Caseflicks

Court of Appeals of Washington • 2000

State v. Bottrell

14 P.3d 164

Full access

Unlock the video and quiz

The written brief is free to read below. Subscribe to watch the video explainer and take the quiz.

Create an account Log in

Takeaway

In short, this case holds that qualified PTSD evidence may be admissible to negate the intent required for intentional murder, but it does not defeat a felony-murder conviction where independent evidence proves an intent to commit the underlying robbery.

Background

Teresa Bottrell met John Hall while she was in jail. Hall deposited money into female inmates’ accounts in exchange for sexual telephone conversations, and Bottrell later received permission to live at Hall’s home after her release. Before the killing, Bottrell told fellow inmates that she intended to take Hall for everything he had, including his vehicles and property. She also stole two of Hall’s checks shortly before his death.

On the night of the killing, Bottrell went to Hall’s home intending to obtain money. She testified that Hall asked her to tie him up, but that she refused after taking out duct tape. Hall then struck her, and a struggle followed. Bottrell hit him with household objects and ultimately put a telephone cord around his neck. After realizing Hall was dead, she tried to clean the scene, searched his safe for money, and later returned with her boyfriend to take Hall’s keys and Lincoln Continental.

The State charged Bottrell with first degree premeditated murder and first degree felony murder predicated on robbery. Bottrell sought to introduce testimony from Dr. Robert Stanulis that she had post-traumatic stress disorder and experienced flashbacks during the struggle, impairing her ability to form intent. The trial court excluded the testimony under the then-used foundational requirements of State v. Edmon. The jury convicted Bottrell of the lesser included offense of second degree murder on the premeditated-murder count and of first degree felony murder on the robbery-based count. Bottrell appealed both convictions.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether the trial court properly excluded expert testimony that Bottrell’s PTSD-related flashbacks impaired her ability to form the intent required for premeditated or second degree murder.

Holding

No. The trial court abused its discretion by excluding the PTSD testimony; it was admissible diminished-capacity evidence relevant to intent. The court reversed the second degree murder conviction and remanded for a new trial on that charge.

Reasoning

Diminished capacity is a mental condition, short of insanity, that prevents a defendant from forming the mental state an offense requires. First degree premeditated murder requires premeditated intent, and second degree murder requires intent to cause another’s death. Because the State had to prove the required intent beyond a reasonable doubt, Bottrell was entitled to offer relevant evidence that she could not form it at the time of the killing.

The trial court relied on the multi-part foundational test from State v. Edmon. But the Washington Supreme Court subsequently made clear in State v. Ellis that the Edmon requirements are not absolute. The admissibility of diminished-capacity expert testimony is governed by ER 702, together with the ordinary relevance rules in ER 401 and ER 402. That rule applies in noncapital cases as well as capital cases.

PTSD is generally recognized in the psychiatric and scientific communities, and the court concluded that it may produce diminished capacity. A PTSD flashback may cause a person to relive trauma, lose or alter the usual sense of reality, and experience a reduced sense of control over actions. Thus, PTSD evidence can assist a jury in deciding whether a defendant formed a required intent during a violent encounter.

Dr. Stanulis was qualified as an expert and offered a sufficiently specific medical basis for his opinion. He reviewed years of records, interviewed Bottrell, administered psychological testing, and testified to a medical certainty that she had PTSD. He further testified that, during the struggle, she was experiencing flashbacks of earlier abuse and that those flashbacks impaired her ability to perceive events accurately and to form specific intent.

The proposed testimony was relevant because mental disorders and their effects are beyond ordinary lay understanding. It could have helped the jury decide whether PTSD flashbacks prevented Bottrell from forming an intent to kill Hall. Because the evidence satisfied ER 702 and was relevant to the mental-state elements of premeditated and second degree murder, its exclusion was error. The remand was limited to second degree murder because the jury had already rejected first degree premeditated murder by convicting on the lesser offense.

Issue #2

Whether sufficient evidence supported Bottrell’s conviction for first degree felony murder based on robbery, notwithstanding the excluded PTSD evidence.

Holding

Yes. The evidence permitted a rational jury to find that Bottrell intended to rob Hall and killed him in the course of, in furtherance of, or in immediate flight from that robbery. The court affirmed the felony-murder conviction.

Reasoning

First degree felony murder requires a homicide committed in the course of, in furtherance of, or in immediate flight from an enumerated felony, here robbery. Robbery requires an intent to deprive the victim of property through force or fear. Felony murder does not require proof that the defendant intended to kill.

Viewed in the light most favorable to the State, the evidence supported an inference that Bottrell intended to rob Hall before the fatal encounter. She had previously stolen from him; told inmates that she would take everything he owned; spoke of obtaining his property if he died; admitted she went to his home to take money and possessions; and later stole his car and keys after the killing. A jury could reasonably treat these statements and acts as proof of an existing plan to steal from Hall.

The sequence of events also connected the killing to the robbery. Bottrell told an inmate that Hall resisted her taking his property and attempted to call the police, which led to the fight. Her efforts to conceal the crime, search Hall’s safe, and later take his car were consistent with a continuing course of conduct rather than an unrelated theft formed only after the homicide. A homicide may satisfy the felony-murder rule even if it occurs before the final taking, so long as there is no meaningful break in the chain of events.

Dr. Stanulis’s testimony concerned Bottrell’s ability to form an intent to kill while she was allegedly reliving past trauma. It did not address whether she had formed an intent to steal from Hall, dead or alive. Since intent to kill is not an element of felony murder and the PTSD evidence did not materially rebut the evidence of intent to rob, excluding that evidence did not undermine the felony-murder verdict.