People v. Coyne

263 Cal. App. 2d 445, 69 Cal. Rptr. 736, 1968 Cal. App. LEXIS 2225
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedJune 25, 1968
DocketCrim. No. 12538
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 263 Cal. App. 2d 445 (People v. Coyne) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Coyne, 263 Cal. App. 2d 445, 69 Cal. Rptr. 736, 1968 Cal. App. LEXIS 2225 (Cal. Ct. App. 1968).

Opinion

FILES, P. J.

In a trifurcated trial a jury found defendant guilty of murder in the first degree (Pen. Code, §§ 187, 189) and sane, and fixed the penalty as life imprisonment. This is defendant’s appeal from the judgment. It is necessary to reverse the judgment because defendant’s extrajudicial statements were obtained in violation of the rules announced in People v. Dorado (1965) 62 Cal.2d 338 [42 Cal.Rptr. 169, 398 P.2d 361]; People v. Anderson (1965) 63 Cal.2d 351 [46 [447]*447Cal.Rptr. 763, 406 P.2d 43] and People v. Luker (1965) 63 Cal.2d 464 [47 Cal.Rptr. 209, 407 P.2d 9].

Facts

In the latter months of 1964 defendant and the victim, Agnes Theresa Wallace, lived together in an apartment in Long Beach. Defendant was married to another woman from whom he had been separated for 17 years. On December 24, 1964, defendant and Mrs. Wallace and a mutual friend, Albert Gill, spent most of the afternoon and evening drinking Scotch whiskey. According to Gill, at about 7 p.m. defendant was “loaded,” but by midnight he had sobered up pretty well. Then they attended a midnight mass. Afterward, Gill drove defendant and Mrs. Wallace to their apartment and left them. Except for defendant, Gill was the last person to see Mrs. Wallace alive.

On December 29, 1964, Long Beach Police Officer Robertson found Mrs. Wallace’s body in the bathtub of her apartment. A kitchen Imife, with rosary beads draped about it, was embedded in her back, while scissors protruded from her throat. The autopsy surgeon found eight stab wounds in the victim’s neck and 14 in her back. A laboratory test of her blood showed no alcoholic content. The body was well preserved because of the weather and the lack of heat in the apartment; and the surgeon was unable to offer any opinion as to the time of her death.

Defendant was taken into custody in Guadalajara, Mexico, and on March 3, 1965, was questioned there by Long Beach Officer Robertson, in the presence of Mexican officers. This conversation was tape-recorded. Defendant told Robertson about the events of December 24, and stated that after he and Mrs. Wallace had returned to their apartment she had told him she intended to leave him and go away with Gill. They had a cup of tea and then went to sleep in separate beds. Defendant said they arose about 6 a.m., she told him again that she was leaving, there was no argument, he packed his belongings and left. He denied that he had killed her.

Mexican authorities took defendant to Laredo, Texas, and released him. He was rearrested in San Antonio, Texas, where he was questioned again by Officer Robertson for about two hours in the evening of April 5. No recording of this was made. Shortly after midnight there was a further interview which Officer Robertson recorded in typewriting. Defendant’s signature appears at the end of the document.

[448]*448In the typewritten document defendant states that when he and Mrs. Wallace returned to the apartment after mass he was drunk; they had tea and went to bed. The document states:

“We got up the next morning. I am not too sure that is when I killed her.
“ Q. Is there any- doubt in your mind that you did this ?
“A. No. She went to the bathroom.
. ( (
111 don’t really remember what happened. I was still intoxicated at the time. We drank quite a bit of whiskey. It leaves me without any recollection of what has happened. I left and had several drinks of Scotch, one bar was on Broadway, one on Seventh and others I don’t remember. I had a beer in one place on Broadway then I went downtown. A couple of hours later I returned to the apartment. I had the key, her key. I went in and used the toilet and there she was in the tub. I covered her head with a towel. I put the statue that was on top of the T.V. on the towel over her head. I got some cigarettes from the kitchen and then I left again.
“Q. If you don’t remember doing this, how do you know that you did when you returned later on ?
“A. On account of the knife and all. I was a great knife man in Korea. ’'

During the day of April 6 defendant was returned to Long Beach. On April 7 defendant was questioned by Officer Robertson and three other Long Beach officers, and a tape recording was made. In this April 7 interview defendant said he remembered that after they arose on December 25, Mrs. Wallace went into the bathroom and he followed her. He remembered hitting her and the next thing he remembered he was leaving. He did not remember anything in his hand at the time he hit her. He went out, had some drinks, visited a former landlady, and returned to the apartment. Then he found her dead in the bathtub. He said he must have done it because he was a great knife man in Korea. After that he took a bus to San Diego.

■ Defendant, testifying on his own behalf at the guilt trial, said that on the morning of December 25 after Mrs. Wallace told him she was going away with Gill, his next recollection was leaving the house about 7 or 7:30 and going to a bar for a drink. Mrs. Wallace was then still alive. He still felt drunk from the night before. He did some drinking in bars, called on his former landlady,. and then returned to the apartment, [449]*449where he found Mrs. Wallace in the bathtub. He covered her head with a towel and put a religious statue on it. He testified: “Q. Were you afraid you might have killed her? A. The possibility crossed my mind.”

Diminished Capacity

One of the issues raised at the guilt trial was defendant’s capacity to harbor the state of mind which is an element of the offense of murder. Both sides presented expert medical testimony.

Dr. Marinaeei, called by the defense, testified that he examined the defendant by making an electroencephalogram, both before and after the defendant had ingested alcohol. Before alcohol was given, the tracings indicated brain damage. After the consumption of alcohol, the tracings indicated abnormality in other parts of the brain, particularly the temporal lobe which controls behavior. Dr. Marinaeei testified, “This man has a true pathology in the brain. It is nothing you can argue over. This man had something wrong with his brain, and alcohol will make him berserk. ’ ’ He explained that one characteristic of such a person is that afterwards the person does not remember anything.

Three psychiatrists, Doctors Gore, Tweed and Davis, called by defendant, testified, upon the basis of Dr. Marinaeei’s findings, and their own examinations of the defendant, that on the morning of December 25, 1964, defendant was in a fugue or clouded state, incapable of premeditation or deliberation. Such a person acts in the manner of an automaton and may be able to do many things which we normally do with full consciousness, but without any knowledge of what he is doing, and without any ability to recall it afterwards. That condition, according to the opinion of those witnesses, was the effect of alcohol upon a diseased brain.1

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Related

People v. Asher
273 Cal. App. 2d 876 (California Court of Appeal, 1969)
People v. Castillo
449 P.2d 449 (California Supreme Court, 1969)
People v. Wilson
268 Cal. App. 2d 581 (California Court of Appeal, 1968)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
263 Cal. App. 2d 445, 69 Cal. Rptr. 736, 1968 Cal. App. LEXIS 2225, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-coyne-calctapp-1968.