In re Ames

1

In re LEIF MICHAEL AMES, on Habeas Corpus.

H049862

California Court of Appeals, Sixth District

July 20, 2023

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED

(Santa Cruz County Super. Ct. No. 21CR04720)

Danner, Acting P.J.

In March 2020, the Santa Cruz County District Attorney charged Leif Michael Ames by complaint with murder and a weapon-use enhancement. The trial court set bail at $750,000. More than nine months later, after a preliminary hearing, the trial court arraigned Ames on an information charging the same offense and enhancement. The bail remained unchanged. About eight months after that arraignment, Ames posted a $750,000 bail bond and was released from custody. A few days later the district attorney moved the trial court to detain Ames without bail, based solely on facts present in the record prior to Ames's release from custody. The trial court granted the motion, remanded Ames back into custody, and ordered that he be held without bail.

Ames filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus (petition) in the superior court challenging the trial court's order detaining him without bail. A judge of the superior court (hereafter habeas court) granted the petition and ordered that Ames be readmitted to bail. The district attorney has appealed, contending the habeas court erred in granting Ames's petition and ordering him released on bail pending trial.

For the reasons explained below, we affirm the habeas court's decision granting habeas corpus relief.

I. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

A. Trial Court Proceedings

On March 23, 2020, the district attorney filed a complaint charging Ames with one count of murder (Pen. Code, § 187^[1]; count 1) and a weapon-use (knife) enhancement (§§ 12022, subd. (b)(1), 1192.7, subd. (c)(23)). A magistrate found probable cause to believe Ames committed a crime based on a police officer's declaration that stated: "On 3-21-20, the victim went to [an address] to check on his friend Leif Ames due to some odd behavior he was displaying. While at the house the victim was attempting to help [Ames] and get him some water. As the victim was in the kitchen [Ames] stabbed the victim multiple times in the back with a knife. The victim succumbed to his injuries due to the stab wounds. [Ames] was taken into custody and interviewed at Sheriff's HQ. [Ames] made admissions about stabbing the victim with a knife. [Ames] was later booked into the Main Jail on murder charges." Bail was set at $750,000.

The next day, at Ames's arraignment on the complaint, the district attorney requested that bail be increased to $770,000, based on the bail schedule for the offense and enhancement. Ames's defense counsel said he did not think the $20,000 difference would make Ames "releasable" and asked the court to forgo increasing the bail amount. The trial court decided "to keep it at [$]750,000."^[2] At a court proceeding on August 10, 2020, Ames reiterated his not guilty plea and further entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity (NGI) to the complaint's murder count. In response, the trial court appointed two doctors to evaluate Ames (§ 1027).^[3]

On November 19, 2020, the trial court conducted a preliminary hearing. Based on the prosecution's evidence, the trial court held Ames to answer on the murder charge and the enhancement allegation. Neither the parties nor the trial court mentioned bail on the record at the preliminary hearing. The clerk's minute order indicates that the bail remained set at $750,000.

The evidence presented at the preliminary hearing included the following: On March 21, 2020, Ames called 911 and told the dispatcher that he (Ames) is a "COVID factory" and had been "experiencing some blackout hallucinations recently." That evening, a sheriff's deputy conducted a welfare check on Ames. Ames told the deputy that he (Ames) "was manufacturing the coronavirus in his mouth." Ames also said "he had consumed an unknown drug several weeks prior at a party and he felt that that was one of the reasons he was producing the virus." Ames "refer[red] to himself as Corona Virus Number 1." Ames assured the deputy that he (Ames) was not a danger to himself or others. To the deputy, Ames "appeared coherent. He was healthy. He seemed very normal at the time." But "his behavior was abnormal." The deputy left.

After the deputy departed, Ames's friend Hubert Cross arrived at Ames's home (upon request of Ames's brother) and attempted to assist Ames. About one hour after the deputy had left, Ames stabbed Cross 23 times, killing him. Ames called the police and reported that he had stabbed his best friend to death with a knife. Ames said Cross was "a corona agent." The police detained Ames. In Ames's home, police found what appeared to be a methamphetamine pipe with DMT in it and LSD. Ames's brother told the police that he knew Ames drank "a little beer, [and] experimented with marijuana and some hallucinogens."

On January 11, 2021, the trial court arraigned Ames on an information. Ames pleaded not guilty to the murder count (§ 187; count 1) and denied the weapon-use enhancement allegation (§§ 12022, subd. (b)(1), 1192.7, subd. (c)(23)).^[4] No one mentioned Ames's bail on the record during the arraignment. Moreover, neither the reporter's transcript nor the clerk's minute order for the arraignment on the information includes any indication that Ames reentered his prior NGI plea.

From the time of Ames's arraignment on the complaint in March 2020 through his arraignment on the information in January 2021, bail remained set at $750,000 and neither the district attorney nor Ames made any effort to change the amount.

About eight months after his arraignment on the information, on September 8, 2021, Ames posted a $750,000 bail bond and was released from custody. The record does not contain any indication that either party made any effort to change Ames's bail between the time of his January 2021 arraignment and the posting of the bail bond.

On September 13, 2021, the district attorney filed a motion for a bail hearing (motion) pursuant to the Penal Code and In re Humphrey (2021) 11 Cal.5th 135 (Humphrey).^[5] The district attorney requested that Ames "immediately be remanded into custody due to the change in circumstances and substantially new information obtained since the initial bail hearing" in March 2020. The district attorney asserted that Ames "poses an extreme danger to the community, his friends, and family and no other reasonable bail terms will render him safe.... [Ames] has remained in custody during this entire time only to post bail with the assistance of his family on September 8, 2021. There is absolutely no question [Ames] committed this murder, the question will be where [he] spends the rest of his life; life in prison or life in the state hospital which creates a substantial risk for flight." In its moving papers, the district attorney did not cite any facts that postdated Ames's release from custody as justifying the denial of bail.

On September 16, 2021, the trial court held a hearing on the district attorney's motion. The judicial officer who took Ames's August 2020 NGI plea, presided at the November 2020 preliminary hearing, and arraigned Ames on the information in January 2021 also decided the district attorney's September 2021 motion.

The district attorney contended that “a substantial amount of new evidence” had been generated “since the [c]ourt originally set bail” upon “a short probable cause statement” at the March 2020 arraignment. The district attorney explained that the new evidence included the preliminary hearing, the autopsy report, Ames's NGI plea, and the two psychiatric evaluations. The district attorney also noted that toxicology testing of Ames shows only marijuana use and that a psychiatrist had determined Ames “does not qualify for an NGI defense.” The district attorney further asserted that Ames (who was residing in Santa Clara County) is a danger to the community and said, “We cannot predict what actually caused this homicide; therefore, we cannot put terms on him that can reasonably assure public safety.” Regarding Ames's potential for flight, the district attorney argued that Ames's guilt is clear, and the only open question is whether he spends the rest of his life in a psychiatric facility or in prison. Other than this generalized argument about Ames's future custodial status, the district attorney did not proffer any facts going specifically to risk of flight.

Ames's defense counsel countered that there had not been "any change in circumstances which would make [the district attorney's] bail motion appropriate other than [Ames] ultimately availing himself of bail which he has been legally able to do for a year and a half."

The district attorney replied that either party could request a hearing under Humphrey at any time and the "change in circumstances" is that Ames "is now out of custody with zero terms, and the [c]ourt can consider all of the information that it has obtained since arraignment on this case and can review the [NGI] reports, and can consider whether or not public safety is at issue considering that he is now completely out of custody, residing in a different county, has no ankle monitor, has no ability to monitor any sort of terms, and there's no reasonable terms that would render either community safe." Ames's defense counsel responded that posting bail could not "logically" constitute a change in circumstances.

The trial court granted the district attorney's motion deciding that Ames should be remanded into custody and held without bail based primarily on public safety concerns. The trial court explained: "I have often wondered why we tied alleged offenses like this to a dollar bail schedule. It really doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Pe...