Opinion ID: 1311837
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Prison Gang Activity and Appeal to Racial Prejudice.

Text: (13) Defendant maintains that through the improper introduction of evidence of prison gang activity, the prosecutor appealed to racial prejudice and implied defendant's future dangerousness. Defendant first cites the prosecutor's questions to a prison guard whether he was aware of gang activity at the prison and the existence of Black gangs that occasionally harmed White inmates. These questions were asked in the context of attempting to rehabilitate prosecution witness Smith, whose testimony concerning defendant's involvement in a jail sodomy had been impeached by the guard's testimony on direct that Smith had given inconsistent statements about the incident. [7] The prosecutor's inquiry about gangs arguably was improper: although the prosecutor could show victim Smith's fear of retaliation, as in fact he did (see fn. 7, ante ), absent a showing of gang involvement in the sodomy or gang practice (as opposed to individual or general inmate practice) to engage in retaliation, the existence of prison gangs and the harm done White inmates by Black gangs was irrelevant and potentially prejudicial. (Cf. People v. Cardenas (1982) 31 Cal.3d 897, 904-905 [184 Cal. Rptr. 165, 647 P.2d 569] [plur. opn.]; People v. Perez (1981) 114 Cal. App.3d 470 [170 Cal. Rptr. 619].) Defense counsel, however, failed to object. Because, in our opinion, a timely objection and admonition, when the district attorney first asked about gang activity at the prison, would have cured the effect of any impropriety and have deterred further prosecutorial inquiry into such activity without a foundation showing its relevance, the issue is waived. ( People v. Murtishaw (1981) 29 Cal.3d 733, 758-759 [175 Cal. Rptr. 738, 631 P.2d 446].) This being so, the remaining question is whether defense counsel's failure to object constituted ineffective assistance, discussed post at pages 33-34. (14) Defendant next complains about the prosecutor's reference to prison gang activity in his cross-examination of psychologist Dr. Craig Rath, who had testified that defendant, under very specific conditions, [8] might mature in the structured prison environment, where life prisoners achieve a stable status quo. The prosecutor asked Dr. Rath whether the status quo can often take the form of criminal activity by gangs and whether he was aware that often entree into a gang is achieved by killing another inmate. This evidence, defendant maintains, served only to raise the possibility of defendant's future dangerousness and thus was inadmissible as irrelevant to any aggravating factor. ( People v. Boyd (1985) 38 Cal.3d 762, 773-776 [215 Cal. Rptr. 1, 700 P.2d 782]; see People v. Murtishaw, supra, 29 Cal.3d at pp. 767-768.) Although evidence of future dangerousness is inadmissible in the prosecution's case-in-chief ( Boyd, supra, 38 Cal.3d at pp. 775-776; Murtishaw, supra, 29 Cal.3d at pp. 767-768), such evidence may be introduced in rebuttal where, as here, the defense has raised the issue of defendant's performance in prison and has presented evidence he would live a law-abiding life in a prison environment ( Boyd, supra, at p. 776). [9] (See People v. Gates, supra, 43 Cal.3d 1168, 1211; People v. Rodriguez (1986) 42 Cal.3d 730, 791 [230 Cal. Rptr. 667, 726 P.2d 113]; cf. Jurek v. Texas (1976) 428 U.S. 262, 274-276 [49 L.Ed.2d 929, 939-941, 96 S.Ct. 2950] [no constitutional impediment to evidence of future dangerousness].) Here, moreover, the evidence was directed not to defendant's future dangerousness as such, but rather to the nature of the prison environment  an environment the defense had sought to prove would foster defendant's maturity and stability. The questioning, as the Attorney General observes, served to cross-examine Dr. Rath on the impression he had left with the jury that prison was a tranquil place where defendant could get counseling and psychiatric care, which would enable him to control the impulsivity that had contributed to his past criminal behavior. (See Evid. Code, §§ 721, subd. (a), 761; cf. Brown v. Colm (1974) 11 Cal.3d 639, 646 [114 Cal. Rptr. 128, 522 P.2d 688].)