Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/california/court-of-appeal/3d/115/629.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 13:43:59+00:00

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In re GARY G., a Person Coming Under the Juvenile Court Law. THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. GARY G., Defendant and Appellant.
Eric J. Coffill and Quin Denvir, State Public Defender, under appointments by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
The minor, Gary G., was adjudged a ward of the court after it was found he had committed murder in the second degree. (Pen. Code, § 187.) He appeals, asserting (1) lack of substantial evidence to support the finding that he committed murder; (2) the court erred in limiting cross-examination of the victim's brother on the issue of bias; (3) an eyewitness identification of the minor as the perpetrator was tainted by suggestive circumstances leading to the identification; (4) prosecutorial misconduct; (5) his motion for suppression of expert testimony was improperly denied; and (6) he did not receive appropriate discovery of investigative material.
We discuss each contention below and conclude that the judgment be affirmed.
On July 18, 1979, Danny G., Charles P. and Vince E. walked to a residential development site near Charles' home. At the site, working inside some large drainage pipe sections, was Bill Williams. Williams' girl friend, Julie I., was also in the ditch, keeping him company while he worked. Charles and Vince approached the ditch and began throwing rocks at Julie. After a short period of time the three minors left the area. Vince went home and Danny and Charles went to Danny's house.
Thereafter, Charles and Danny met the minor (Danny's older brother) and informed him that someone was working in the drainage pipes at the residential site. The minor suggested they return to the site. Charles agreed, as he wanted to throw more rocks at Julie.
While walking to the site, Charles noticed that the minor had a handgun tucked in the front of his pants. Charles inquired about the weapon; the minor pulled up his shirt and showed the gun to Charles. Upon reaching the site, Charles and the minor began throwing rocks into the open ditch. The minor pulled out the revolver and shot at a nearby generator; Charles then threw the generator into the ditch. Williams emerged from the pipe after the generator was thrown into the ditch. As Williams approached, Charles said, "I'm going to kill you." Williams responded, "Not if I kill you first." Charles started to run away, [115 Cal. App. 3d 635] at which time Williams climbed into a tractor and drove towards the minor. The minor fired once at Williams and the tractor went into the ditch. The minor jumped into the ditch and fired a second shot at Williams. He then pointed the gun at Julie, who ran from the scene. As the minor and Charles left the area, the minor stated, "I think he's dead. I shot him."
The minor returned home, borrowed the family car and drove Danny, Charles and Vincent to a liquor store. Upon returning from the store, the group was informed that the police were looking for them. Charles and Vincent exited the car and the minor and Danny drove away. Danny did not return home until several days later on July 24. The minor did not return home until August 17, at which time he surrendered to the authorities.
In his defense, the minor testified that he was in Sacramento until 8 p.m. on the day of the murder. His alibi was corroborated by his brother Richard and a friend Melencio T. The minor asserts he did not turn himself in after learning of the shooting as he feared he would be shot by the police.
[1a] The minor asserts the evidence presented is insufficient to support the finding that he committed the offense. We disagree.
Substantial evidence supports the finding that the minor committed the murder.
 The minor asserts the juvenile court erred in not permitting him to cross-examine the victim's brother, Arval Williams, concerning whether or not Arval was a member of the Aryan Brotherhood. He asserts that members of that group are biased against Mexican-Americans; thus questioning directed toward Arval's possible prejudice was proper and should have been permitted.
 The minor asserts the juvenile court erred in denying his motion for mistrial on the basis of prosecutorial misconduct. Counsel made the motion after both sides had rested and based it on the total record of the proceedings. No specific grounds were included in the motion. It was denied without comment. He asserts the district attorney attempted to prejudice the court by bringing to the court's attention the fact that the minor's father was facing criminal charges. While the district attorney did, on a couple of occasions and in different contexts, bring this fact to the court's attention, so too did counsel for the minor. There is nothing in the record to indicate, however, that any of the district attorney's comments in this regard were made with the intent to sway the court in its disposition of the case, or that the court was influenced.
 The minor also asserts misconduct occurred when the district attorney expressed his personal opinion to the court as to the veracity of a witness for the defense. We agree that such an expression of personal opinion amounts to misconduct. (See People v. Perez (1962) 58 Cal. 2d 229, 245 [23 Cal. Rptr. 569, 373 P.2d 617, 3 A.L.R.3d 946].) In order to state a case of misconduct sufficient to warrant reversal, however, it is incumbent upon the minor to demonstrate prejudice resulting from the misconduct. (People v. Bolton (1979) 23 Cal. 3d 208, 214 [152 Cal. Rptr. 141, 589 P.2d 396].) Here the hearing was in front of a judge, not a jury. (Cf. ibid) The minor has not shown, nor does the record in any way demonstrate, any prejudice to him attributable to the remarks made by the district attorney. The contention must be rejected.
 The minor asserts Julie's in-court identification of him as the perpetrator was tainted by a prior out-of-court identification. Prior to testifying, Julie observed the minor being led into the courtroom. At that time, the minor was handcuffed. The minor asserts the confrontation was so impermissively suggestive as to taint the subsequent in-court identification. We cannot agree.
 The minor asserts error in the court's refusal to strike the testimony of a ballistics expert where the information provided by the expert had not been previously disclosed to the defense.
A search of the minor's bedroom disclosed five .38 caliber casings, marked "WCC 71." fn. 1 Paul Dougherty, a ballistics expert, testified as to the meaning of "WCC 71." The minor thereafter moved to strike Dougherty's testimony, asserting the district attorney should have provided timely notice of its expert and the essence of his testimony.
[8a] The minor asserts he was denied due process by the failure of Officer Stewart to retain "rough interview notes" compiled when the officer interviewed Vince E., a witness at the hearing. The minor had obtained a discovery order which included all notes made by investigating officers; he now contends that failure to provide him with such discovery deprived him of due process.
Vince said that he did not hear the minor admit to shooting Williams nor did he tell Stewart that he had heard the minor make such a statement. In turn, Stewart testified that he interviewed Vince after the incident, at which time Vince made the above mentioned statement. Stewart had taken notes during the interview with Vince, but discarded them upon making a formal report which included verbatim some of the statements made by Vince during the interview. Stewart testified that it was a routine practice for him to discard such notes after using them to write up a final report. Although the minor had been provided a copy of the report, his counsel nonetheless moved to strike that part of Stewart's testimony relating to the interview notes, asserting this sanction was necessary as a result of the officer's discarding discoverable evidence. The motion was denied by the court.
[8b] The above mentioned guidelines do not require the rough interview notes taken by investigating officers be preserved for discovery purposes. In addressing this same issue, the court in People v. Dickerson (1969) 270 Cal. App. 2d 352 [75 Cal. Rptr. 828], commented: "To support such a contention the defense must mean that in connection with any investigation of an alleged crime, everybody carrying on such an investigation must preserve rough notes made for the purpose of ensuring accuracy of their official reports and deliver them upon request to defense counsel in order to give possible grounds for cross-examination of such witnesses; no such rule has ever been propounded; it seems to us that it seeks to carry to a ridiculous extreme the enunciation of 'rights of accused criminals.'" (Id, at p. 360.) We concur with this appraisal.
This is not to say that such notes are never discoverable; indeed, should such notes still be in existence at the time a discovery order is made they should be turned over as part of the overall discovery package. (People v. Torres (1971) 19 Cal. App. 3d 724, 731 [97 Cal. Rptr. 139].) We simply refuse to impose a judicial mandate that requires in each and every instance all original notes taken during the investigatory process be retained. (See ibid) Where an officer testifies that he made an accurate report based on the interview notes and thereafter a copy of the report is given to opposing counsel, there can be no cause to complain that all required discovery materials have not been provided and certainly no basis for requiring the officer's testimony be excluded as a result of inability to produce such notes.
Here the minor does not charge, nor did the court find, that the notes were discarded in bad faith (i.e., for some ulterior motive other than that they had served their intended purpose), nor does he point to any reasonable likelihood that the report in any way varied from the original notes taken. Yet by seeking to have the officer's testimony stricken, the minor nonetheless implies bad faith or error by way of the officer's having discarded the notes. Without any showing, we refuse to accede to such implication. While in some instances the failure to produce original notes taken during the investigatory process may arguably affect the weight to be given testimony concerning them, the inability to produce such notes does not make the testimony concerning what was said inadmissible. (People v. Torres, supra, 19 Cal.App.3d at p. 731.) The privilege of discovery presupposes something to discover. Source or backup material are not always available physically or because of privilege. But unavailability alone does not infer erroneous or false [115 Cal. App. 3d 641] transcription of one's notes, whether those of a policeman, attorney or student.
The minor would argue that simply destroying, losing, misplacing, shredding, or otherwise discarding raw or rough notes creates an implication that there was error or fraud in the transcription of the same into a report or other memorial. Logic and common sense dictate otherwise. One could as logically say the written memorial prepared from the notes is more deliberate and dispassionate and thus more reliable. Neither inference is a rational conclusion from the bare act. At the very least, there should be a showing of some error or bad faith, as well as a showing that the material sought to be discovered constitutes significant evidence.
The judgment (order adjudging the minor a ward of the court) is affirmed.
Paras, Acting P. J., concurred.
I concur in the result but dissent from that portion of the opinion which concludes that the original interview notes taken by investigating officers need not be preserved. Such notes are discoverable, says the majority, only if they exist. However, the officers are free to discard the interview notes when the "formal report" is made. In so many cases, as in the case at bar, the minor's recollection of important portions of the conversation differs from the formal report, generally prepared some time after the conversation. The officer, often and quite naturally, has no recollection independent of the report. Innocent mistakes can be made in transferring the conversation from the original notes to the formal report. This is particularly so since the final report includes more than summaries of conversations. Under the majority rule, there is no way to double-check for errors or inconsistencies. Manifestly, the more reliable reflector of the conversation are the notes contemporaneously made. We deal with an issue of truth-finding not bad faith.
What to do? The majority's response is that nothing need be done. I am persuaded that the approach taken by the federal cases, cited but rejected by the majority, is the reasonable judicial response under existing state law. Since the minor had the right to discover the notes, had they not been destroyed (Funk v. Superior Court (1959) 52 Cal. 2d 423, 424 [340 P.2d 593]), the teaching ofPeople v. Hitch (1974) 12 Cal. 3d 641, 650 [117 Cal. Rptr. 9, 527 P.2d 361], applies. Hitch, in essence, mandates the preservation of evidence. Notes of the conversation come within California's definition of evidence (Evid. Code, § 140).
Despite the strength of my sense that the majority misanalyzes California law in the interview notes issue, I concur in the result. I agree with the majority that, under the facts of this case, even if the court had struck the officer's testimony, the minor would not have benefitted.
PARAS, Acting P. J., Concurring.
I cannot let the comments of our dissenting justice pass without expressing independent thoughts thereon.
The practice of discarding raw notes (including interview notes) used to record concurrently transpiring events is universal. A given newsman will make them at the scene of a news event as he interviews interested parties, makes observations, etc., will later dictate or write the event more formally, and will then discard the the notes as useless. A particular contractor will take notes during the inspection of a job site, later will use them to work up a formal bid, then will discard them. A teacher [115 Cal. App. 3d 645] will generate rough notes in the course of research to prepare a lecture, then destroy them when no longer needed. Lawyers, judges, investigators, doctors, secretaries, clergymen, educators, architects, interior decorators, salespersons interviewers, and a host of other persons who produce written matter of any sort, often routinely commence their process by on-the-spot rough notes, sketches, and diagrams whose sole purpose is to facilitate later complete and meaningful products, and which are thereafter destroyed. Many such writings are incomprehensible and confusing except those who make them, encompassing as they do one's personal version of abbreviations, symbols, signs, doodles, and meaningful (to the maker) hieroglyphics. Even the maker often no longer understands them after the passage of substantial time. Many are downright embarrassing to those who are self conscious regarding their personal manner of depicting or describing certain subjects, or abbreviating words; such persons consider notes of this kind highly personal, under no circumstances to be seen by others.
There are of course certain of us, metaphorical "pack rats," who never destroy or discard anything and consequently retain even the roughest of such notes. There are others who discard them purely out of a sense of neatness, reluctant to retain anything which has served its purpose. And there are those who discard them consciously because they do not want them observed by anyone else. What these varying types generally have in common, those who save and those who discard is an absence of guile. In the process of discarding, those who do so intend no deception. There is nothing sinister about their practice. They simply and reasonably feel that their ultimate product has been produced by fair and accurate means, and those means need no longer be preserved. My personal conclusion, based on the encounter of hundreds of such raw notes during 30 years experience at the bench and bar, is that they should routinely be destroyed, for they rarely aid in ascertaining truth, and more often than not generate confusion and consequent falsehood.
Nor am I impressed by the argument that the federal rule accords with the dissenting view. The federal judiciary is entitled to its folly just as our state is entitled to its own (see e.g., People v. Disbrow (1976) 16 Cal. 3d 101 [127 Cal. Rptr. 360, 545 P.2d 272].) Merely because federal authority refuses to treat police like other human beings does not mean that state authorities should do the same. The federal rule is no more sensible or reasonable because it is a federal rule than it would be as a state rule.
FN 1. Dougherty testified "WCC 71" stood for Wenten Cartridge Company, 1971. According to Dougherty, such ammunition is manufactured for military use and is not generally available for commercial use.
FN 1. Lest there be a misunderstanding, I stress that we deal with interviewnotes and not all investigative notes as the concurring opinion suggests. Police interview notes, as the cases outline, are materially different than rough bench or architectural notes. Such police interview notes form a vital part of a criminal case; it is the role of the courts, not the investigators, to determine admissibility. We may analogize the problem with which we deal, in a broader sense, to the issues arising out of the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution. That amendment, in general, protects all citizens from government searches unless the police have obtained a search warrant. The search of a home may have been absolutely reasonable as an investigative effort, but the Constitution gives to a magistrate (and not an investigator) the role of determining reasonableness.
Fourth Amendment protection, like interview-note protection, is for all accused, those later found guilty as well as those later found innocent.

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