Opinion ID: 1194882
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 26

Heading: Denying Motion for Continuance to Present Modification Motion

Text: (24) Defendant contends that the court erred under state law and violated his state and federal constitutional rights to due process and the effective assistance of counsel when it denied his motion for a continuance from June 4, 1991, to July 8 of that year, or at least for a few days, to present his motion to modify the verdict (§ 190.4, subd. (e)). He filed the motion the day before the hearing. Counsel explained that he was physically and emotionally exhausted from the horribly debilitating experience of the trial, and was simultaneously preparing the motions for new trial and to disclose juror information (discussed ante ). The court denied the request, explaining that that the trial had ended 27 days before defendant filed the motion to continue, that he filed it the day before his sentencing, that Haro's family was present for his sentencing, and that it had already carefully reviewed all the exhibits and the testimony ... from the guilt and penalty phases in connection with the motion to modify. It ruled that good cause to grant the motion was absent. We review a ruling on a motion to continue (§ 1050) for an abuse of discretion. ( People v. Hawkins (1995) 10 Cal.4th 920, 945 [42 Cal. Rptr.2d 636, 897 P.2d 574].) None appears. The court's decision does not fall outside the bounds of reason. Indeed, subdivision (b) of section 1050 ordinarily (see id., subd. (c)) permits granting a continuance only if, among other things, written notice [is] filed and served ... at least two court days before the hearing sought to be continued.... Here, defendant filed his motion the day before the motion to modify was to be heard. There was no state law error, nor any basis for defendant's constitutional claims. Defendant also contends that counsel's failure to file the motion to continue earlier denied him the effective assistance of counsel. We need not decide whether counsel's action was deficient, for we discern no prejudice  i.e., there is no reasonable probability that the outcome would have differed if he had filed the motion to continue earlier and the court had granted it. The legal standards governing the motion to modify are well known, having been set forth in the language of subdivision (e) of section 190.4 and explicated in case law. The court was, as it said, well prepared to rule on the motion. It explained at length why it was denying it, discussing the law and the facts. With regard to the latter, and to the major issue contested in the guilt phase, it said that the evidence supporting the allegation of personal use of a firearm  i.e., that defendant killed Haro  was overwhelming. It found the People's witnesses credible but defendant, in many particulars of his testimony, not. It specifically found that his testimony he did not shoot Haro was not credible. It described the circumstances of the crime  [t]he murder of Lois Haro was a cold, clear, thought-out and cowardly execution by gunfire of a defenseless woman, done without mercy  as a very strong factor in aggravation and contrasted the grave facts underlying that factor with those in mitigation: age, lack of a prior felony conviction, and lack of a serious history of prior criminal activity. It ruled that the aggravating circumstances beyond all doubt more than substantially outweigh those in mitigation and independently [found] that the evidence in aggravation is so substantial as compared to the evidence in mitigation that it warrants death.... In sum, the court had carefully considered the principal matters that bore on the decision to grant or deny the motion to modify the verdict when it announced its ruling. We see no reasonable probability that, had defendant been granted his motion to continue by filing it earlier, the court's stern and carefully considered assessment of the law and the facts would have varied in any fashion that might have altered the outcome. We also reject defendant's claim that the court erred by considering the verdicts on the oral copulation charge and special circumstance allegation. As we have explained, those matters were properly before the court in this trial.