Opinion ID: 2551468
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Propriety of Mendoza's Rebuttal Evidence

Text: Defendant claims that his rights under state law and the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution were violated when the jury heard Rafael Mendoza Lopez's testimony on rebuttal. In essence, though, this is a claim under state law that Mendoza's recantation constituted improper rebuttal evidence. The People argue that defendant did not object at trial to Mendoza's impending testimony on the ground that it would be improper rebuttal. They contend that he has failed to preserve his claim. But the record shows that defense counsel told the trial court that any testimony by Mendoza was improper rebuttal. We shall proceed to address the claim on its merits. Doing so, however, we find it meritless. Far from being improper, Mendoza's testimony was, in respect of its evidentiary effect and importance, the ideal rebuttal: the witness repudiated his own testimony. Moreover, as the People observed at oral argument, it was among the most justifiable of all rebuttals, because it could not have been presented during the prosecution's or even the defense's case-in-chief. There was no error under state law in admitting the evidence. Because defendant's constitutional claims are predicated on that claim, and no error occurred, we find no constitutional violation. Moreover, to the extent defendant argues that the trial court should have screened Mendoza's proposed rebuttal testimony so as to decide its reliability in limine, he failed to seek such clearance from the court in any meaningful way, notwithstanding his fleeting reference to the admissibility of the testimony, and he has failed to preserve the claim for review. Defendant also contends that the trial court erred in failing to give him an adequate continuance to investigate Mendoza's impending recantation. Though he invokes various constitutional provisions in support, in its essence this, too, is a claim of error under state law. On Monday, September 26, 1988, the prosecution informed the trial court that Mendoza had disavowed his exculpatory testimony on the previous Friday, and that the prosecution had tape-recorded a version of the recantation on Saturday and made it available to defense counsel just as the proceedings were resuming on that Monday. The trial court granted defendant's request for a three-day continuance, and he failed to renew it. To be sure, that Wednesday, before the continuance ended, counsel said that the defense had not yet been able to investigate or interview individuals mentioned in the tape recording Mendoza gave of his recantation. But counsel added, I'm less concerned with the ability to cross-examine [Mendoza] to-morrow than I am with the ability to respond in terms of defense evidence. The court suggested that the defense interview the individuals mentioned in the tape over the weekend. The following Monday, the defense rested its case after calling two witnesses that offered the impeaching evidence that Mendoza could not have met with defendant in June or July of 1985 along with Rudy Green Eyes Ayala Ybarra (or Ibarra). (Ante, 96 Cal.Rptr.2d p. 696, 1 P.3d p. 16.) We do not interpret the record as showing that the court denied any motion that defendant brought.