Opinion ID: 2543191
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 14

Heading: Exclusion of Tape Recording and Video Recording Showing Remorse

Text: Defendant made a statement to Detective Legg about five hours after he was arrested. He confessed to the murder, and claimed he did not know what had happened and went crazy all of a sudden. He also apparently cried during the confession. The confession was tape-recorded. Defendant made a second confession shortly thereafter at the police station, which was not tape-recorded or transcribed, in which he claimed to have blacked out, regaining consciousness only after the murder. Defendant gave a third interview approximately 24 hours later, in which he confessed to the crime in detail, abandoning any suggestion that he blacked out. The prosecutor sought to admit the tape and transcripts of this third interview into evidence, but sought to exclude the tape and transcript of the first interview, which he opposed because it was exculpatory hearsay. The trial court agreed, over defense counsel's objection. Counsel sought to admit the tape to make clear to the jury that defendant experienced remorse shortly after he had committed the crime. Defendant now claims the trial court erred in excluding the recording of the first interview and that this error violated his rights to due process, a fair sentencing hearing, and a reliable penalty phase determination as guaranteed by the Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. A trial court's decision to admit or exclude evidence is reviewable for abuse of discretion. ( People v. Vieira (2005) 35 Cal.4th 264, 292, 25 Cal.Rptr.3d 337, 106 P.3d 990.) [A] defendant's due process rights are violated when hearsay testimony at the penalty phase of a capital trial is excluded, if both of the following conditions are present: (1) the excluded testimony is `highly relevant to a critical issue in the punishment phase of the trial,' and (2) there are substantial reasons to assume the reliability of the evidence. ( People v. Kaurish, supra, 52 Cal.3d at p. 704, 276 Cal.Rptr. 788, 802 P.2d 278, quoting Green v. Georgia (1979) 442 U.S. 95, 97, 99 S.Ct. 2150, 60 L.Ed.2d 738.) Defendant argues that his crying during the first interview was not hearsay and should therefore have been admitted. We considered a similar situation recently in People v. Jurado (2006) 38 Cal.4th 72, 41 Cal.Rptr.3d 319,131 P.3d 400, in which the defendant claimed that his sobbing and other emotional conduct depicted on a videotaped interrogation with the police was admissible nonhearsay. As we stated: Defendant is correct that, by themselves, defendant's emotional displays were nonassertive conduct, and thus not within the hearsay rule.... [¶] But the defense sought to introduce more than just evidence of the emotional displays themselves. To explain the significance of the emotional displays, and particularly defendant's statement that as a result of the murder he had received an `injury from [his] conscience,' the defense sought to introduce the statements defendant made during the videotaped interview. As defendant must concede, those statements, including assertions and descriptions of his own feelings and other mental states, were hearsay.... As the trial court correctly determined, the circumstance that defendant made his statements during a postarrest police interrogation, when he had a compelling motive to minimize his culpability for the murder and to play on the sympathies of his interrogators, indicated a lack of trustworthiness. In past decisions, we have upheld the exclusion of self-serving postcrime statements made under similar circumstances. ( People v. Jurado, supra, 38 Cal.4th at pp. 129-130, 41 Cal. Rptr.3d 319,131 P.3d 400.) In the present case, as in Jurado, defendant's nonassertive conduct was intertwined with statements he made designed to minimize his culpability, e.g., that he went crazy all of a sudden, thereby tending to disavow that he committed the murder with premeditation. We conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in excluding the taped interview containing such self-serving statements. Defendant contends that the tape recording should have been admitted as a spontaneous utterance. Although defendant did not explicitly seek to admit the evidence on those grounds at trial, he argued when pressing his Green v. Georgia claim that in effect the statement was particularly reliable because it was spontaneous. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in implicitly rejecting that contention. Evidence Code section 1240 provides, in pertinent part, that evidence is `not made inadmissible by the hearsay rule' if it `[p]urports to narrate, describe, or explain an act, condition, or event perceived by the declarant' ( id., subd. (a)), and it was `made spontaneously while the declarant was under the stress of excitement caused by such perception.' ( Id., subd. (b).) `The crucial element in determining whether a declaration is sufficiently reliable to be admissible under this exception to the hearsay rule is ... not the nature of the statement but the mental state of the speaker. The nature of the utterance how long it was made after the startling incident and whether the speaker blurted it out, for examplemay be important, but solely as an indicator of the mental state of the declarant.... [U]ltimately each fact pattern must be considered on its own merits, and the trial court is vested with reasonable discretion in the matter.' ( People v. Roybal (1998) 19 Cal.4th 481, 516, 79 Cal.Rptr.2d 487, 966 P.2d 521.) Here, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that defendant's somewhat self-serving statements made several hours after the murder did not qualify as a spontaneous utterance. Defendant also claims the tape recording should have been admitted under Evidence Code section 356, contending that because the court admitted the third interview, it was obliged to also admit the first interview, a contention the trial court rejected. Section 356 provides: Where part of an act, declaration, conversation, or writing is given in evidence by one party, the whole on the same subject may be inquired into by an adverse party; when a letter is read, the answer may be given; and when a detached act, declaration, conversation, or writing is given in evidence, any other act, declaration, conversation, or writing which is necessary to make it understood may also be given in evidence. The purpose of this section is to prevent the use of selected aspects of a conversation, act, declaration, or writing, so as to create a misleading impression on the subjects addressed. [Citation.] Thus, if a party's oral admissions have been introduced in evidence, he may show other portions of the same interview or conversation, even if they are self-serving, which `have some bearing upon, or connection with, the admission ... in evidence.' ( People v. Anas (1996) 13 Cal.4th 92, 156, 51 Cal.Rptr.2d 770, 913 P.2d 980.) In the present case, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that admission of the third interview did not require admission of a different interview, and that no misleading impression was created by admitting one without the other. Finally, defendant claimed the trial court erred in failing to admit a videotape of his interview with a television reporter some 72 hours after his arrest, in which he expressed remorse for the crime and extended condolences to the victim's family. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that the videotape did not pass muster under Green v. Georgia , inasmuch as there is no substantial reason for believing that defendant's postarrest statement to the media was particularly reliable.