Opinion ID: 2512108
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Questions about violence and theft against relatives and acquaintances.

Text: Defendant asserts the prosecutor committed prejudicial misconduct when he questioned Rosia about a series of violent acts by defendant as to which evidence had not previously been introduced. The following facts are pertinent: At a pretrial Phillips hearing, [36] the trial court had specifically excluded, as aggravating evidence at the penalty phase (see § 190.3, factor (b) [other criminal conduct by defendant involving violence or threat of violence]), evidence of assaults by defendant on certain members of his own familya cousin, Carla Spencer, and his aunts Brenda and Mamie Jackson. Further, the court had reserved judgment regarding evidence that defendant lacerated the face and neck of Patrick Shields during an assault. [37] In its case-in-chief at the penalty phase, the prosecution did not present evidence of any of these incidents. As noted above, the prosecution confined its showing to three instances of defendant's criminal violencea March 1986 traffic accident, after which defendant, driving a truck, pursued and fired shots at the other vehicle; violent resistance to a police officer during a traffic stop in September 1987; and an assault on Marlena Brown in February 1988. During her direct penalty phase testimony for the defense, Rosia asserted that after the death of her father in 1984, the family fell apart. According to Rosia, several family members, including Brenda Jackson, Mamie Jackson, and Carla Spencer, had drug problems, family tensions sometimes exploded into physical fights, and defendant was involved in some of these fights. Rosia agreed with defense counsel's assessment that the world [defendant] saw in 1984 when he was 16, 17 was a family with a lot of problems, a lot of drug use. While cross-examining Rosia, the prosecutor began asking about her knowledge of acts of violence by defendant against family members and others. The prosecutor first queried whether Rosia witness[ed] the incident where [defendant] struck his cousin, Carla Spencer. Defense counsel objected, asserting that if she didn't witness it, it's putting facts before the jury that didn't exist. The court sustained the objection on grounds that the question assumed facts not in evidence. The following colloquy then occurred: [The Prosecutor:] Do you know if [defendant] struck his cousin Carla Spencer in October of 1985? [¶] A. I know that there was some problems with them. I wasn't in the room. [¶] [The Prosecutor:] Do you know if your son struck his Aunt [Mamie] in October of 1985? [¶] A. No, I don't. [¶] [The Prosecutor:] Do you know if your son struck your sister Brenda in November of 1985? [¶] A. Well, that could be a yes or no answer. [¶] [The Prosecutor:] Do you know if your son struck Carla Spencer in January of 1986? [¶] A. I don't know. [¶] [The Prosecutor:] Do you know if your son stole your grandmother's and grandfather's truck in March of 1986 and wrecked it because he was mad at your grandmother?[ [38] ] [¶] A. He wasn't mad at my mother. [¶] [The Prosecutor:] Was he mad at anybody? [¶] A. No. My mother was out of town, so how could he be mad at her? [¶] He just saw the opportunity to get a car to drive or a truck to drive. [¶] [The Prosecutor:] Do you know Trina Berry? [¶] A. Yes, I do. [¶] [The Prosecutor:] Do you know if your son struck Trina Berry in September of 1987? [¶] A. No, I don't. [¶] [The Prosecutor:] Do you know Patrick Shields? [¶] A. Yes, I do. [¶] [The Prosecutor:] And who is Patrick Shields? [¶] A. He's the father of five of my nieces and nephews. [¶] [The Prosecutor:] Do you know if your son[¶] [Defense Counsel:] Your Honor[¶] [The Prosecutor:]cut Patrick Shields' throat? [¶] [Defense Counsel:] I object to this, Your Honor. There is no evidence of that. It assumes a fact not in evidence, and there is no evidence that it's going to be presented. [¶] The Court: Sustained. [¶] [Defense Counsel:] It's extremely[¶] The Court: Sustained. Sustained. Sustained. Sustained. Sustained. Sustained. Sustained. [¶] [Defense Counsel:] Could we have an admonishment? [¶] The Court: The jury may be admonished to disregard that. When defense counsel asked the court for a little more force, the court declined, noting that this was not Hollywood. Clearly exasperated with the contentious atmosphere, the court asked rhetorically whether counsel wanted it to stand on [its] feet and stomp and hold [its] breath. The court noted that it had proceeded legally by sustaining the defense objection and admonishing the jury, and indicated it was not going to engage in histrionics up here. Defendant urges the prosecutor's questions were improper attempts to introduce inflammatory aggravating evidence (1) not presented in the People's case-in-chief, (2) beyond the scope of the direct examination of Rosia (see People v. Ramirez (1990) 50 Cal.3d 1158, 1191-1193 [270 Cal.Rptr. 286, 791 P.2d 965] [rebuttal evidence or cross-examination concerning defendant's bad character must respond specifically to particular good character evidence presented by defense witness]), and (3) in partial violation of the court's Phillips order. Assuming that defense counsel's facts not in evidence objections were sufficient to preserve these issues (see Champion, supra, 9 Cal.4th 879, 908, fn. 6), we find no prejudicial misconduct under the circumstances. Our reasons are several. First, any direct complaint that the prosecutor violated the Phillips order lacks merit. In that order, the court merely excluded certain evidence from the prosecution's case-in-chief. But neither the Phillips order, nor the prosecution's failure to introduce particular evidence in its case-in-chief, precluded the proper introduction of rebuttal evidence. The issue thus becomes whether the evidence the prosecutor sought to elicit from Rosia was proper rebuttal. Whether the questions about assaults against Carla Spencer, Brenda Jackson, and Mamie Jackson were proper rebuttal examination is a close question. Rosia had not testified to specific altercations between defendant and these particular persons. On the other hand, she had stated that family problems in 1984 concerned these family members, among others, and that the family tensions caused fights between defendant and other family members. The defense effort was to suggest defendant had been scarred by his involvement in a failing family unit that had lost its patriarch. Thus, to the extent the prosecutor sought to flesh out some of the violent family incidents, to show they continued well after 1984, and to demonstrate defendant was less a helpless witness and more a violent aggressor in these episodes, the questions appear proper. No reason of proper rebuttal appears, however, for the prosecutor's insinuations concerning the assault on Trina Berry, a nonrelative, and the throat-cutting assault against Patrick Shields, whom Rosia had not mentioned as one of the family's problem members. We do not condone the prosecutor's improper efforts to introduce evidence of these incidents. It was misconduct. Still, we conclude no prejudice arose. The trial court sustained both defense objections to this line of questioning. Its second response was particularly emphatic, as it repeated the word sustained seven times in a row. At defense counsel's request, the court further admonished the jury to disregard that. The court's immediate reference was to the question whether Rosia was aware that defendant cut Patrick Shields's throat. But the jury cannot have failed to understand, from the court's escalating response to two separate objections, that the prosecutor's entire series of questions about these violent incidents was disapproved, that no evidence about them had been introduced, and that the jurors were not to consider either the questions or the answers. Indeed, the court's refusal, in the face of a defense request for an even more forceful response, to engage in Hollywood histrionics by stand[ing] on [its] feet, stomp[ing], and hold[ing] [its] breath, served, if anything, to bring home further the significance of the situation. Moreover, Rosia gave I don't know answers to most of the prosecutor's questions, including his reference to Trina Berry. Rosia was never allowed to answer the provocative question regarding Patrick Shields. Her only possibly damaging testimony about defendant's assaults upon other relatives was her concession that defendant had some problems with Carla Spencer, and her could be . . . yes or no response to the question about an assault on Brenda Jackson. In light of the brutal capital robbery-murder, and other evidence the jury heard about defendant's violenceincluding evidence that, when he was 18, he struck Rosia herself during an argumentthere is no reasonable possibility ( People v. Brown (1988) 46 Cal.3d 432, 448 [250 Cal.Rptr. 604, 758 P.2d 1135]) that any additional information Rosia provided about defendant's family violence affected the penalty outcome. [39]