Opinion
A149233
02-03-2017
PUBLIC GUARDIAN OF SONOMA COUNTY, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. E.H., Defendant and Appellant.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115. (Sonoma County Super. Ct. No. SPR82694)
E.H. is charged with first degree murder in the April 2007 death of his mother. Reportedly, he stabbed her with a sword 16 times after his persistent Star Wars delusions convinced him that she had been taken over by the "dark side." After being found incompetent to stand trial pursuant to section 1370 of the Penal Code, E.H. was committed to Napa State Hospital in September 2007. As he was not restored to competency after a period of three years, the Sonoma County Public Conservator (Public Conservator) petitioned the court in June 2010 to establish a so-called "Murphy conservatorship" for E.H. under the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act (LPS Act), Welfare and Institutions Code, section 5000 et seq. This renewable one-year conservatorship was most recently extended by the trial court on August 23, 2016, to cover the period from July 26, 2016, through July 26, 2017.
All statutory references are to the Welfare and Institutions Code unless otherwise indicated. These preliminary facts, along with certain subsequent history, are taken from our previous unpublished opinions in this matter—Public Guardian of Sonoma County v. E.H. (April 14, 2015, A143271) [nonpub. opn.] (E.H. I) and Public Guardian of Sonoma County v. E.H. (June 22, 2016, A145979) [nonpub. opn.] (E.H. II) —court records of which we take judicial notice. (Evid. Code, §§ 452, subds. (c) & (d), 459, subd. (a).)
E.H. appeals from this latest renewal, and his appellate attorney has filed a brief raising no specific issues but asking us to conduct an independent review of the record pursuant to People v. Wende (1979) 25 Cal.3d 436 (Wende) and Anders v. California (1967) 386 U.S. 738 (Anders). Although appellate counsel acknowledges that, in Conservatorship of Ben C. (2007) 40 Cal.4th 529 (Ben C.), the California Supreme Court declined to extend Wende/Anders procedures to "typical" LPS Act appeals, he argues that a different result is required for appeals involving Murphy conservatorships due to their entanglement with an underlying criminal matter and their less extensive procedural protections. Appellate counsel made an identical argument last year and the year before in connection with appeals from previous extensions of E.H.'s Murphy conservatorship. (E.H. I, supra, A143271 at p. 2; E.H. II, supra, A145979 at pp. 1-2.) In E.H. I, after reviewing the matter, we expressed doubt that an appeal involving a Murphy conservatorship is distinguishable in any meaningful way from existing precedent which refuses to mandate Wende review in similar contexts. (Id. at pp. 6-7.) Nevertheless, since the record was short and E.H. had been committed for a significant period of time without any appellate review of his circumstances, we exercised our discretion to retain the appeal and conduct a full record review. (Id. at p. 8.) We elected to follow a similar procedure in E.H. II and will do so again here, both because the record is short and because we are now very familiar with E.H.'s case. (E.H. II, supra, A145979 at p. 2.)
I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
A summary of E.H.'s prior conservatorship proceedings can be found in our previous opinions in E.H. I and E.H. II. In June 2016, the Public Conservator petitioned the trial court for reappointment as E.H.'s Murphy conservator for an additional year. The petition was supported by the medical opinion of two physicians who opined that E.H. continued to be gravely disabled as defined by subdivision (h)(1)(B) of section 5008, such that a Murphy conservatorship remained appropriate. (See § 5361.)
A person is gravely disabled for purposes of section 5008, subdivision (h)(1)(B) if he or she has been found mentally incompetent under section 1370 of the Penal Code and all of the following are true: (i) the indictment or information pending against the person at the time of commitment charges a "felony involving death, great bodily harm, or a serious threat to the physical well-being of another person;" (ii) the indictment or information has not been dismissed; and (iii) "[a]s a result of a mental health disorder, the person is unable to understand the nature and purpose of the proceedings taken against him or her and to assist counsel in the conduct of his or her defense in a rational manner." To these statutory requirements, the California Supreme Court has added an additional, constitutionally required finding: that the conservatee is " 'currently dangerous as the result of a mental disease, defect, or disorder.' " (County of Los Angeles v. Superior Court (2013) 222 Cal.App.4th 434, 442-443, quoting Conservatorship of Hofferber (1980) 28 Cal.3d 161, 178.) --------
At the hearing on August 23, 2016, the parties stipulated that E.H. had been found mentally incompetent under section 1370 of the Penal Code and had a current indictment pending, charging a serious felony. E.H.'s attending psychiatrist, Dr. Stephen Wieder, was qualified as an expert and testified regarding E.H.'s mental condition. According to Dr. Wieder, E.H. has a current diagnosis of schizophrenia, continuous type, based on a past history of auditory hallucinations as well as on his complex delusional ideation. Specifically, E.H. is presently concerned with the "dark side being overwhelming." He feels that the current situation is not much different than things were at the time he killed his mother, which he did because he believed her to be on the dark side and was protecting the public, and because she was "persecuting his soul."
With respect to competency, Dr. Wieder stated that E.H. would not be able to rationally participate in criminal proceedings because he does not believe that he has a mental illness or that he has committed a crime. Further, although E.H. is not a behavior problem, has good hygiene, and takes his medication, the medication has not changed his delusional thinking. It has perhaps stopped his auditory hallucinations. In Dr. Wieder's opinion, E.H. would not take his medication if he was not conserved. In fact, on the day before the trial, E.H. told Dr. Weider directly that medication would not help him and that " 'I don't like to be forced to take medication, and, if I had my way, I'd be off of it.' " On the issue of current dangerousness, Dr. Wieder testified that E.H.'s "delusional system is such that if he incorporated you into his delusional system, as he had incorporated his mother into his delusional system, there would be very great risk to you." Thus, there was a substantial and continuing risk that E.H.'s delusions would cause him to perceive other people as threatening, even though not based on reality, and would lead him to cause physical harm.
E.H. also testified. He stated that he spent his time while hospitalized doing "standing up to old" meditation, which he described as follows: "In the new universe, that we're transitioning into, grays—sometimes white people when it snows and they're not paranoid, they raise a gray up to the sky. And it kind of stretches out across time and latitudes. And eventually now they're kind of accumulating as kind of a Star Wars Imperial Navy type of thing that women have been over a lot in the past. But they don't usually dive, and now there's kind of a diving group. And they tend to dive on people. They're kind of ruthless; sometimes they look a little bit Chinese. And then the universe, they dive on, basically, me the most often, Han Solo. And he's standing up to old to defend against them. He's standing up to old meditation and pushing the universe away, basically." According to E.H., "[a]fter 14 years, it gets totally opened up, the whole universe is pushed away, the world is completely safe, our planet at the center of it." There is, however, still apparently risk from "bad people" as "[p]eople still sometimes attack the meditation naturally, and they end up Saturning. Which is they get like a Saturn hat around their head—about that big—and after they Saturn—which Saturn is a humane way to finish off bad people—they can do something like amberite [ ] time. Which is they, basically, push on you after a little while, and they en-golden you. . . . I tend to get pretty golden."
When asked if there was anything else he wanted to tell the court, E.H. indicated that, despite his repeated requests to be on lower medication, the doctor would not lower the dosage and his muscles were "wasted away" as a result. He also claimed that Sonoma County and its sheriff, "Mark Guide," were kind of corrupt, and stated that he was trying to get out of the corrupt county: "Just worried about that a lot. They overbear; it's kind of a sullen county. And I'd just like to get out soon. It's important."
Finally, E.H. described his situation as follows: "I'm very important to the future universe. In fact, I actually put a slash in the dollar bill with my meditations. . . . [¶] Also with the meditation, there's something called a crevaline skunk (phonetic). I make crevaline, which I get poofs coming out of my arms and legs. . . . If I were to die and disappear from the universe, the skunk would be gone, too. The earth would become a crippled planet, as well as not having a slash in the dollar bill for this Country." E.H. reported writing to Barack Obama "quite a bit" and indicated that "if the Court doesn't get me out soon, he might be doing it himself for the emergency to just need me out. Thought the Court should know that. Pretty valuable and important to have into the universe kind of releasing me out of here."
At the conclusion of the hearing, the trial court granted the Public Conservator's petition to extend E.H.'s Murphy conservatorship. This timely appeal followed.
II. DISCUSSION
Having performed the discretionary review requested by appellate counsel, we find no issues that require further briefing. A court order continuing a conservatorship pursuant to section 5631 is reviewed on appeal for substantial evidence. (Conservatorship of Walker (1989) 206 Cal.App.3d 1572, 1577; Conservatorship of Murphy (1982) 134 Cal.App.3d 15, 18.) As recited above, there was substantial evidence to support the trial court's order extending E.H.'s Murphy conservatorship. Indeed, the evidence that he continues to fall within the statutory criteria was overwhelming. Moreover, E.H. was ably represented by counsel, both in the trial court and on appeal. We see no error.
III. DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
/s/_________
REARDON, J. We concur: /s/_________
RUVOLO, P. J. /s/_________
STREETER, J.