Opinion ID: 2623595
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Coffman's Contentions

Text: Coffman contends the prosecutor's cross-examination causing Marlow to invoke, in front of the jury, his privilege against self-incrimination regarding the Orange County crimes, and the prosecutor's closing argument urging the jury to find both defendants guilty on the basis of Marlow's testimony, improperly invited the jury to infer her guilt and thus deprived her of state and federal constitutional rights, including those to confrontation, due process and a fair trial. Coffman's argument is curious, for absent her testimony about the events in Orange County, the Murray homicide would not have been mentioned in the guilt phase of this trial; Marlow then never would have had occasion to assert his privilege in this connection, as he did, moreover, 11 times in response to cross-examination by Coffman's counsel, in addition to numerous instances during cross-examination by the prosecutor. In any event, we conclude any error in Marlow's cross-examination was harmless as to Coffman; the jury was instructed, whether or not appropriately, with CALJIC No. 2.25, and instructed that questions themselves are not evidence. Presumably, therefore, the jury did not infer that Marlow was effectively admitting every incriminatory fact about which her counsel and the prosecutor asked him. We further conclude the portion of the prosecutor's closing argument that Coffman contends was Griffin error [21] (see Griffin v. California, supra, 380 U.S. 609, 85 S.Ct. 1229, 14 L.Ed.2d 106; People v. Hardy, supra, 2 Cal.4th at p. 154, 5 Cal. Rptr.2d 796, 825 P.2d 781) is reasonably understood not as a request to infer that Coffman was guilty because Marlow had asserted his Fifth Amendment privilege, but as fair comment on the evidence as it related to Coffman.