Opinion ID: 1374541
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Exclusion of Reasons for Klaess's Hatred of Police

Text: (9) Klaess admitted that she hated police. The trial court twice ruled that her reasons for such hatred were irrelevant, despite defense counsel's claim that evidence of those reasons would tend to show a motive for her participation in the charged murders and impeach her testimony that she sat passively in the Camaro after she and appellant were stopped by the highway patrol officers. Appellant challenges those rulings as error. Despite the rulings, Klaess testified without objection on cross-examination that she hated police because she had been arrested a lot of times[,] ... had a chip on [her] shoulder from getting into trouble[, and] ... just didn't like getting thrown in jail. She said her experience with the Richmond police in November 1978 when she got maced intensified her hatred of police. When asked if she wanted to hurt police officers if the opportunity should arise, she replied, No, I just wanted to be left alone by them. Later appellant testified to hearing Klaess repeatedly express her feelings against police, though he said he never heard her threaten to kill them. The only subjects on which defense counsel was precluded from cross-examining Klaess as a result of the rulings were (1) the details of Klaess's experience with the Richmond police in the incident alluded to and (2) an arrest in Sacramento. Both incidents involved appellant as well as Klaess. Appellant later testified without objection that on both occasions she was loud and insulting toward the police and that in the Richmond incident she complained, It's hurting, it's hurting, when the police pulled her handcuffs upward behind her back. Not only the admissions of her hatred of police but also the evidence of her crime spree with appellant during the 48 hours preceding the highway patrol killings amply established her reasons for animosity toward police. The trial court could properly conclude that the confusion of issues that would result from introducing the excluded evidence of her confrontations with police would outweigh the evidence's probative value. (Evid. Code, § 352.)