Opinion ID: 844218
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Exclusion of Evidence Concerning Civil Lawsuit and Activities of the Vikings

Text: As mentioned above, defendant presented testimony regarding the ongoing hostility between defendant's gang, the Young Crowd, and the group of deputies from the Lynwood area known as the Vikings. Defendant, Ernesto Avila, and Jose Nieves each testified to some degree on the subject. Before the trial began, defendant had notified the trial court he intended to introduce more extensive evidence related to alleged misconduct by sheriff's deputies, including testimony concerning a civil lawsuit filed in federal court that alleged widespread civil rights violations by sheriff's deputies in the Lynwood area during 1990 and 1991, [10] as well as evidence of the shooting of two Young Crowd members (Nieves and Lloyd Polk) by sheriff's deputies. After several discussions concerning what evidence, if any, would be admitted, and a formal hearing on the subject that included live witness testimony, the trial court allowed defendant to present evidence of (1) specific acts of alleged misconduct by Deputy Blair (see Evid. Code, § 1103, subd. (a)(1)), (2) specific acts of alleged misconduct that other deputies inflicted upon defendant and Avila, (3) the circumstance that Nieves was shot by deputies several days before Deputy Blair was killed, and (4) Blair's membership in the Vikings. The court did not permit defendant to present evidence regarding the lawsuit, the specific circumstances of the shooting of Nieves, or alleged misconduct by other members of the Vikings or other unaffiliated deputies against other citizens. The court also ordered redacted a portion of the transcript of the jailhouse conversation between defendant and his mother and sister in which defendant discussed the lawsuit. In the trial court's view, presenting evidence of the lawsuit and other misconduct by other deputies would be going too far afield, would sidetrack and unduly prolong the trial, and would invite[] the jury to speculate as to what the lawsuit was about. The court also noted the incidents in the lawsuit were remote in time, having occurred five years or more before Deputy Blair was shot, and concluded the lawsuit doesn't really provide in the court's view any legitimate basis for Blair to have shot at [defendant], which is the defense allegation. The court therefore exercised its discretion under section 352 of the Evidence Code to exclude the lawsuit and other evidence of alleged deputy misconduct. (See Evid. Code, § 352 [providing that a trial court may exclude otherwise relevant evidence when its probative value is substantially outweighed by concerns of undue prejudice, confusion, or consumption of time].) During the trial, the court similarly excluded as too remote evidence concerning the shooting of Lloyd Polk after Avila testified that the shooting occurred in 1989 or 1990. Defendant, however, was permitted to testify that he had heard about the fatal shooting of Polk. The trial court later denied defendant's new trial motion contesting the exclusion of the proffered evidence. On appeal, defendant challenges the trial court's decisions. [11] Stated succinctly, defendant's asserted basis for introducing this evidence is as follows: He proposed to introduce other persons' allegations that other deputies engaged in unlawful conduct in order to bolster his evidence that Deputy Blair unlawfully shot at him and Avila, and therefore defendant's shooting at Blair was justified. Pursuant to defendant's theory of admissibility, there were two primary grounds for admitting the evidence: to establish that (1) Blair was the aggressor and (2) defendant reasonably believed the use of force against Blair was necessary in order to prevent unlawful harm to Avila or defendant. As to the former, evidence of past misconduct by other deputies, defendant urges, might have tended to establish both Blair's propensity to act in this manner and his motive for doing sothat is, to eliminate or intimidate a plaintiff in the lawsuit. (8) We will assume without deciding that these grounds met the relevance threshold of sections 351 and 210 of the Evidence Code. (See Evid. Code, §§ 351 [Except as otherwise provided by statute, all relevant evidence is admissible.], 210 [`Relevant evidence' means evidence . . . having any tendency in reason to prove or disprove any disputed fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action.]; People v. Scheid (1997) 16 Cal.4th 1, 13-14 [65 Cal.Rptr.2d 348, 939 P.2d 748] ( Scheid ) [The test of relevance is whether the evidence tends `logically, naturally, and by reasonable inference to establish material facts such as identity, intent, or motive. [Citations.]' [Citation.]].) [12] We review for abuse of discretion a trial court's ruling to exclude proffered relevant evidence under Evidence Code section 352. ( People v. Hamilton (2009) 45 Cal.4th 863, 929-930 [89 Cal.Rptr.3d 286, 200 P.3d 898]; People v. Osband (1996) 13 Cal.4th 622, 666 [55 Cal.Rptr.2d 26, 919 P.2d 640] ( Osband ) [A court abuses its discretion when its ruling `falls outside the bounds of reason.']; People v. Carrington (2009) 47 Cal.4th 145, 195 [97 Cal.Rptr.3d 117, 211 P.3d 617] ( Carrington ) [an abuse of discretion is established by `a showing the trial court exercised its discretion in an arbitrary, capricious, or patently absurd manner that resulted in a manifest miscarriage of justice'].) (9) We agree with the trial court that the connection between the excluded evidence and the issues in this trial was unduly tenuous. Law enforcement officers, of course, lawfully may use force in order to perform their duties. The defense in the present case raised the question whether Deputy Blair unlawfully used deadly force against Avila and/or defendant, such that defendant was justified in using deadly force against Blair. The relevance (if any) of evidence regarding other deputies' past acts in establishing Blair's propensity or motive to engage in the supposed unlawful use of force on the night in question likewise was tied to establishing that these past acts by other deputies also were unlawful. Defendant implicitly acknowledges this in his briefs, throughout which he describes the other deputies' actions as wrongful and lawless. If, however, the past uses of force and other actions by these other deputies were lawful, any relevance in proving Deputy Blair's propensity to use unlawful force is greatly diminished, if not eliminated. Similarly, if the past acts by other deputies were lawful, there would be little likelihood that, as defendant asserts, Blair was motivated to initiate a gun battle in plain view of numerous bystanders in order to eliminate or intimidate a plaintiff in what would have been an unmeritorious lawsuit against the sheriff's department. The trial court reasonably found that providing the jury with a full picture of the significance of the lawsuit, the shootings of Polk and Nieves, and any other alleged misconduct by other deputies would seriously sidetrack the trial, consuming undue time with a series of trials within this trial concerning whether the deputies' actions in those past incidents legally were justified. In asserting that the lawsuit evidence could have been presented in relatively abbreviated testimony, defendant fails to acknowledge that the allegations of misconduct in the lawsuit could not be offered for the truth of the matters asserted; such use would violate the hearsay rule, section 1200 of the Evidence Code. (Evid. Code, § 1200 [evidence of an out-of-court statement is inadmissible when offered to prove the truth of the matter stated].) The trial court would have acted within its discretion in finding that evidence of the mere existence of the lawsuit, divorced from any proof of the truth of the allegations raised in it, would not have been relevant to prove Deputy Blair's propensity or motive to engage in the unlawful use of force. (See Rundle, supra, 43 Cal.4th at pp. 132-133 [the trial court did not abuse its discretion by excluding evidence as irrelevant when the defendant had failed to establish the necessary preliminary fact of a correlation between the proffered evidence and the inference to be drawn from it].) (10) In sum, the trial court's ruling was not beyond the bounds of reason. It was reasonable for the trial court to find that any probative value in admitting the lawsuit evidence (proffered with the hope of supporting an inference that because other deputies had engaged in unlawful activities unrelated to defendantor the lawsuit so allegedit was more likely Blair acted unlawfully in the shooting incident) was minimal and would have been substantially outweighed by the risk of jury confusion and undue consumption of time. To the extent defendant also contends the trial court should have admitted evidence of other persons' allegations of misconduct by other deputies as establishing defendant's state of mind at the time of the shooting, we again conclude the trial court did not abuse its discretion by excluding the evidence. The reasonableness of defendant's asserted belief that he was justified in shooting at Deputy Blair was not tied to anything defendant claimed to know regarding the past actions of Deputy Blair, the Vikings, or other deputies. Defendant did not testify that he preemptively shot at Deputy Blair first because, based upon defendant's knowledge of past misconduct by the deputies, defendant feared that Blair was about to shoot him or Avila. He testified, rather, that Deputy Blair unjustifiably started the gunfight. The jury's decision, therefore, turned on its assessment of the credibility of defendant's and his other witnesses' testimony regarding the issue of who shot first, not the issue of defendant's fear of the deputies. (See also People v. Minifie (1996) 13 Cal.4th 1055, 1070 [56 Cal.Rptr.2d 133, 920 P.2d 1337] [although evidence of threats by third parties can be relevant to defendant's state of mind, such threats inherently carry less weight than threats from the victim and evidence of a third party's reputation for violence may be particularly susceptible to exclusion].) (11) Defendant contends the federal and state Constitutions do not permit a trial court to exclude defense evidence that goes to the heart of the case based solely on the court's concerns regarding the consumption of time. We need not decide whether this assertion is correct because here the trial court's decision was not grounded solely on the consumption of time that would have been required had defendant's proffered evidence been admitted. Rather, the court also reasonably was concerned that essentially undertaking a series of trials concerning the numerous allegations of misconduct by other deputies ran the risk of distracting the jury from its task of deciding defendant's guilt. (See People v. Hart (1999) 20 Cal.4th 546, 607 [85 Cal.Rptr.2d 132, 976 P.2d 683].) In addition, the trial court found at least some of the evidence was too remotethat is, of at most minimal relevanceanother valid ground for declining to admit it. ( People v. Hall (1986) 41 Cal.3d 826, 833 [226 Cal.Rptr. 112, 718 P.2d 99] [stating, in addressing a challenge to the exclusion of evidence of third party culpability, that we do not require that any evidence, however remote, must be admitted . . .].) (12) Although defendant correctly points out that his defense made the issues of who shot firstand why Deputy Blair might have done socentral to the resolution of the charges, this does not mean the trial court constitutionally was compelled to permit defendant to introduce all possibly relevant evidence on these subjects despite its marginal relevance, the possible effect upon the jury's ability to remain focused on the issues before it (rather than becoming sidetracked on collateral questions), and the potentially significant amount of time entailed in admitting the evidence in a manner fair to both sides. (See People v. Cornwell (2005) 37 Cal.4th 50, 82 [33 Cal.Rptr.3d 1, 117 P.3d 622] [a state court's application of ordinary rules of evidence including the rule stated in Evidence Code section 352generally does not infringe upon the constitutional right to offer a defense]; accord, People v. Brown (2003) 31 Cal.4th 518, 545 [3 Cal.Rptr.3d 145, 73 P.3d 1137]; People v. Snow (2003) 30 Cal.4th 43, 90 [132 Cal.Rptr.2d 271, 65 P.3d 749].) Moreover, contrary to defendant's contention, the trial court's assessment of the possible probative value of defendant's proffered evidence in its weighing of the risk of confusion and undue consumption of time did not impermissibly invade the province of the jury. ( People v. Lewis (2001) 26 Cal.4th 334, 373 [110 Cal.Rptr.2d 272, 28 P.3d 34].) We also observe that the trial court permitted defendant to present evidence concerning alleged misconduct that Deputy Blair himself committed and of Blair's membership in the Vikings, and that defendant, Avila, and Nieves also testified regarding their own negative experiences with the Vikings. For these reasons, the trial court's decision to exclude the evidence regarding alleged misconduct by other deputies did not violate defendant's constitutional rights.