Opinion ID: 1247657
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Testimony by Hodges Pursuant to Plea Bargain.

Text: (22) Defendant contends he was denied a fair trial because the terms of Hodges's plea bargain placed him under a strong compulsion to testify in accordance with his prior statements to the police. Defendant relies primarily on People v. Medina (1974) 41 Cal. App.3d 438 [116 Cal. Rptr. 133], where the Court of Appeal reversed the convictions of two defendants after prosecution witnesses testified under a grant of immunity conditioned upon the witnesses not changing their testimony from the tape-recorded statements given the police. ( Id. at p. 450.) The court acknowledged that a grant of immunity could be conditioned on a requirement that the witness testify fully and fairly to the facts, but that it was not permissible to place the witness under a strong compulsion to testify in a particular fashion. ( Id. at p. 455.) In the present case, the terms of the plea bargain required that Hodges testify truthfully if called as a witness at the preliminary hearing and trial of defendant and Fields. Hodges's attorney stated that the agreement contemplated truthful testimony and was not conditioned upon testimony for or against anyone. The prosecutor interjected at that point: And further, it's also conditioned of course, on the understanding that what he has told the Milpitas Police Department in previous statements is in fact the true testimony that he  as he understands it  The present situation is not like that in Medina. Here the agreement was that Hodges testify truthfully. The prosecutor's assertion that he understood the truth to be what Hodges had told the police was not a term of the bargain. We considered a similar situation in People v. Fields, supra, 35 Cal.3d at pages 360-361, and rejected the defendant's claim that the bargain was tainted by the prosecutor's expectation of testimony consistent with the statement given to the police: We recognize that a witness in Gail Fields' position is under some compulsion to testify in accord with statements given to the police or the prosecution. The district attorney in the present case obviously believed that Gail's last statement was a truthful account, and if she deviated materially from it he might take the position that she had breached the bargain, and could be prosecuted as a principal to murder. But despite this element of compulsion, it is clear, and the cases so hold [citation] that an agreement which requires only that the witness testify fully and truthfully is valid, and indeed such a requirement would seem necessary to prevent the witness from sabotaging the bargain. ( Id. at p. 361; accord People v. Allen (1986) 42 Cal.3d 1222, 1251-1255 [232 Cal. Rptr. 849, 729 P.2d 115].)