Padilla

In a murder prosecution, is evidence of a hallucination admissible at the guilt phase to reduce first degree murder to second degree murder or to mitigate murder to voluntary manslaughter? We hold that evidence of a hallucination—a perception with no objective reality—is inadmissible to negate malice so as to mitigate murder to voluntary manslaughter but is admissible to negate deliberation and premeditation so as to reduce first degree murder to second degree murder.

Factual and Procedural History

Shortly after an early morning prisoner count, correctional officers at Wasco State Prison who saw blood on inmate Raymond T. Padilla’s face, hands, and jumpsuit found his cellmate Raymond Loya dead. Loya had deep penetrating stab wounds to each of his eyes. One wound was forceful enough to fracture the supraorbital plate at the top of his eye socket and to induce a subarachnoid hemorrhage by tearing the membranes around the brain. Loya was still alive when he suffered those wounds. The towel around his neck not only fractured the bones in his voice box and strangled him to death but also was so tightly wrapped that coroner’s office personnel had trouble removing the towel to…