P.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

There is little dispute about the events leading to defendant’s murder conviction. All agree that defendant fatally shot Hans Hugo Heath in the head as Heath sat in the front passenger seat of defendant’s Lexus sport-utility vehicle and that defendant disposed of Heath’s body by casting it over the side of a coastal highway. The only dispute at trial concerned defendant’s mental state when he killed the victim. Almost all of the evidence regarding the few disputed facts came from defendant’s testimony. There were no witnesses to the killing other than perhaps defendant’s 24-year- old daughter, Laura Alford (Laura). Because the state charged her with being an accessory (Pen. Code, § 32) to the murder of Heath—although the parties inform us that the jury acquitted her—she was not required to testify and did not do so. The prosecution’s favored theory, advanced through cross-examination and at closing argument, was that defendant killed Heath in anger, and with sufficient premeditation and deliberation to constitute a first degree murder (Pen Code, § 189), due to the victim’s belligerence, uncouth behavior, and vulgarity. Defendant testified that on…