People v. Huynh CA2/8

Filed 2/10/16 P. v. Huynh CA2/8 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION EIGHT

THE PEOPLE, B258509

Plaintiff and Respondent, (Los Angeles County Super. Ct. No. KA094327) v.

JOHN TAYLOR HUYNH,

Defendant and Appellant.

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County. Thomas C. Falls, Judge. Affirmed.

Patricia A. Scott, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.

Kamala D. Harris, Attorney General, Gerald A. Engler, Chief Assistant Attorney General and Lance E. Winters, Assistant Attorney General, Susan Sullivan Pithey and Andrew S. Pruitt, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

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Defendant and appellant John Huynh was convicted of first-degree premeditated murder (Pen. Code, §§ 187, 189) and an allegation that he personally used a deadly weapon, a knife, was found to be true (Pen. Code, § 12022, subd. (b)(1)). He was sentenced to a term of 26 years to life in prison. Defendant appeals, challenging only the sufficiency of the evidence of premeditation and deliberation. We affirm.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

In 2001, when defendant was 17 years old, he killed his mother by stabbing her in the neck and subsequently slashing her throat and wrists. He then hired a day laborer to dig a hole in his backyard. He buried the body in the shallow grave, cleaned the blood off the walls, burned other evidence, and abandoned the home. He told everyone that his mother had returned to Vietnam. Nobody questioned defendant’s explanation, and he appeared to get away with murder until 2011, when guilt compelled him to walk into a police station and confess the crime. He then accompanied police officers to the scene, and showed them where he had buried the body. The coroner’s office excavated the grave, and discovered the victim’s skeletal remains exactly as defendant had described. At trial, the prosecution relied on defendant’s recorded statements to police, both at the police station and at the crime scene, to establish defendant’s guilt. Defendant had admitted to police that he had argued with his mother in an upstairs bedroom. He ran downstairs to the kitchen and grabbed a kitchen knife and plastic garbage bag. He returned upstairs and put the bag over his mother’s head so she would not make a sound, although this was unsuccessful. He stabbed his mother in the neck repeatedly. He then placed her on the bed. She was still alive, so he cut her throat and wrists. He waited until she died. At trial, Defendant offered evidence that he suffered from schizoaffective disorder, and that he had been undergoing psychotic episodes both when he killed his mother and when he confessed to the crime. He also suggested that he had killed his mother in self- defense, because she was an abusive parent who had attacked him with a metal rod. Contrary to his statement to the police that he had obtained the knife from the kitchen