Opinion
C085564
09-03-2019
THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. SHELDON NICHOLAS STEWARD, Defendant and Appellant.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published,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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115. (Super. Ct. No. F1500537)
Two Bay Area friends went on a camping trip to Plumas County. One ended up dead, with his body then set on fire. As a result, a jury found defendant Sheldon Nicholas Steward guilty of murder with personal use of a deadly weapon, and arson in an area under a state declaration of emergency. The trial court sentenced him to state prison.
On appeal, defendant contends the trial court erred in allowing a reference to his willingness to take a polygraph test, in putting overly onerous conditions on admitting evidence that the victim had a juvenile adjudication for statutory rape, in admitting his statements to the district attorney after he invoked his right to counsel during questioning, and in excluding past treatment reports from the victim's psychologists. He further contends that the prosecutor committed misconduct in his closing argument. We shall affirm.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
The parties both provide exhaustive summaries of the facts at trial. Defendant, however, does not contest the sufficiency of the evidence to support his convictions, and his arguments do not otherwise implicate most of this summarized evidence. We thus limit our factual account to providing a context for our analysis.
In August 2015, several campers at Bucks Lake in Plumas County heard shouts in the night. Early the following morning, campers were alerted to a brush fire in the campgrounds. The campground host summoned assistance and went to the area of the fire, where he and another camper made efforts to suppress it. They found defendant lying on the ground near the fire. He did not seem coherent and was apathetic about efforts to get him to move away from the fire, asking them to leave him alone because his life was over. He said that he had started the fire with a cigarette in order to summon help after being stabbed in the neck in a fight with a friend, who was also injured and had gone off somewhere. Another camper heard defendant tell a paramedic that his friend had attacked him after defendant rebuffed sexual advances and was not sure where the friend had gone. The fire eventually burned about a quarter-acre of land.
A car in the parking lot was registered in the friend's name and contained his wallet. The keys were in a fire pit at the scene of the brush fire. A deputy responding to the crime scene did not have the opportunity to speak with defendant before he was transported to the hospital, but did take a picture of the wounds to his neck. After defendant's departure, the deputy learned that there was a dead body in the burned area.
After the discovery of the body, an officer went to the hospital to question defendant about the circumstances of the incident. Defendant said he and the victim had taken hallucinogens. He told the officer that the victim had first made sexual advances, which defendant rebuffed, and then stabbed him with a knife. Defendant stabbed the victim in self-defense. He believed the victim had planned the camping trip to commit a sexual assault while defendant was drugged. Defendant cut his own wrists when he did not think anyone was going to come to his aid.
Detectives questioned defendant later that afternoon. They did not let him know that they had found a body (which had yet to be identified). Defendant described the victim as his best friend, whose birthday was three days from defendant's. (Defendant was born in November 1991; the victim was 20 at the time of his death in 2015.) They lived in the Bay Area and had come up the day before. He repeated his account of the victim insisting that they have sexual relations (after they had ingested drug-laced papers, which defendant had previously used with the victim) or he would abandon him, after which the victim stabbed him and defendant attacked him in self-defense. The victim then left. Feeling abandoned and likely to die of his wounds, defendant tried to cut his wrists. The next thing of which he was aware were the people who discovered him the following morning. Although defendant was aware that the victim was attracted to people of both sexes, the victim had never previously manifested any interest of that sort in defendant. Defendant had even exhibited his flaccid penis when the victim insisted on having sex to demonstrate his lack of sexual interest.
After a break, the detectives resumed their interrogation. Defendant essentially repeated the same account, in which the victim asserted that defendant was never going to get home unless he agreed to have sex with him, after which the victim stabbed him and he stabbed the victim, who ran off. Defendant thought he was going to die, so he tried to slash his wrists. When the detectives suggested that the victim may have told them that defendant was the one who attacked first, defendant asserted that was a lie. He had thrown away a lit cigarette but denied trying to set a fire. He had heard someone mention that the victim's car was still in the parking lot, so defendant suggested that the victim was hiding somewhere.
Defendant then abruptly changed tack. He expressed his willingness to take a lie detector test, and he admitted it would show that he killed the victim after their struggle because the victim asked to be put out of his misery from the severe wounds defendant inflicted. He started the fire "subconsciously trying to cover evidence." There was a brief break in the interview at this point.
When the detectives renewed their questioning of defendant, he began with a reference to a prior "sealed" incident when the victim was a minor in which the victim had drugged another minor to have sex with her, which the victim had described to defendant as being a consensual encounter. After offering defendant some juice, the detectives advised defendant of his rights to remain silent and to have an attorney present pursuant to Miranda v. Arizona (1966) 384 U.S. 436 (Miranda). When asked if he wished to continue speaking with the detectives, defendant stated, "I'd like to have a lawyer present now that I know I'm being . . . arrested or detained." The detectives then explained that they would be speaking with the district attorney, who would decide whether to file charges, and they would be assigning someone to make sure defendant did not attempt to escape. Defendant remarked, "So, my life is totally left [in] the hands of the DA who[m] I've never met and I don't know. [He] do[es]n't know anything about me. Can I at least talk to the DA myself?" His questioner responded that he would pass along that request, "[b]ut I don't know if you can because you asked for an attorney." The questioning ceased at that point.
A couple of hours later, the detectives returned with the prosecutor, who began by reminding defendant of the Miranda advisement and defendant's request to speak with him. The prosecutor then asked what was on defendant's mind, who responded that he had "messed up [his] entire life." Defendant proceeded to give an account of the circumstances of the killing essentially identical to the one he had provided to the detectives; as defendant does not identify any material embellishment of the facts of the offense in his discussion with the prosecutor, we do not need to elaborate further. At the conclusion of their conversation, defendant asked whether he would be going to prison for the rest of his life. The prosecutor responded that he had to evaluate the facts, but "like you've said already, it's a bad situation."
The victim's body was severely burned. The pathologist nonetheless believed he had died from multiple stab wounds in his torso that could be identified, which occurred before his body was set on fire because of the absence of soot in his airway.
Another expert testified about the wounds to defendant's neck. She believed they were too regular for someone else to have inflicted them in the course of a struggle (or a "dynamic event," as she termed it).
Two mutual acquaintances of defendant and the victim testified for the defense. Both knew them through a trade school in which all four had been enrolled; one became the victim's roommate. Both testified about the victim's attraction to people of both sexes; one described defendant as heterosexual but not homophobic. They both described defendant and the victim as being best friends who did not have serious disagreements. The victim once mentioned to one of them that he thought defendant was attractive and wished defendant could be "gay for a day" so that they could be intimate, but the friend did not think this was a serious yearning because the victim otherwise did not make remarks on the issue. They testified that both men had previously camped together, and the victim introduced defendant to the use of hallucinogens during these outings. The victim was focused on preparing for enlistment in the Marines, setting up a training program and having a tattoo removed from his wrist. He had told one of these witnesses that he was going to bring a large quantity of hallucinogens on the Plumas County expedition because he wanted to have "one more wild camping trip" before focusing on enlisting, and as a result wanted to find an isolated area to avoid disturbing other campers.
DISCUSSION
1.0 The Admission of Reference to a Polygraph Test in Defendant's Questioning is not a Basis for Reversal
During a break earlier in the trial, defense counsel noted that the trial court had asked the parties to review Evidence Code section 351.1 and sought to discern the basis of the court's concern. The court responded, "I'm thinking our stipulation as to the polygraph should include a[n explicit] reference to Evidence Code Section 351.[1]." Defense counsel had "no objection to that. I thought it was the issue of results versus offer to take, and I found cases saying they're essentially the same." Just after playing the portion of the hospital interview in which defendant expressed his willingness to take a polygraph test and his concession that it would show he killed the victim, the trial court admonished the jury that "any reference to taking, offering to take, or failing to take a polygraph is inadmissible under California Evidence Code Section 351.1. That's because polygraphs are inherently unreliable. No polygraph was arranged or taken."
Mischaracterizing the record, defendant contends that when the issue arose earlier, defendant "protested" the trial court's proposal of a stipulation regarding the polygraph reference and did not stipulate to the admission of that evidence during the presentation of the hospital interview. He further asserts that in any event, in light of the statutory provision, any stipulation is limited to the results of a polygraph and not the willingness to submit to one. Finally, he contends in abbreviated fashion that the admonition was ineffective. The contention is meritless.
Putting aside the question of the distinction between stipulating to an offer to take a polygraph test and its results, or the extent to which the record reflects a stipulation to admit the evidence, we presume the jury heeded the trial court's admonition that the passing reference to defendant's willingness to take the test was inadmissible. (People v. Thompson (2016) 1 Cal.5th 1043, 1122.) Defendant does not respond to the People's citation of this binding authority. We therefore reject his argument.
2.0 The Trial Court did not Improperly Preclude Corroborating Evidence of Defendant's Assertion in his Interview About the Victim's Prior Conduct
Relying on a mischaracterization of the record in defendant's motion for a new trial, defendant in essence contends he was prevented from admitting evidence that would have corroborated his statement during questioning about a prior incident in which the victim had used alcohol to initiate sexual relations as a teenager, because the trial court had ruled that admission of this evidence would allow introduction of rebuttal evidence of the victim's good character. In its proper procedural context, the argument is without merit.
The motion for new trial asserted the court had ruled before trial that evidence was admissible "of using alcohol to have sex with a girl six years earlier when [the victim] was fourteen. However, the Court ruled that introduction of any such evidence would open the door to the Prosecution calling numerous family and friends to testify generally as to the good character of the deceased."
Prior to trial, defendant moved to admit evidence of the victim's juvenile adjudication for statutory rape at 14 with a girl of the same age after getting her so drunk that her stomach needed to be pumped. Defendant contended the victim's statements to this effect were admissible hearsay because they were contrary to his penal interest, and were authorized under Evidence Code sections 1101 and 1103 to prove the victim's conduct and support defendant's claim of self-defense. The prosecutor in opposition scoffed at the relevance of a six-year-old incident occurring when the victim was in his early teens.
As part of its lengthy written ruling on various pretrial evidentiary motions, the trial court recognized that this prior juvenile incident could corroborate defendant's statements to investigators. It believed that there was sufficient similarity to justify admission on a theory of a common scheme, and the incident would therefore be relevant. It noted, however, that since this was of the nature of a prior act of violence on the part of the victim, the prosecution could admit evidence "under E[vidence] C[ode] [section] 1103[, subdivision] (b) of other acts of violence by the defendant [as] the defendant has [apparently] been involved in scuffles whilst incarcerated."
In response to the People's citation to these actual procedural facts, defendant simply asserts on appeal that "[p]roperly understood" (italics added) the trial court's pretrial ruling would have permitted "the introduction of extensive evidence of the victim's good character, once the defense dared to introduce truthful and accurate evidence of the prior rape incident." In an analytical leap, defendant asserts the trial court's specific reference to scuffles should be "accurately understood as also permitting otherwise inadmissible evidence of the victim's good character. Nothing in the trial court's order would lead one to think otherwise." (Italics added.)
We disagree. We do not perceive anything about the pretrial ruling that would have caused trial counsel to fear that introduction of this corroborating evidence would lead to admission of rebuttal evidence of good character. We thus reject the claim on appeal.
3.0 Admission of Post-Advisement Statements is not a Basis for Reversal
Defendant renewed a motion to suppress his post-Miranda statements after the preliminary hearing. In denying the motion, the trial court found that custodial interrogation did not take place before the Miranda advisement, his request for counsel was equivocal, and his subsequent request to speak to the district attorney was freely made. Defendant challenges this ruling.
We do not need to elaborate on the applicable legal standards where questioning resumes after a Mirandized suspect invokes the right to counsel. As the People point out in asserting the absence of any prejudice from any possible error, defendant concedes that he had already provided incriminating accounts of the facts that underlay the killing, and they assert the post-Miranda interview did not elicit any further material facts. They also point out that defendant's efforts to manufacture a claim of prejudice—because statements to the district attorney implicated "questions of causality" or "imperfect self-defense"—are not supported on this record. We agree. The post-advisement statements do not give any reasonable basis for us to conclude that they, in isolation from all the remaining evidence, would have led the jury to reject claims of "self-defense and imperfect self-defense" (as defendant asserts in his reply brief). We therefore reject this argument.
4.0 The Trial Court did not Abuse its Discretion in Excluding Psychological Profiles of the Victim
As the trial court characterized in its pretrial ruling on the admission of evidence, "[t]he defense wishes to introduce testimony from the victim's [present] therapist and a . . . psychologist[,] Dr[s]. D'Ambrosio and . . . Sanderson respectively. D'Ambrosio had a long term patient/therapist relationship with the victim [including a session just before the camping trip in which he described the victim's interest in the Marines as manic]. Dr. Sanderson . . . had had a brief profession[al] contact with the victim including preparing a lengthy [March 2010] report [when the victim was 15 and enrolled in a residential therapeutic treatment program for troubled adolescents] . . . . [¶] The defense wishes to call both . . . to testify as to the victim's character for manipulation and his stated desperation to achieve 'peak or . . . primal experiences' so that he can presumably be better prepared for a military life as a marine special-ops soldier. . . . The information contained in [the] reports are merely statements about the general character of the victim. . . ." The reports appear in a sealed DX-D filed with this court. "These reports [do not] contain [any] fully readable [or] understandable definitive statements [about] the victim other than the victim had a high IQ and was manipulative in the extreme, wanting to control." The trial court did not believe there was any substantial link between these analyses and any defense theory in the case, and thus any probative value of such evidence was outweighed by the prospect of an undue consumption of time in presenting (and rebutting) it, as well as the spectre of confusing the jury.
At argument on the motion, defense counsel also suggested "What would be the impact on [the victim's] intense desire to join the Marine Corps if it got out that [defendant] is reporting that [the victim] attempted to rape him, much less that he was bisexual, but mainly because of the attempted rape?" --------
In a motion for a new trial, defendant contended that this evidence could have provided "powerful corroboration" of his account of the victim's efforts to manipulate him into having sex with the victim. The trial court denied the motion.
Beyond adding that the 2015 reports of Dr. D'Ambrosio diagnosed the victim as having narcissistic personality disorder, premised on the earlier report that had termed the victim a highly intelligent and sophisticated sociopath lacking empathy, defendant does not take issue with the trial court's summary of the contents of these materials. He simply argues that the trial court abused its discretion in deciding the amount of time devoted to the subject of the victim's psychology and the risk that this subject would distract the jury from the issues at trial outweighed any probative value of this evidence in corroborating his accounts in his statements to investigators about the victim's behavior, which would otherwise seem "unlikely to the jury."
On this record, we cannot say any reasonable jurist would have found the value of this evidence—toward the discernment of defendant's credibility—outweighed the time and the potential for distraction from the issues at trial in this proposed foray through the victim's psychological outlook. The 2010 report could have been describing many teenagers to a certain degree, and it even acknowledged that the victim "has been marked in terms of his ability to forego efforts to control others, take responsibility for his manipulative actions[,] and reinstate his parents in the authority role in his life." Neither report would corroborate a resort to deadly force on the part of the victim to achieve a desired end either of having sex with defendant, or concealing from military recruiters an effort to coerce a sexual encounter with defendant (the latter motive, we note never appearing in any of defendant's accounts of the victim's statements and actions toward him). Thus, as with all instances of a trial court's exercise of discretion, there may be some jurists who would have admitted this tenuous corroborative evidence, but that does not mean the trial court abused its discretion in declining to do so here.
5.0 Any Prosecutorial Misconduct was Cured
During closing argument, the prosecutor mused that if the victim's body had in fact been reduced to ashes, his family would have been left wondering about his fate. Defense counsel objected that this argument was a play for sympathy. The trial court admonished the jury that "in your deliberations, you may not use, as you heard me earlier, use passion or prejudice or the like. You may not engage in speculation or conjecture in coming to your verdict."
Defendant contends this argument was an improper appeal to sympathy and bias by attributing to defendant a "sinister scheme to cover up the crime." He faults the trial court for not explicitly sustaining the objection before admonishing the jury.
We cannot imagine that this offhand comment contributed in any manner to the jury's verdicts in the face of evidence that defendant stabbed the victim and set his body on fire, regardless of whether the trial court's admonition was specific enough in the view of defendant. We therefore reject the argument.
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
/s/_________
BUTZ, J. We concur: /s/_________
HULL, Acting P. J. /s/_________
DUARTE, J.