Opinion
C077112
03-19-2018
THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. AQUELIN CRYSTAL TALAMANTES, 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NOT TO BE PUBLISHED California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published,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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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. CRF133944)
A jury found defendant Aquelin Crystal Talamantes guilty of first degree murder and assault on a child under eight with force likely to produce great bodily injury resulting in death. The trial court sentenced her to 25 years to life in prison.
Defendant now contends (1) the evidence is insufficient to support the conviction for first degree murder; (2) she was denied her right to counsel when the trial court allowed her expert to be called as a prosecution witness, but if her lawyer mishandled the issue, she received ineffective assistance; and (3) the trial court gave an inadequate response to the jury's report of an impasse in deliberations.
We will affirm the judgment.
BACKGROUND
Defendant was the mother of a four-year-old boy and a five-year-old girl. During the relevant time period, defendant and her children were staying with defendant's older sister. The children's physically abusive father provided no financial support and a restraining order kept him away. Defendant had been diagnosed with mental illness, including borderline personality disorder and psychotic disorder, not otherwise specified, but she did not take her prescribed antipsychotics, saying she could not afford them.
On the day of the murder, defendant's older sister left the house to run some errands. When the older sister returned home, defendant was standing in the foyer with her keys while her son jumped up and down behind her. When the older sister asked defendant about her daughter, defendant replied, "I don't know. She's missing. Where is she? I can't find her." Defendant said she was planning to take her son to the home of her younger sister. When the older sister went to look for defendant's daughter in the backyard, defendant drove away with her son. The older sister had a "bad feeling" and called 911. A police officer eventually found the daughter's body in the trunk of defendant's car.
A forensic pathologist determined the child died that morning by drowning. Finding no obvious signs that the victim fell into water, he said the circumstances weighed against an accidental drowning, although there was no way to be sure.
Defendant entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. Prosecution and defense expert psychologists were appointed for the insanity phase of trial. When defendant refused to provide the prosecution's expert psychologist with details of the crime, the prosecutor argued the People had a right under Penal Code section 1054.3 (governing defense disclosure of information to the prosecution) to record the defense psychologist's interview with defendant. The trial court ordered video and audio recordings of portions of the defense psychologist interviews pertaining to the day of the crime. During the second interview defendant admitted she drowned her daughter.
Undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code. --------
The trial court ultimately granted the prosecutor's request to call the defense psychologist during the People's case-in-chief, but only as a percipient witness to defendant's confession. The trial court confirmed with defense counsel that she planned to call the defense psychologist during the defense case, and defense counsel conceded once the defense called the psychologist, the prosecution would be permitted to ask him about everything defendant told him. Under the circumstances, the trial court noted it almost became an issue about the order of evidence. The trial court said any privilege with regard to information provided to a mental health professional was waived because defendant put her mental state in issue.
The jury convicted defendant of first degree murder (§§ 187, subd. (a), 189) and assault on a child under eight with force likely to produce great bodily injury resulting in death (§ 273ab). The trial court sentenced defendant to 25 years to life in prison for the murder and imposed but stayed sentence on the assault conviction.
Additional facts are included in the discussion.
DISCUSSION
I
Defendant contends the evidence is insufficient to support the conviction for first degree murder.
In reviewing such a claim, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the judgment, presuming " 'the existence of every fact the trier could reasonably deduce from the evidence' " and not substituting our credibility evaluations for those of the fact finders. (People v. Ochoa (1993) 6 Cal.4th 1199, 1206.) We determine " 'whether, on the entire record, a rational trier of fact could find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.' " (Ibid.)
Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought. (§ 187, subd. (a).) Murder is of the second degree unless it is designated as first degree because of special circumstances identified by statute or because it is "willful, deliberate and premeditated." (§ 189.) A killing may be deliberate and premeditated without proof of a defendant's mature and meaningful reflection on the gravity of his or her act. (§ 189.) Three categories of evidence establish the requisite "malice aforethought" mental state and prove premeditation and deliberation: planning activity, motive, and the nature of the killing. (People v. Anderson (1968) 70 Cal.2d 15, 26-27.)
When a defendant's mental state is proven by circumstantial evidence, we must determine whether the evidence at trial furnished a reasonable foundation for an inference of premeditation and deliberation. (People v. Boatman (2013) 221 Cal.App.4th 1253, 1265.) If there is extremely strong evidence of planning or if there is proof of motive in conjunction with either planning or the manner of killing, a premeditated and deliberate mental state may be inferred. (Id. at p. 1266.) Cases in which planning evidence was adequate to support a finding of first degree murder included one where the defendant carried the victim to a place where others were not likely to intrude, another where a defendant manually reloaded a rifle to kill a second victim, and a third where a defendant was locked out by his victim but crashed through a window with a gun in hand. (Id. at p. 1267 [citing cases].)
There is evidence of planning and motive in the record before us. As for motive, defendant's mother, who had been physically abusive, was murdered when defendant was 11 and her older sister was 20. The older sister raised defendant and three other siblings with her own two children. A younger sister described their childhood as "horrible," saying the older sister abused drugs and left the children pretty much on their own. Defendant complained about how hard parenting was without a role model and her younger sister worried that defendant did not regularly brush her children's teeth or bathe them or feed them nutritious food. The children were dirty and had not been taken for routine medical appointments or vaccinations. Defendant called them "stupid kids" and repeatedly said she could not take care of them and did not want them. She said her family should have helped her care for the children but they had rebuffed her many requests because they were too busy. A reasonable juror could infer from this evidence that the motive for the crime was frustration and anger about the burden of child rearing, magnified by pressure of living with her older sister.
The victim's body was found in a trash bag in the trunk of defendant's car, and the murder occurred while the older sister was running errands. A reasonable juror could conclude defendant planned to wait until she was alone with the children before drowning the victim, and planned to secretly dispose of the body.
A prolonged manner of taking a victim's life supports a conclusion that the defendant had a deliberate plan to kill. (People v. Davis (1995) 10 Cal.4th 463, 510 [strangulation].) Proof of a prolonged manner of taking the victim's life supports a jury's conclusion that the murder was of the first degree. (Id. at p. 511; accord, People v. Hovarter (2008) 44 Cal.4th 983, 1020.) The forensic pathologist who conducted the autopsy here said a child the size and development of the victim would struggle to get her head above water for 15 to 30 seconds before she lost consciousness and started inhaling water. Although defendant described the killing as a quick and impulsive effort, a reasonable juror could have concluded that holding a struggling child under water long enough to drown her was deliberate, not impulsive.
The evidence was sufficient to support a conviction for murder in the first degree.
II
Defendant next contends she was denied her right to counsel when the trial court allowed the defense expert psychologist to be called as a prosecution witness during the prosecution's case-in-chief. She cites Buchanan v. Kentucky (1987) 483 U.S. 402 for the proposition that a defendant has the right to consult with counsel concerning mental examinations, and for such a consultation to be effective, counsel must be informed of the scope of the proceedings, including the possible uses of a defendant's statements. (Buchanan, supra, 483 U.S. at pp. 424-425.)
There is no suggestion defendant did not consult with counsel prior to her mental examination, and indeed the examination was interrupted to permit her to consult further with counsel. These facts do not support an argument that defendant was denied the right to consult with counsel; clearly, she had such an opportunity. Defendant's real complaint is with the quality of the consultation. She claims her consultation with counsel was not effective because her counsel could not have anticipated the prosecutor would seek to call the defense psychologist as a percipient witness, and thus defense counsel could not effectively advise her client about what to say in the examination. We note, however, that defendant does not challenge the admissibility of defendant's confession, nor does she challenge the trial court's determination that the information would have come in later during the trial if not sooner. Moreover, the People listed the defense psychologist on the People's witness list. In addition, whether the People could call the psychologist as a percipient witness was argued before trial and well before the psychologist was called as a witness. Defense counsel objected to the prosecutor's plan and filed written opposition the following week, after which the trial court heard additional argument on the issue. On this record, defendant's right to consult with counsel and defense counsel's ability to respond to the prosecutor's plan were not abridged.
Alternatively, defendant claims that if her arguments are forfeited because her counsel did not assert them in the trial court, she received ineffective assistance. We need not address this alternative claim because we have addressed defendant's primary contention on the merits.
III
In addition, defendant argues the trial court gave an inadequate response to a jury question referencing an impasse in deliberations. We review a trial court's exercise of supervision over a deliberating jury for abuse of discretion. (People v. Waidla (2000) 22 Cal.4th 690, 745-746.)
During deliberations, the jury foreperson sent the following note to the trial judge: "We are at an impasse regarding unanimously agreeing on whether or not the defendant acted deliberately related to the charge of 1st degree murder. [¶] Do we continue to deliberate or do we agree to disagree and find her guilty of second degree murder? [¶] We are unclear on how long we should keep deliberating when there are clear differences of opinion on this element of 1st degree murder."
The trial judge asked the jury to return to the courtroom and spoke to them in the presence of defendant and both counsel. The trial court referenced certain instructions previously given and then said: "Now, how I relate that to your note is that while agreeing to disagree is something we do every day, and there's nothing wrong with that, in terms of the jury instructions that you were given, those jury instructions don't communicate agreeing to disagree as a way to reach a decision in this particular matter." Counsel did not object to the trial court's comments, and the jury reached a verdict the next day.
Defendant contends the trial court should have emphasized that the jury could not consider second degree murder unless it unanimously agreed defendant was not guilty of first degree murder. But defense counsel did not request such a response from the trial judge and did not object when the judge provided its comments. Based on our review of the record, we conclude the trial court did not abuse its discretion in responding to the jury question.
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
/S/_________
MAURO, J. We concur: /S/_________
RAYE, P. J. /S/_________
HOCH, J.