Published opinion, 7 December 2021 · source · PDF · 26 pages
The other testified that hallucination of demons is unusual for people with mental health issues. She also noted that in a recorded jail conversation shortly after defendant’s arrest, defendant talked about his case without mentioning hallucinations or demons or any of the problems he described during interviews with her. Similarly, a detective testified that defendant seemed lucid in his earlier recorded jail phone conversations, only to later exhibit delusions about government conspiracies, angels, and demons after it “became clear” he would pursue a mental health defense.
4 The Defense’s Case The defense introduced evidence through defendant’s own testimony, the testimony of his sister and two police officers who briefly detained him that he was experiencing delusions and hallucinations while in Nebraska and travelling back to California in the weeks before the murder.
In her experience, the hallucination of seeing demons is unusual for people with mental health issues and it caused her to be suspicious. She also noted that in one of defendant’s jail phone conversations shortly after defendant was booked in the jail, he talked about his case, but made no mention of psychiatric symptoms, hallucinations, seeing demons or any of the problems defendant described to her during interviews. She concluded defendant was malingering and his efforts to destroy the body and flee from police demonstrated he knew what he did was wrong.
While noting that actions based solely on delusion cannot form the basis for imperfect self- defense, the court examined the evidence to determine whether defendant’s delusions could be separated from his testimony of being attacked by W.T. It concluded that in defendant’s case all the “statements and the conduct which defendant attributes to [W.T.] are all . . . part of and arise out of defendant’s delusions and hallucinations.” It noted, “[T]here was no light being shared . . . There wasn’t a light that [W.T.] held onto and wouldn’t give back.
134-135.) “ ‘[U]nreasonable self-defense ‘is based on a defendant’s assertion that he lacked malice . . . because he acted under an unreasonable mistake of fact—that is, the need to defend himself against imminent peril of death or great bodily harm.’ ” (Id. at p. 136.) And “because unreasonable self-defense is ‘a species of mistake of fact [Citation] . . . it cannot be founded on delusion.’ ” (Ibid.) Thus, “unreasonable self-defense, as a form of mistake of fact, has no application when the defendant’s actions are entirely delusional. A defendant who makes a factual mistake misperceives the objective circumstances.
The other testified that hallucination of demons is unusual for people with mental health issues. She also noted that in a recorded jail conversation shortly after defendant’s arrest, defendant talked about his case without mentioning hallucinations or demons or any of the problems he described during interviews with her. Similarly, a detective testified that defendant seemed lucid in his earlier recorded jail phone conversations, only to later exhibit delusions about government conspiracies, angels, and demons after it “became clear” he would pursue a mental health defense.