Opinion ID: 1202382
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Defendant's Planned Southeast Asian Trip

Text: In his second issue defendant urges that the trial court erred in admitting certain evidence concerning defendant's planned Southeast Asian trip. The prosecutor offered to show that defendant had discussed with Tracy Obert his plan to go to Southeast Asia. As defendant had no apparent financing for this venture, the trip provided motive for the robbery with which defendant was at the time still charged. Further, since the trip might involve loss of life and since it was very important to defendant, the trip might also suggest a motive for killing the victim after the alleged rape. If the rape were disclosed, defendant might be prevented from leaving the country. Over specific defense objections that the prejudicial effect of this evidence far outweighed its probative value, the trial judge ruled it admissible. Tracy Obert subsequently testified that defendant planned an expedition to Southeast Asia to smuggle refugees, gold, and possibly cocaine. He went on to say that defendant planned to get a boat for this venture by killing the owner's son and further, while initially planning to smuggle refugees out of Thailand, defendant later decided it would be easier to kill them after obtaining their gold. Defendant again objected that this evidence was inflammatory and not probative, and that it conveyed to the jury the impression that if defendant was willing to be involved in these other killings, he was more likely to have committed this homicide. He moved for mistrial. While the prosecutor initially argued that the violence of the mission and its importance to defendant were relevant to motive, he later claimed he did not know that these details, regarding killing the boatowner's son and the refugees, would come out; and he agreed with the trial court's striking this reference to killing refugees and the boatowner's son and admonishing the jury to disregard it. The trial court did strike that portion of the testimony, ordered the jury to disregard it, and commented: People will often state plans with absolutely no intention of carrying them out. Over the objections of his attorney, defendant testified in his own defense; and on direct examination he again took up the issue of the Southeast Asian trip. He claimed he met David Leitch while searching for someone who might have access to a boat and would be interested in a business venture involving transportation of refugees from Thailand to a United States colony. This was a purely legitimate, even altruistic business venture. It was Leitch who said his mother would provide a boat and who wanted to smuggle cocaine. On cross-examination, the prosecutor therefore again probed whether defendant planned to kill someone to get the boat and to kill refugees. To defense objections, the prosecutor asserted the evidence was now relevant to impeach defendant's contentions about his plans which still formed an important part of the motive for the crime. The prosecutor also offered to show that defendant had in fact threatened to kill anyone who got in the way of his plan. The trial court overruled defense objections, finding the proposed evidence relevant to impeachment, although the prosecutor continued to argue that motive was a ground for its admission. Defendant then denied he had intended to kill to get the boat or that he intended to kill refugees. He admitted the plan was very important to him and that he had said he was willing to die to carry it out, but he denied being willing to kill anyone who got in his way. Tracy Obert testified in rebuttal, repeating the contention that defendant would kill to get the boat, would kill refugees, and would kill anyone who got in his way. Obert indeed claimed he moved out of the apartment to distance himself from defendant and his scheme.
(4) Evidence that involves crimes other than those for which a defendant is being tried is admitted only with caution, as there is the serious danger that the jury will conclude that defendant has a criminal disposition and thus probably committed the presently charged offense. (Evid. Code, ง 1101; People v. Thompson (1980) 27 Cal.3d 303, 314, 316-317 [165 Cal. Rptr. 289, 611 P.2d 883].) We have held that to be admitted, evidence of other crimes must be relevant to some material fact at issue, must have a tendency to prove that fact, and must not contravene other policies limiting admission, such as those contained in Evidence Code section 352. ( People v. Bigelow (1984) 37 Cal.3d 731, 747 [209 Cal. Rptr. 328, 691 P.2d 994]; Thompson, supra, at pp. 315-318.) While in the present case it was not asserted that defendant actually committed other crimes, actually killed to obtain his boat or to obtain gold from refugees, the danger in admitting evidence that he planned such offenses was similar. He would be portrayed as a dangerous person more likely than others to have committed the present offense. (See People v. Cardenas (1982) 31 Cal.3d 897, 904-907 [184 Cal. Rptr. 165, 647 P.2d 569] [affiliation with violent youth gangs, narcotics addiction].)
(5) We turn first to admission of evidence that defendant had indicated he would kill anyone who got in the way of his plan, and we conclude that this evidence was admissible as to whether or not defendant had a motive to kill Fleischli. Motive was an important issue in this case since defendant maintained he and Fleischli had been on excellent terms. If the two had consensual sex, he argued, why would he harm her? (Compare People v. Hamilton (1985) 41 Cal.3d 408, 426 [221 Cal. Rptr. 902, 710 P.2d 981] [relevance of other crimes to motive too speculative]; Bigelow, supra, 37 Cal.3d at p. 748.) David Leitch, he maintained, was the one with the motive to kill Fleischli particularly if he returned to the apartment to find her getting dressed and defendant asleep after a sexual encounter. Establishing that defendant had threatened to kill anyone who got in the way of his Southeast Asian scheme was an important step toward providing the missing motive. It was thus admissible to show defendant's state of mind where other evidence (for example, the testimony of Fink and Del Frate) brought this victim within the scope of defendant's general threat. ( People v. Rodriguez (1986) 42 Cal.3d 730, 757 [230 Cal. Rptr. 667, 726 P.2d 113].)
We have greater difficulty with evidence that he expressed willingness to kill to get the boat and to kill refugees. This had no direct probative value in establishing a motive to kill Fleischli and instead tended to suggest simply that defendant was a violent man. The trial court properly ordered this testimony stricken and admonished the jury to disregard it, unfortunately having to reiterate the testimony in the process of giving the admonition since it had been some three days since the evidence had come in. (6) It was the defendant himself who supplied the grounds for readmission of this evidence when he testified to the legitimacy of his plan. His description of the business venture portrayed something a person might well postpone, not something one would kill to pursue. His prior statements as to killing the boatowner's son and the refugees became relevant for impeachment purposes to show that this was not a normal venture but an illegal and desperate scheme. We reject the suggestion that cross-examination as to defendant's prior statements about this venture was improper impeachment on a collateral matter. The prosecutor did not elicit something on cross-examination just so it could be impeached with otherwise inadmissible evidence. ( People v. Armendariz, supra, 37 Cal.3d at p. 588, fn. 16; People v. Lavergne (1971) 4 Cal.3d 735, 743 [94 Cal. Rptr. 405, 484 P.2d 77].) Defendant reentered this evidentiary area on his own. Nor was the nature of defendant's scheme wholly collateral to the issues in this case. (Compare People v. Armendariz, supra, 37 Cal.3d at p. 585.)
We also reject the argument that this evidence of defendant's lack of credibility was cumulative, a factor that if true would suggest impeachment should not have been allowed. ( People v. Burgener (1986) 41 Cal.3d 505, 525-526 [224 Cal. Rptr. 112, 714 P.2d 1251].) While defendant indicated the trip was important to him, his portrayal of the nature of the venture supported a very different set of inferences as to motives vis-a-vis anyone who might want to interfere with that plan. It was not an abuse of discretion for the trial court to permit the impeachment defendant's testimony invited. [18]
Finally, defendant contends that certain instructions at the conclusion of the guilt phase negated any beneficial effect of instructions limiting the jury's consideration of this evidence. Specifically he points to the standard instruction in CALJIC No. 2.13 on prior inconsistent statements, which allows such statements to be considered as evidence of the truth of the facts stated by the witness on the former occasion, and to a portion of a special instruction requested by the People which permitted the jury, considering whether murder had been established beyond a reasonable doubt, to consider: One, the importance to the defendant of his plan to go to Thailand and the measures he was willing to take to set this plan into operation. We conclude that the instructions, read as a whole, did not permit improper consideration of this evidence. As noted, the fact that defendant threatened to kill anyone who got in the way of his trip was admissible on the issue of motive. As for threatening to kill refugees or to get a boat, the jury was instructed to consider this testimony only for impeachment and was told You may not use that testimony to determine directly whether or not the defendant is guilty of the present murder or to determine that it is more likely than not that he committed the charged homicide. There is no obvious reason for the jury to understand CALJIC No. 2.13 as superseding this explicit instruction. And following this limiting instruction, they would consider defendant's measures in setting his plan into operation as referencing the threat to people who got in his way, a matter relevant to motive on which they were also instructed. To the extent that evidence of some of these threats was introduced, the cause was as much with the defendant as with the prosecutor; and assuming any error, it is not reasonably probable that a different result would have occurred in its absence.