Opinion ID: 1237936
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 17

Heading: Defendant's Admission of AB Membership

Text: During the trial, the defense moved to bar the prosecution from introducing evidence of defendant's 1981 testimony, in another case, admitting he was an AB member. The defense argued that the evidence was unduly prejudicial (Evid. Code, § 352), and that it constituted inadmissible evidence of bad character and criminal propensity ( id., § 1101). The trial court denied the motion, and the prosecutor presented the evidence to the jury by reading from the transcript of defendant's prior testimony. The prosecutor told the jury that defendant gave the testimony on January 21, 1981, but he did not describe the earlier proceeding, except to say that it took place in the Superior Court of a sister county and that the questioner was David Mayer, a San Francisco attorney. (47) Defendant contends the court erred in rejecting the defense challenge to the evidence. He argues that the evidence carried a strong risk of undue prejudice because the jury would have speculated that the prior proceeding in which he admitted AB membership must have been a criminal prosecution resulting from AB activities. He further argues that the court erred in preventing the defense from showing the context in which he made the admission, and that the probative value of the evidence was weak because he made the admission more than two years before the robberies and murders charged in this case and there was ample other evidence that defendant was an AB member. Defendant's arguments are unpersuasive. We do not agree that the jury would engage in improper speculation as to the nature of the prior proceeding. Nor do we find any basis in the record for the assertion that the trial court prevented the defense from showing the context in which the admission was made. To avoid unnecessary prejudice to defendant, the trial court did not permit the prosecutor to read as much of the transcript as he wished to read, but the trial court made no ruling restricting use of the transcript by the defense, nor did it make any ruling excluding any other evidence offered by the defense to provide context to defendant's prior admission of AB membership. Finally, the evidence had significant probative value. Defendant's own admission was stronger evidence than any of the other forms of evidence (primarily the testimony of Smith and Thompson) that the prosecution presented to prove defendant's AB membership. The admission occurred less than two years before the date on which, according to the prosecution, defendant accepted the assignment to kill Richard Barnes for the AB. This can hardly be regarded as remote in time, particularly in light of the testimony of Smith and Thompson that allegiance to the AB was not something lightly made or lightly abandoned.