A 35-year-old Iraq War veteran was again sentenced to 11 years in prison Friday for fatally stabbing his girlfriend in Anaheim, after an appellate court ruling that required a re-sentencing hearing because the judge originally had not considered the defendant’s combat post-traumatic stress disorder.
Frank Moseley was convicted March 15, 2023, of voluntary manslaughter. Jurors rejected a murder charge and opted instead for the lesser count. Orange County Superior Court Judge Kimberly Menninger on May 12, 2023, handed down the maximum sentence for the manslaughter count.
She could have tacked on an extra year for the use of a knife but chose not to do so.
Moseley killed 25-year-old Janessa Smith on Jan. 19, 2017. The killing was never in dispute, and jurors were asked to consider whether it was murder or manslaughter.
Moseley exploded in rage when his fiancee told him she was pregnant with another man’s child.
“When imposing a sentence, (Menninger) referred to Moseley’s PTSD as a factor in mitigation, but (she) did not refer to that factor when denying probation,” according to the Fourth District Court of Appeal ruling. A new state law requires judges to consider service-related PTSD as a factor when considering a defendant’s punishment.
The appellate court moved to publish the opinion to “emphasize that trial courts have mandatory statutory obligations when sentencing qualifying veteran defendants, or current members of the United States military,” according to the ruling.
Menninger said in court Friday that the PTSD was discussed with attorneys off the record before the 2023 sentencing, but she did not articulate it more clearly in her ruling two years ago.
“We had a lot of conversations about it,” she said. “We just didn’t call it out by (the statutory number). The court was well aware of Mr. Moseley’s PTSD.”
She referred to it as a “failure to articulate the code section” in her 2023 ruling.
Moseley’s attorney, David Hammond of the Orange County Public Defender’s Office, argued for probation, and if the judge would not grant that then a lesser sentence. Both moves would have led to the defendant’s immediate release.
An expert determined Moseley also suffered from major depressive disorder and cannabis use disorder.
“All are attributed to his military service, particularly in combat,” Hammond said.
The defendant witnessed others in his troop get killed in a tank attack.
Moseley “has never denied responsibility” for his crime, Hammond argued. “He has never shirked responsibility.”
The defendant even “doesn’t feel he’s worthy of any consideration” for a lesser sentence, Hammond said.
Moseley’s attack on Smith “was so out of character it underscores the significance of the PTSD,” Hammond argue.
The defendant went off his medication, not because he was irresponsible, but because the couple was struggling so much financially he couldn’t afford it, Hammond said.
Senior Deputy District Attorney Mark Birney, who was assigned the case when the prior prosecutor left the department, argued that the aggravating factors of the crime outweigh any mitigating factors such as the defendant’s PTSD.
“He grabbed a deadly weapon and plunged it in her 14 times,” Birney said. “And in a number of different areas of her body as she was fighting for her life.”
Menninger agreed with Birney and the violent nature of the attack outweighed the PTSD.
“In this case the brutality of this crime was offensive,” Menninger said. “It clearly shows she was fighting for her life… It’s clearly one of the most violent crimes I’ve seen and the court still finds that 11 years is appropriate.”
Moseley has credit for an estimated 3,407 days behind bars, which is more than nine years. Moseley is expected to be released in November.
Menninger structured her ruling Friday to keep the defendant in Orange County Jail so he can continue with the treatment program that he was refused while in prison.
The victim’s mother said in a statement Birney read to Menninger that her daughter’s killing was a “violent, hideous crime,” and that she worried the defendant would attack someone else if released now.
Moseley stabbed Smith about 14 times with a “chef’s knife” in the living room of Smith’s two-bedroom apartment at 120 E. Wilken Way, near Orangewood Avenue, said Christopher Alex, the original prosecutor told jurors in his opening statement of the trial.
Smith had three children, including one with the defendant, Hammond said.
Hammond on Friday said the defendant “has always maintained his level of remorse, wishing these things never happened.”
Hammond said Smith’s family has suffered “an unthinkable loss.”
Moseley was going to nursing school when he was living with the victim at the time of the killing, Hammond said. The victim had been making money selling drugs with another man, Hammond said, and both were having trouble finding jobs.
When she told him she suspected she was pregnant with the other man’s child, Moseley lost it and stabbed her with a kitchen knife, Hammond said. Then the defendant set small fires around the home and prepared to kill himself with smoke when he heard the couple’s baby in the other room, according to the attorney.
He was so shaken that he fled the apartment barefoot with the baby and drove off in a pickup. When he saw an officer on the road, he veered over to the wrong side of the street to pass the squad car and get in front to force the officer to stop, Hammond said.
The defense attorney showed jurors an eight-minute video of officers attempting to calm the distraught suspect and take the baby away to safety.
“I snapped, I lost it,” Moseley said on the video. “Can you take my life. Please take my life. … Shoot me, please shoot me.”
An officer responded, “I’m not going to shoot you in front of your kid.”
Later, as Moseley continued to plead with the officers to kill him, an officer said, “Frank, we don’t want to hurt you.”
Hammond said Moseley was “very cooperative” when police questioned him.
The prosecutor, Alex, told jurors Moseley and the victim “had a dating relationship going back years.” The two broke up, but then around the holidays they reconciled and she accepted his marriage proposal, Alex said.
But “almost as quickly” as they reconciled, “The victim began to have second thoughts,” Alex said.
Alex said that after stabbing Smith, Moseley filled up the bathtub and submerged smoke detectors in the water before setting fires in the apartment as part of his “first suicide attempt,” Alex said.
As officers were later taking Moseley into custody, Smith’s sister found the body and screamed, drawing the attention of the apartment manager who dialed 911, Alex said.
There was no indication in Smith’s autopsy that showed she was pregnant, Alex said.
Moseley had “suspicions” of an affair for some time, but he “insists” she did not confirm it until seconds before he killed her, Alex said.
Moseley had cut marks on his arm that he said were self-inflicted and done before the killing, Alex said. The knife “slipped” as he was killing Smith, so he also had fresh cuts, the prosecutor said.
Moseley told an administrator in a nursing program six days before the killing that the daughter he had with Smith was not his, Alex said.
Moseley had been “off his meds for about six months” before the killing, Alex said.