Opinion ID: 844251
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Gina Lee's out-of-court statement

Text: As noted, Gina Lee testified that at the time of Coder's murder she was outside her motel room; she heard a gunshot and saw defendant and Hunt run from the motel grounds. Johnnetta Hawkins testified on direct examination by the prosecutor that she could not recall Lee's demeanor when Lee thereafter returned to the room. The prosecutor was permitted to impeach Hawkins's testimony on this point with her prior out-of-court statement to investigator Buchanan that Lee said defendant had said he would kill her if she said anything about the Coder murder. Defendant does not dispute that Hawkins's prior statement was admissible, under the prior inconsistent statement exception to the hearsay rule (Evid. Code, § 1235), as proof of what Hawkins observed about Lee's demeanor and emotional state. Defendant contends, however, that in admitting Hawkins's prior statement for this purpose, the court erroneously admitted for its truth the portion of this statement that comprised Lee's prior statement to Hawkins, i.e., that defendant had said he would kill [Lee] if [Lee] said anything about the Coder murder. Defendant urges that because Lee's statement to Hawkins was not inconsistent with Lee's own testimony, it could not be admitted, under the prior inconsistent statement exception to the hearsay rule, to prove that what Lee said was true. Even if defendant is correct, however, we conclude any error in admitting evidence that defendant threatened Lee was harmless by any applicable standard.
Following Lee's testimony, and outside the presence of the jury, the prosecutor offered to prove Hawkins told investigator Buchanan that when Lee returned to the motel room after Coder's murder, she seemed scared and said she had been threatened by defendant not to say anything about what she had seen. The prosecutor sought admission of Lee's out-of-court statement to Hawkins on the ground that it fell within the hearsay exception for prior inconsistent statements. Defense counsel objected on the ground the statement did not qualify under the exception. The court ruled that Lee's statement to Hawkins was inadmissible because the prosecutor had not established it was inconsistent with Lee's testimony, in that Lee had not denied, on the stand, that defendant threatened her. Thereafter, on direct examination by the prosecutor, Hawkins testified that she could not remember Lee's demeanor when Lee returned to the motel room immediately after Coder's murder, because the murder had occurred many years before her testimony. When the prosecutor asked whether her memory would be refreshed if she read the statement she had given investigator Buchanan, Hawkins claimed, No, it would not. [36] The prosecutor questioned whether Hawkins told the investigator that Lee was very scared when she returned to the motel room. Hawkins answered, She probably was. We was all scared. We had a murder scene. Hawkins further testified that she could not now remember that Lee appeared to be scared, and then told the prosecutor, No, you cannot make me say I seen her being scared. On its own motion, the court called counsel to sidebar and advised the prosecutor that based upon [ Hawkins's ] testimony in response to your last several questions, ... you [may] ask whether or not Gina Lee said that the defendant threatened her because that's [contradictory] to [Hawkins's] testimony. In essence, the court ruled that Hawkins's prior statement to Buchanan (i.e., that Lee told Hawkins defendant had threatened to kill her) came within the hearsay exception for prior inconsistent statements and was admissible to impeach Hawkins. At this point, defense counsel stated that for the record, we object to that. The objection was overruled. When the testimony resumed, the prosecutor elicited from Hawkins that she told Buchanan of hearing from Lee that, immediately after the murder, defendant told Lee he would kill her if she said anything about the killing.
As stated, defendant correctly does not dispute that, in light of Hawkins's evasive testimony that she could not remember and would not say that Lee appeared to be scared when she returned to her room after the gunshot, Hawkins's prior inconsistent statement to Buchanan was admissible, under the hearsay exception for prior inconsistent statements, both to impeach the credibility of Hawkins's contrary trial testimony and for the truth of the implication, in Hawkins's earlier statement, that Lee seemed frightened. (Evid. Code, § 1235; see People v. Garcia (2008) 168 Cal.App.4th 261, 289 [85 Cal.Rptr.3d 393]; cf. People v. Morgan (2005) 125 Cal.App.4th 935, 938-939, 943 [23 Cal.Rptr.3d 224].) Defendant claims, however, that the trial court erred when it admitted, as included within Hawkins's statement to Buchanan, the substance of Lee's declaration to Hawkins that defendant had threatened Lee. As defendant points out, Lee's extrajudicial statement to Hawkins was hearsay insofar as admitted for the truth of Lee's claim that defendant had made such a threat. Defendant is correct in asserting that no exception to the hearsay rule, including the exception for prior inconsistent statements, permitted admission for that purpose of Lee's statement to Hawkins, because Lee was never asked on the stand about such a threat, and thus never denied receiving one. The People urge that the substance of what Lee told Hawkins about defendant's threat, as reported by Hawkins to Buchanan, was admitted only for the proper, limited purpose of confirming that Lee seemed afraid when she returned to the motel room shortly after the Coder murder. However, the record does not make clear that this is so, or that the jury so understood. [37] In ruling, on its own motion, that the prosecutor could impeach Hawkins with her prior statement to Buchanan, the trial court did not limit the prosecutor to eliciting only the portion of this statement that dealt with Lee's demeanor. Instead, the court allowed the prosecutor to obtain Hawkins's admission she had told Buchanan of Lee's report that defendant warned Lee to keep quiet about the murder. The jury received no instruction limiting its consideration of this evidence to the issue of Lee's emotional state in the aftermath of the shooting. Thus, an out-of-court statement that defendant threatened Lee came into evidence without any overt restraint on the jury's ability to consider that statement for its truth. Nonetheless, we find no basis to disturb the judgment. Any error in admitting the threat evidence was harmless by any applicable standard. Defendant's identity as the person who walked up to Coder and shot him dead was confirmed by the independent testimony of two eyewitnesses Orlando Hunt, himself the subject of similar threats by both defendant and defendant's sister, and Kerry Scott. Despite the alleged threat against her, Lee gave eyewitness testimony that also substantially incriminated defendant. Defendant admitted to Harold Black that he shot and killed Coder. Thus, insofar as the threat to Lee implicated defendant further by suggesting his consciousness of guilt, the evidence was cumulative and of minor value. On the other hand, evidence of defendant's threat against Lee did not unduly bolster her credibility. Though it implied she testified in the face of defendant's menace, other, properly admitted evidence established that fact. Lee herself testified that she was afraid of defendant because he was the type of person who just goes off. Under the circumstances, any error in admitting hearsay evidence that defendant threatened Lee was harmless beyond reasonable doubt. Defendant also contends that because the prosecution's case against him in each murder case was close, and because evidence of Lee's statement that defendant threatened her suggested he committed the Coder murder, admission of her statement, even if nominally probative on the issue of her credibility, was an abuse of discretion under Evidence Code section 352 because it unfairly bolstered the prosecution's case in the Martin murder. He also contends the evidence suggested he was generally violent and thus permitted an unfair inference that he likely committed both murders. Here again, however, defendant failed to object on this ground to admission of the threat evidence. He thus forfeited the issue for purposes of appeal. (E.g., People v. Alexander (2010) 49 Cal.4th 846, 905 [113 Cal.Rptr.3d 190, 235 P.3d 873].) In any event, for the reasons stated above, we find no prejudice warranting reversal of the judgment.