People v. McCurdy
59 Cal. 4th 1063
| Cal. | 2014Background
- In 1995, eight-year-old Maria Piceno disappeared from a shopping center; her body was found about two weeks later in Poso Creek; cause of death: suffocation. Defendant Gene McCurdy was convicted of first degree murder, kidnapping, and kidnapping to commit a lewd act on a child; special circumstance of kidnapping murder found true and jury returned death verdict.
- Key inculpatory evidence: eyewitness (Mychael Jackson) saw McCurdy with Piceno and saw a small person enter McCurdy’s truck; McCurdy was in the shopping-center area and rented multiple adult videos that afternoon; a shower curtain similar to one McCurdy had was found near the body; McCurdy had a history of molesting his sister and possessed magazines focusing on young-looking models.
- McCurdy was questioned extensively while aboard his Navy ship; the trial court suppressed some post-invocation and post-Miranda statements but admitted other statements (some for impeachment), and admitted Jackson’s identification as not the fruit of any Miranda/other violations.
- Defense challenged venue, suppression rulings, admissibility of other-acts evidence (incest with his sister; adult-oriented materials), jury instructions, sufficiency of evidence for kidnapping-to-commit-lewd-act, and sought a new trial based on a third-party confession. The trial court denied relief on all grounds; the Supreme Court of California affirmed.
- Court’s dispositive holdings: change of venue denial not reversible; most post-arrest statements admissible under Miranda/voluntariness doctrine; other-acts evidence (incest and adult material) admissible for motive/intent and not unduly prejudicial; evidence sufficed for kidnapping-to-commit-lewd-act; trial court properly excluded unreliable third-party confession for new-trial/mitigation purposes.
Issues
| Issue | People’s Argument | McCurdy’s Argument | Held |
|---|---|---|---|
| Change of venue denial | Publicity was not so pervasive or prejudicial; voir dire showed impartial jury | Pretrial publicity and community size required transfer | Denial forfeited (no renewal) and substantively correct — totality did not show reasonable likelihood of unfair trial; voir dire supported fairness |
| Admission of statements after ship interrogation | Many pre-invocation and post-waiver statements were voluntary; improper statements were excluded | Miranda and involuntariness required exclusion of all statements and derivative ID evidence | Court properly parsed statements: some admissible (waiver/reinitiation), some suppressed; any impeachment use harmless; Jackson’s ID attenuated and admissible |
| Admissibility of other-acts evidence (incest, magazines) | Incest and adult-material evidence relevant to intent/motive; limited-instruction minimized propensity use | Evidence irrelevant or overly prejudicial under Evid. Code §§ 352, 1101, 1108; risk of jury bias | Admission not an abuse: incest highly probative of sexual intent; magazines marginal but cumulative; limiting instructions and evidence weight cured prejudice |
| Third-party confession / new trial & penalty mitigation | Bales’s statements were unreliable, coerced, and inadmissible hearsay; exclusion proper | Bales confessed to the other killing and recanted; statements were newly discovered and would likely produce different verdict and serve as mitigation | Trial court did not abuse discretion: statements unreliable/coerced and inadmissible hearsay; exclusion proper for guilt and penalty phases |
Key Cases Cited
- Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966) (requires warnings and protects Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination)
- Davis v. United States, 512 U.S. 452 (1994) (invocation of right to counsel must be unambiguous)
- Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477 (1981) (once counsel requested, interrogation must cease unless suspect initiates)
- United States v. Ceccolini, 435 U.S. 268 (1978) (attenuation analysis for derivative evidence from illegality, witness voluntariness)
- Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18 (1967) (harmless-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard for constitutional error)
- Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284 (1973) (constitutional limits on excluding critical and trustworthy third-party confession evidence)
- People v. Memro, 11 Cal.4th 786 (1995) (possession of sexual material may be probative of intent to molest and admissible)
- People v. Falsetta, 21 Cal.4th 903 (1999) (standards for admitting prior sexual-offense evidence under Evid. Code § 1108)
- People v. Rogers, 57 Cal.4th 296 (2013) (other-crimes proof by preponderance; limiting instructions and review)
- People v. Tully, 54 Cal.4th 952 (2012) (voluntariness and harmless-error review of confessions)