Opinion ID: 2623595
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Impeachment of Veronica Koppers

Text: Marlow's sister, Veronica Koppers, testified for the prosecution concerning events leading up to and immediately following Novis's murder. Before defendants' trial, Koppers was herself tried and convicted of being an accessory to the kidnapping and robbery of Novis. While in custody during her own trial, Koppers took medications for depression and difficulty sleeping (Elavil and Sinequan, respectively); in the present trial, she testified she had problems recalling what happened during the period of her incarceration, including the substance of her testimony at her own trial. Finding Koppers was being deliberately evasive in stating she did not recall what Marlow was wearing and what he had said at the Drinkhouse residence on the night of the offenses and in claiming that the transcript of her prior testimony did not refresh her recollection, the trial court permitted the prosecutor, over Marlow's objection, to read Koppers's former testimony to the jury. Marlow contends the trial court erred in permitting the prosecution to impeach Koppers with her former testimony, because the court's finding of willful evasiveness was not supported by substantial evidence. We find no error. Evidence Code sections 770 and 1235 except from the general rule against hearsay evidence a witness's prior statement that is inconsistent with the witness's testimony in the present hearing, provided the witness is given the opportunity to explain or deny the statement. (Evid.Code, § 770, subd. (a).) [22] Normally, the testimony of a witness that he or she does not remember an event is not inconsistent with that witness's prior statement describing the event. ( People v. Johnson (1992) 3 Cal.4th 1183, 1219, 14 Cal.Rptr.2d 702, 842 P.2d 1.) When, however, a witness's claim of lack of memory amounts to deliberate evasion, inconsistency is implied. ( Ibid. ) The trial court had the opportunity to view Koppers's demeanor and therefore was in the best position to assess the credibility of her claimed nonrecollection. Marlow asserts that short-term memory loss is a known side effect of Elavil, but no such medical evidence was presented to the trial court in this case. We find no error in the trial court's ruling in this regard. Marlow's derivative claims of constitutional error likewise fail.
Coffman contends the trial court erred in refusing to permit her to impeach Koppers with prior inconsistent statements she had made in the course of her own criminal trial, and that the error deprived Coffman of her state and federal constitutional guarantees including the rights to a fair trial, to confront witnesses and to reliable determinations of guilt and penalty. As framed, the contention distorts the trial court's actual ruling. The court found that Koppers was not unavailable as a witness. It consequently refused to allow a wholesale reading of Koppers's prior testimony, but pledged to continue allowing her impeachment as appropriate on further findings that she was feigning loss of memory. Additionally, although the court was not then addressing an instance where Koppers's current testimony was directly inconsistent with her prior testimony, nothing in its comments suggests it meant to preclude appropriate impeachment in such a situation. [23] We see no error in the trial court's ruling. Coffman fails to establish that Koppers's failures of recollection rendered her unavailable as a witness so as to except her former testimony from the operation of the rule against hearsay. (See Evid.Code, § 1291.) Subject to an exception not relevant here, Evidence Code section 240, subdivision (a) defines unavailable as a witness to mean that the declarant is any of the following: (1) [e]xempted or precluded on the ground of privilege from testifying concerning the matter to which his or her statement is relevant[;] [ļ] (2) [d]isqualified from testifying to the matter[;] [ļ] (3) [d]ead or unable to attend or to testify at the hearing because of then existing physical or mental illness or infirmity[;] [ļ] (4) [a]bsent from the hearing and the court is unable to compel his or her attendance by its process[; and] [ļ] (5) [a]bsent from the hearing and the proponent of his or her statement has exercised reasonable diligence but has been unable to procure his or her attendance by the court's process. Plainly, Koppers fit none of these categories. As Coffman observes, California courts have not interpreted Evidence Code sections 240 and 1291 so strictly as to preclude unlisted variants of unavailability. Rather, courts have given the statutes a realistic construction consistent with their purpose, i.e., to ensure that certain types of hearsay, including former testimony, are admitted only when no preferable version of the evidence, in the form of live testimony, is legally and physically available. ( People v. Reed (1996) 13 Cal.4th 217, 226-228, 52 Cal.Rptr.2d 106, 914 P.2d 184.) From this principle, Coffman argues Koppers's failure to qualify under the specific statutory requirements for unavailability does not necessarily compel the conclusion she was not unavailable. Coffman, however, cites no decision approving wholesale admission of former testimony in a case like this, where the declarant was present on the stand, responded to questions, and was appropriately subject to impeachment with prior inconsistent statements from her former testimony when she feigned loss of memory. Indeed, Coffman acknowledges the trial court permitted her to impeach Koppers with portions of her former testimony, but complains that due to its brevity, its presentation out of context, and the lack of continuity, its meaning was obscured and its import to the jury was lost. Nothing in the trial court's ruling, however, foreclosed Coffman from using appropriate questions to set context and impart continuity in impeaching Koppers's testimony. Coffman also complains the trial court erred under Evidence Code sections 770 and 1235, and the rule in People v. Green (1971) 3 Cal.3d 981, 985, 92 Cal.Rptr. 494, 479 P.2d 998, by failing to admit Koppers's prior testimony for the truth of the matters asserted therein. Since she cites no specific ruling to this effect, the contention is apparently derivative of her broader argument that she should have been allowed to read into the record the whole of Koppers's prior testimony. It lacks merit for the reasons previously discussed.