People v. Forbs

62 Cal.2d 847 (1965) THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.

JOYCE MARIE FORBS, Defendant and Appellant.

Crim. No. 8130. Supreme Court of California. In Bank.

June 16, 1965. Erling J. Hovden, Public Defender, John M. Moore and James L. McCormick, Deputy Public Defenders, for Defendant and Appellant. [849]

Stanley Mosk and Thomas C. Lynch, Attorneys General, William E. James, Assistant Attorney General, and Paul N. Wenger, Deputy Attorney General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

TOBRINER J.

Defendant was charged by information with the crime of murder; the jury found her guilty of voluntary manslaughter. The court sentenced her to the penitentiary for the term required by law.

For the reasons stated below we hold that defendant's conviction must be reversed because the police obtained incriminating statements from her at the accusatory stage without advising her of her rights to counsel and to remain silent, although the record fails to show that she otherwise waived those rights. We point out that the introduction of such statements worked prejudicial error. We further explain that although the evidence could not sustain a verdict of voluntary manslaughter in the absence of a showing of defendant's intention to kill, the issue of whether such erroneous verdict caused prejudice to defendant need not be resolved in view of our reversal. Finally, we do not accept defendant's contention that the trial court failed to give adequate instructions on the law of excusable homicide.

The victim was defendant's son, a child 2 1/2 years old. The boy died on November 1, 1962. Defendant and her husband had separated subsequent to the boy's birth; defendant, after some dispute, gained custody of the child. On the date of death and immediately before that time she resided with her five children in a housing project in Los Angeles.

During the several weeks immediately preceding his death, the child suffered approximately 30 injuries or groups of injuries to various parts of his head and body. On the morning of November 2, 1962, a police officer, in response to a radio call, went to defendant's residence and asked about the child. Defendant identified herself to the officer and directed him to the upstairs bedroom where he found the deceased child lying on a bed. Defendant told the officer that the child had been ill; that she did not think that the illness required a doctor, but that suddenly the previous evening the child had died. Upon the officer's request for an explanation of the injuries to the child, defendant replied that when the boy had been outside to play the neighborhood children had inflicted the bruises.