PEOPLE v. ROGERS PART-VI
Testimony that defendant suffered from some degree of disassociation and had used PCP, did not compel trial court to order competency hearing sua sponte. Where there was no testimony that any dissociative disorder affected his ability to assist counsel or to understand trial proceedings and there was no testimony that his drug use was extensive. Joinder of two murder counts was not grossly unfair where identity of perpetrator of one murder was disputed and evidence regarding other murder was relevant to that issue. There were numerous characteristics common to the two murders and there was little likelihood that evidence of one crime would improperly induce the jury to convict defendant of the other. Evidence that defendant, a deputy sheriff, had been fired based on a complaint by a prostitute but later reinstated was properly admitted at trial for killing another prostitute. Since it tended to show that defendant may have killed victim to prevent her from complaining and possibility having him terminated again. Defendant's testimony--that when victim was walking toward him with her finger pointed at him, he felt threatened and afraid and shot her out of a need for protection--taken in combination with mental health experts' testimony that the killing was a result of defendant's association of victim with his abusive stepmother and "fear of not surviving himself" did not infer that defendant believed he was in imminent fear that victim--an unarmed teenage prostitute--would kill him or cause him great bodily injury. The court was not required to give sua sponte instruction on imperfect self-defense. Where prosecution's case regarding the identity of killer of second victim rested principally on defendant's possession of the murder weapon and his admitted killing of first victim a year earlier under similar circumstances.
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