Opinion ID: 2633881
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Comment upon Defendant's Absence During His Mother's Testimony

Text: Defendant contends, again for the first time on appeal, that the prosecutor's comment upon defendant's decision to absent himself during his mother's testimony, as proof that defendant's own guilt phase testimony was false, constituted (1) an improper comment upon defendant's exercise of his constitutional rights, (2) an improper suggestion that the jury should consider this circumstance as an aggravating factor in the penalty determination, and (3) unfair exploitation of the trial court's decision to exclude evidence concerning the molestation of defendant's mother by her father. [56] No misconduct occurred. Concerning the second and third claims, the prosecutor's comment constituted proper rebuttal to the character evidence presented by the defense in mitigation, and not a suggestion that this was an aggravating factor ( People v. Mayfield, supra, 14 Cal.4th at p. 804, fn. 15, 60 Cal.Rptr.2d 1, 928 P.2d 485), and, as discussed ante, in part II.C.1.c, because the evidence of molestation allegedly committed by defendant's grandfather properly was excluded, the prosecutor's comment did not take unfair advantage of the court's ruling. The prosecutor's remarks also did not improperly penalize any assertion by defendant of his constitutional rights. No error based upon Griffin v. California (1965) 380 U.S. 609, 85 S.Ct. 1229, 14 L.Ed.2d 106 ( Griffin ) occurred, because the prosecutor's comment was directed to defendant's waiver of his constitutional right to be present, not the assertion of some constitutional right, such as the right to remain silent at issue in Griffin. (Compare Griffin, supra, 380 U.S. at p. 614, 85 S.Ct. 1229 [The practice of allowing comment upon the defendant's failure to testify is a penalty imposed by courts for exercising a constitutional privilege. It cuts down on the privilege by making its assertion costly.].) Simply, there is no constitutional right to be voluntarily absent during trial. ( Frye, supra, 18 Cal.4th at p. 1011, 77 Cal.Rptr.2d 25, 959 P.2d 183[[T]hese qualifications to the right to be present [namely, waiver and removal for disruption] do not confer an affirmative right to be absent from trial. Nor are we aware of any decision recognizing a concomitant right of the defendant not to be present or to otherwise avoid being confronted with the witnesses against him.].) Moreover, this is not a situation such as was present in Doyle v. Ohio (1976) 426 U.S. 610, 96 S.Ct. 2240, 49 L.Ed.2d 91, where the defendant was misled concerning the possible effect of his choice to be absent. In the present case, defendant was, in fact, advised several times that  voluntarily absenting himself likely would be detrimental to his defense, and he acknowledged he realized this before he was allowed to waive his presence. Nor was defendant faced with the Hobson's choice of having to relinquish one constitutional right in order to preserve another. (See Simmons v. United States (1968) 390 U.S. 377, 394, 88 S.Ct. 967, 19 L.Ed.2d 1247.) The circumstance that, as we observed above, it was statutory error for the trial court to allow defendant to voluntarily absent himself during his mother's testimony does not render the prosecutor's comment upon his absence misconduct. (Cf. Visciotti, supra, 2 Cal.4th at p. 82, 5 Cal.Rptr.2d 495, 825 P.2d 388 [Regardless of whether an appellate court may later conclude that a piece of evidence was erroneously admitted, argument directed to the evidence does not become misconduct by hindsight.].)