reputation, or evidence of specific instances of conduct, when it is offered to prove that person’s conduct on a specified occasion. (§ 1101, subd. (a).) Here, the evidence of Parks’s prior criminal conduct and his demeanor at that time was not offered “to prove his . . . conduct on a specified occasion” (§ 1101, subd. (a)). He had already admitted the conduct. Instead, the evidence was admitted for its bearing on the question of whether Parks was legally sane or legally insane at the time of the November 2005 arson. Nothing in section 1101 “prohibits the admission of evidence that a person committed a crime, civil wrong, or other act when relevant to prove some fact . . . other than his or her disposition to commit such an act.” (§ 1101, subd. (b).) Section 1101 is simply inapplicable here.
II. Relevance
Parks argues that the evidence about the 1990 arson was not relevant to his sanity in 2005, as the events took place 15 years earlier. Of course Parks’s mental state in 1990 is not itself determinative of his sanity in 2005, but Parks defines relevance too narrowly in insisting that evidence that reflected on his mental state in 1990 is irrelevant to the jury’s determination of his sanity at the time of the present offenses.
The jury heard dueling opinions on Parks’s sanity as of November 2, 2005, both of which took into account Parks’s extensive psychiatric history and the similar criminal act Parks had committed in 1990. Generally, Dr. Mohandie opined that Parks was mentally ill but legally sane and neither manic nor delusional at the time of the offense, while Dr. Knapke opined that he was legally insane and that his behavior was consistent with a manic episode from the bipolar disorder with which he had long been afflicted.
Parks’s criminal and psychiatric history were integral to the experts’ evaluations. As Knapke testified, one “consider[s] how [their] diagnosis has affected them throughout their lifetime. And that help[s] us formulate our impressions of how their disorder affected their behavior at the time of the crime as well.” Mohandie interviewed the investigators who investigated the 1990 and 2005 arsons, and testified that he used the information he obtained he used in forming his opinion as to whether Parks could tell right from wrong at the time. Mohandie described how he understood the 1990 incident related to the present offense: “[T]he prior arson that he was convicted of in 1990, he told the officers that had arrested him that he was wanting to go back to jail. And that for some folks, as I have seen it, that believe they only can live comfortably in the institution, they will sometimes do things that a lot of us would say, ‘Who would want to go there?’ But if that is what you know, what you are comfortable with, it is a known quantity and they do it. [¶] So that at that time he admitted he set fires, he was doing it to get himself put back in the institution. I was looking at this that this was probably clinically a part of him that was, you know, sabotaging himself in getting himself back into jail. [¶] It [the 2005 arson] wasn’t like it was in ’90. I saw there was [sic] some different aspects to it because the guy—he perceived the guy had provoked him by doing these kind of behaviors.”
The impressions of the arson investigators who interacted with Parks shortly after the 1990 arson, as well as Parks’s account of why he set the fires, were all relevant to evaluating those experts’ opinions. As the trial court stated, the prior arson is “extraordinarily similar [to the present incident] and, quite frankly, that should be a proper basis upon which to inquire of the experts to test their opinions and the basis for their opinions, and to allow the jury the opportunity to evaluate the factors” involved in determining sanity. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in permitting the jury to hear more about how Parks behaved in 1990 for the purpose of evaluating the professionals’ diverging evaluations of Parks’s sanity (People v. Fulcher (2006) 136 Cal.App.4th 41, 56 [sources of information relied upon by expert witnesses may be related to the trier of fact]) and for its bearing on the question of Parks’s sanity at the time of the 2005 events. (CALJIC No. 4.00 [“You may consider evidence of his mental condition before, during, and after the time of the commission of the crimes, as tending to show the defendant’s mental condition at the time the crimes were committed”]; People v. David (1939) 12 Cal.2d 639, 646-647 [evidence of a prior robbery admissible to show the defendant’s sanity and motive].) We are aware of no authority, nor does Parks cite any, for his contention that despite the relevance of this testimony, counsel should have been restricted to exploring the facts surrounding the 1990 arson by examining the expert witnesses.
Parks also contends that the evidence was irrelevant because it “provided little information concerning appellant’s mental health 15 years prior to the sanity trial at issue, let alone at the time of the crime at issue.” The testimony showed that during the arson investigators’ interview with Parks soon after the arson, he displayed no obvious indicia of serious mental illness and explained that he set the fires because he was a homeless person without a place to stay and wanted to go to jail. This evidence allowed the jury to evaluate the expert witnesses’ opinions on sanity, offered insight into Parks’s stated reasons for his 1990 fire-setting, and was relevant to determining whether Parks had proven by a preponderance of the evidence that he was legally insane at the time of the 2005 crimes. As we cannot say that the evidence had no “tendency in reason to prove or disprove any disputed fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action” (§ 210), the trial court did not abuse its discretion in determining that the evidence was relevant. As the California Supreme Court long ago explained in People v. Loper (1910) 159 Cal. 6, at pages 11 through 12, testimony to the defendant’s sanity given by witnesses who had not seen him in several years was nonetheless admissible because “[p]roof that defendant was sane at a time long prior to the commission of the offense would have some tendency to establish his sanity at the time of the homicide; the weight and value of such proof being a matter for the jury.”
III. Section 352
Parks last argues that the evidence was more prejudicial than probative, and should have been excluded under section 352. Certainly the evidence had potential prejudicial impact in that it could have distracted the jury from the proper analysis to be made here. However, as the trial court also recognized, the evidence was relevant. As the trial court commented, “In view of the defense presented in this case and specifically the testimony of Dr. Knapke regarding the defendant’s extensive psychiatric history and Dr. Knapke’s own recognition of prior instances of criminality and prior instances of arson on which he relied and which he explained, I think the issue is directly presented to the jury.” Because the testifying experts were concerned with Parks’s prior criminal history as it informed their evaluations of whether he was sane at the time of the 2005 offenses, evidence that tended to suggest that Parks was not insane or floridly manic on the prior occasion was highly probative. This evidence was also relevant to Parks’s mental state before the commission of the offenses, which is a factor to be considered by the jury in making the ultimate determination of a defendant’s sanity. (CALJIC No. 4.00; People v. Dennis (1960) 177 Cal.App.2d 655, 660-661.) In light of the broad discretion possessed by trial courts in determining whether evidence is more probative than prejudicial, we see no abuse of discretion here.
IV. Limiting Instruction
As discussed above, the trial court gave a limiting instruction which described the proper purposes for which they could consider the arson investigators’ testimony about the facts and circumstances of the 1990 convictions. The court told the jury that the testimony was admitted for the limited purpose of determining if it tended to show (1) the basis of any expert opinion as to whether Parks was legally insane or sane at the time of the November 2, 2005 crimes and/or (2) that Parks was legally sane or insane as of the November 2, 2005 crimes. Parks does not contest the first prong of the limiting instruction, but alleges error in the second prong: it permitted the jury to consider the evidence with respect to the ultimate issue of whether Parks was insane or sane at the time of the 2005 crime.
The central question was whether in 2005 Parks knew that it was morally wrong to set fire to the bed on which another person slept, in light of the fact that the experts agreed that he understood the nature and quality of his act. CALJIC No. 4.00 authorizes the jury to consider evidence of a defendant’s mental condition before, during, and after the time of the commission of the crimes as tending to show the defendant’s mental condition at the time the crimes were committed, and “[i]t is well settled that evidence as to a defendant’s acts, conduct, declarations, and appearance, both before and after the time in question as well as at the particular time as to which the issue of defendant’s sanity has been raised may be admitted to aid the trier of fact in determining the issue presented by a plea of insanity.” (People v. Dennis, supra, 177 Cal.App.2d at pp. 660-661.) What Parks said the last time he set fire to the furniture on which another person was sleeping cannot, of course, itself definitively demonstrate whether Parks was sane at the time of the later incident, but it is relevant; as the trial court observed, “The fact that he may have committed the same type of conduct on a prior occasion and not been suffering from any sort of disease or defect, or may have misunderstood, or may clearly be able to distinguish right from wrong are all factors the jury can decide right now and is relevant. [¶] Certainly, counsel can argue that the circumstances may [have been] or were different and that passage of time gives this evidence very little value, but I do think it is of significant probative value.” The trial court’s limiting instruction permitted the jury to consider this evidence both for the purpose of evaluating the experts’ opinions and for drawing conclusions about Parks’s sanity. We discern no error here.
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
We concur: PERLUSS, P. J., WOODS, J.