California v. Smith
Annotate this CaseDuring the guilt phase of a bifurcated trial, a jury found Linde Smith guilty of second-degree murder, and found true a deadly weapon enhancement allegation. Smith’s mother, Anne Smith (Anne), was the victim. During the sanity phase of the trial, the jury found that Smith was legally sane at the time she committed the offense. The trial court sentenced Smith to a term of 16 years to life in prison, consisting of a 15 years to life term for the murder and a one-year consecutive term for the deadly weapon enhancement. On appeal, with respect to the guilt phase, Smith claimed the trial court erred in excluding certain evidence pertaining to the severity of her depression at the time of the incident giving rise to the charged offense. In addition, Smith contended the trial court erred in failing to instruct the jury sua sponte on involuntary manslaughter as an uncharged lesser included offense to murder. With respect to the sanity phase, Smith claimed the trial court violated her constitutional right to due process under Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U.S. 610 (1976) and its progeny by admitting evidence that she claims amounted to a comment on her exercise of her right to remain silent pursuant to Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966). She also contended the trial court erred in refusing to preclude an expert retained by the prosecution from testifying due to the State’s alleged failure to timely provide the defense with the expert’s report and related data. Finally, Smith argued cumulative error required reversal of the sanity verdict. In the published portion of its opinion, the Court of Appeal concluded the trial court did not err in failing to instruct the jury on the lesser included offense of involuntary manslaughter because there was no substantial evidence in the record to support the giving of the instruction. Furthermore, the Court concluded the trial court did not commit Doyle error. The Court rejected the remainder of Smith’s claims in unpublished portions of its opinion. Accordingly, judgment was affirmed.
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