Opinion ID: 2508855
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 13

Heading: Improper Impeachment of Defense Character Witness

Text: Sylvia Wesner, a neighbor of defendant's family when defendant was a teenager, testified that when there was a rash of burglaries in the building, defendant volunteered to, and did, stay up watching her apartment for several nights. Over defense objection, the prosecutor was permitted to ask Wesner whether she knew at the time that defendant had, in 1976, burglarized an apartment and beaten the woman occupant with a wooden stick (referring to the Carter assault) and whether, had Wesner known of this incident, she would still have trusted defendant to watch over her apartment. Wesner answered that she had heard rumors about the incident, but she trusted defendant anyway. Defendant contends questioning Wesner about the Carter assault was improper impeachment because Wesner had not testified to an opinion regarding defendant's good character but merely to a good deed defendant had performed. Whether she was aware of [defendant's] other crimes or bad acts did not impeach her testimony of having witnessed a good deed. Again, defendant claims this ruling deprived him of his right to present relevant mitigating evidence under the Eighth Amendment to the federal Constitution. Again, we disagree. Whatever the intent of defendant's trial counsel in asking Wesner about the apartment-guarding incident, Wesner's testimony regarding it unmistakably conveyed her opinion that defendant was trustworthy, especially in the context of her other testimony giving her opinion that defendant was a reserved, quiet and inquisitive adolescent. The prosecution was entitled to test that opinion by confronting the witness with evidence that defendant himself had burglarized an apartment and assaulted the occupant. ( People v. Siripongs (1988) 45 Cal.3d 548, 578, 247 Cal.Rptr. 729, 754 P.2d 1306 [A defendant has no right to mislead the jury through one-sided character testimony during either the guilt or penalty trial]; People v. Mickle, supra, 54 Cal.3d at p. 192, 284 Cal.Rptr. 511, 814 P.2d 290.) In any event, no possibility of prejudice appears. The Carter assault was already in evidence. To the extent the defense intended Wesner's testimony simply as an instance of defendant's good conduct, that aspect of the testimony was not impeached  the challenged cross-examination did not tend to show defendant had not guarded Wesner's apartment effectively and in good faith.