Opinion ID: 2629972
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Limitations on Defense Evidence

Text: Defendant contends that two asserted errors in limiting the testimony of defense witnesses deprived him of his right to present a defense, in violation of the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.
At defendant's second trial, Dr. Geoffrey Loftus, a professor of psychology at the University of Washington in Seattle, was permitted to testify as an expert on the subject of memory, specifically memory as it functions during the stress of witnessing a crime or other disturbing event. As a witness, his thesis was that memory's function should not be compared to a recording device. Rather, memory is a creative endeavor that employs fragments of perception in the construction of a coherent narrative of an event. Dr. Loftus also commented upon the function of stress, intoxication, bias, and the lapse of time on a witness's ability accurately to recall events such as violent crimes. He commented specifically that witnesses who observe or feel threatened by weapons often fail to pay attention to other circumstances. Among several other topics, he also commented upon the effect of events subsequent to a crime upon a witness's recollection of the crime itself, the weight to be accorded the degree of confidence expressed by a witness in an identification, and cross-racial identification. (As already noted, defendant is African-American. Some of the identification witnesses were African-American and some were White.) The court gave a pattern jury instruction specifically advising the jury that many of the topics touched upon by Dr. Loftus, including stress, lapse of time, focus upon a weapon, the witness's confidence in his or her identification, and problems of cross-racial identification, were relevant to their evaluation of the identification witnesses. (See CALJIC No. 2.92.) Defense counsel relied extensively upon Dr. Loftus's testimony in closing argument to the jury. Defendant nonetheless claims prejudicial error occurred when the trial court placed a limitation upon Dr. Loftus's testimony. Defense counsel had sought to call Dr. Loftus as a witness at defendant's first trial, but the court excluded his testimony pursuant to Evidence Code section 352. The court announced that the same ruling would remain in effect for the second trial. After the eyewitnesses testified at the second trial, defendant urged the court to reconsider. Further arguments of counsel ensued, and defendant made a thorough offer of proof as to the subjects upon which it was proposed the expert would testify. Placing the burden on defendant to establish the relevance of the evidence, and the burden on the prosecution to support its claim that the evidence should be excluded pursuant to Evidence Code section 352, the court reversed its earlier ruling, concluding all of the subject matter proposed for expert testimony was relevant and sufficiently probative, with very limited exceptions described below. Defense counsel proposed to ask Dr. Loftus to testify to unconscious transference. And . . . what that is[,] is if [defendant] had been seen in that neighborhood at some earlier time, either that day or some previous day, some of the witnesses may have recognized him on that basis, rather than the observation itself, but as being someone they had seen in the area. The court declined to permit this line of questioning, determining that the unconscious transference evidence was irrelevant and commenting that it would be entirely speculative based on this record to suggest that any of the witnesses who testify in this case would be unconsciously transferring a prior examination of the [d]efendant at the scene to this event. The court went on to explain that the evidence was to a certain extent cumulative to other admissible evidence: To the extent that the transference refers to other things such as seeing him in a photograph or seeing him in a prior proceeding, that is able to be explained under those theories and offers of testimony. As noted, the court determined that most of the proposed expert testimony was admissible: The remaining theories of . . . Dr. Loftus's testimony of factors such as duration, distance, attention, weapon focus, stress, cross-racial identification, retention intervals, effect of prior trial and photo bias, statistical versus chance identification, and the relationship between confidence and accuracy, I find all to be relevant to these proceedings. The court reiterated the limitations it was imposing on Dr. Loftus's testimony, referring both to relevance and undue confusion of the jury: [H]e may not make reference to the unconscious transference by seeing someone at the scene. Those are facts as I already indicated are irrelevant. And they should not be added to confuse the jury and cause them to speculate that maybe someone did see Mr. Cornwell there before, since there was no evidence he was ever there before. Defense counsel acknowledged that he understood the court's ruling. [5] On appeal, defendant complains that the court erred in refusing to permit Dr. Loftus to explain the concept of `unconscious transference,' that is, if the witnesses had seen defendant at or near Cashland weeks or months before the crime, they might have based their identification of defendant as the robber on their earlier sighting, and not on what they saw at the scene of the crime. According to defendant, such testimony would have been relevant because, in testimony subsequent to the hearing on Dr. Loftus's testimony, Michael Johnson testified that defendant had been present at the scene a couple of months before the crime. Defendant surmises that he may have been present on the same occasion at which certain identification witnesses previously had been at Cashland. He points out that Kimberly Scott testified that Michael Johnson ordinarily worked at Cashland only on the first day of the month. According to defendant, it follows that Johnson probably saw him (defendant) at Cashland on the first of the month. Further, defendant claims, there was evidence that three identification witnesses were present at Cashland to transact business on the busiest day of the month, which would coincide with the first business day of any month. He refers to Cassandra Henderson, who was outside waiting for her children to transact business, Susan Erickson, who was inside Cashland, and Frances Rivers, who was waiting for her sister to transact business. Defendant further observes that one of the witnesses testified that she came to Cashland to cash her welfare check on a monthly basis. According to defendant, [t]hese undisputed facts give rise to a reasonable inference that these eyewitnesses had, perhaps unwittingly, observed defendant on a prior occasion. `Standing alone the inference may have been weak, but that does not make the evidence irrelevant.' Defendant does not claim he renewed his efforts to broaden the testimony of Dr. Loftus after Michael Johnson testified he had seen defendant at Cashland on a prior occasion. Moreover, the question whether defendant presented an adequate foundation to establish the relevance of this line of questioning lies within the trial court's broad discretion. ( People v. Ramos (1997) 15 Cal.4th 1133, 1175, 64 Cal.Rptr.2d 892, 938 P.2d 950.) Additionally, even if the unconscious transference theory was of some tenuous relevance under the facts presented to the court, the court also excluded the line of questioning because of its tendency to confuse the jury. Defendant certainly did not present evidence that any of the identification witnesses had seen defendant at Cashland on a previous occasion, and the chain of inference recited above in support of the claim that the witnesses and defendant might have been at the establishment on the same day and at the same time is highly speculative. It also would be speculative to draw the inference that, even had their prior visits to Cashland coincided, the witnesses unconsciously had observed defendant. Expert testimony concerning the possibility that a prior sighting could have influenced a witness's identification might have led the jury to believe there was evidence the witnesses had observed defendant prior to the commission of the crime. Moreover, the court permitted thorough questioning of the identification expert on multiple topics that were highly relevant to the facts of the case; the court reasonably could conclude the time necessary to develop the unconscious transference theory was not worth the speculative probative value of the evidence. Exclusion of evidence as more prejudicial, confusing or distracting than probative, under Evidence Code section 352, is reviewed for abuse of discretion. ( People v. Holloway (2004) 33 Cal.4th 96, 134, 14 Cal.Rptr.3d 212, 91 P.3d 164.) But exclusion of evidence that produces only speculative inferences is not an abuse of discretion. ( People v. Babbitt (1988) 45 Cal.3d 660, 684, 248 Cal.Rptr. 69, 755 P.2d 253.) The trial court acted within its discretion in concluding that, even if relevant, the very limited and speculative relevance of the evidence and its marginal probative value was outweighed by the time necessary to explain the point and by the potential that the evidence would confuse the jury. Moreover, any possible error cannot have been prejudicial, in light of the broad scope of the far more significant testimony the expert was permitted to give, the instruction focusing the jury's attention on many of the factors relied upon by the expert, and the circumstance that defense counsel was permitted to and did weave in the expert's testimony throughout his extensive evaluation of the eyewitness testimony. Citing Chambers v. Mississippi (1973) 410 U.S. 284, 93 S.Ct. 1038, 35 L.Ed.2d 297, defendant claims that exclusion of testimony on the subject of unconscious transference violated his federal constitutional right to present a defense. We are not persuaded. A defendant has the general right to offer a defense through the testimony of his or her witnesses ( Washington v. Texas (1967) 388 U.S. 14, 19, 87 S.Ct. 1920, 18 L.Ed.2d 1019), but a state court's application of ordinary rules of evidence  including the rule stated in Evidence Code section 352  generally does not infringe upon this right ( People v. Lawley, supra, 27 Cal.4th at pp. 154-155, 115 Cal.Rptr.2d 614, 38 P.3d 461; People v. Lucas (1995) 12 Cal.4th 415, 464, 48 Cal.Rptr.2d 525, 907 P.2d 373.) The excluded evidence in the present case was not so vital to the defense that due process principles required its admission. (See People v. Hawthorne (1992) 4 Cal.4th 43, 56-58, 14 Cal.Rptr.2d 133, 841 P.2d 118; People v. Babbitt, supra, 45 Cal.3d at p. 684, 248 Cal.Rptr. 69, 755 P.2d 253.) Although the high court in Chambers determined that the combination of state rules resulting in the exclusion of crucial defense evidence constituted a denial of due process under the unusual circumstances of the case before it, it did not question the respect traditionally accorded to the States in the establishment and implementation of their own criminal trial rules and procedures. ( Chambers v. Mississippi, supra, 410 U.S. at pp. 302-303, 93 S.Ct. 1038.) Defendant is unable to point to the exclusion of evidence of vital or significant probative value (see People v. Babbitt, supra, 45 Cal.3d at p. 684, 248 Cal.Rptr. 69, 755 P.2d 253), and the court accorded him broad latitude to examine Dr. Loftus, including examination on the far more probative question whether the witness's proven observation of defendant in photo lineups or at the prior trial might have affected the confidence with which they identified him in the present case. (See People v. Ramos, supra, 15 Cal.4th at pp. 1178-1179, 64 Cal.Rptr.2d 892, 938 P.2d 950.)
The defense called Dr. Eugene Shoenfeld, a psychiatrist with particular expertise in the field of drug addiction and the properties of heroin and methadone, who testified concerning the effect of those substances on the perception, ability to recall, and veracity of persons using them. Defense counsel questioned Dr. Shoenfeld about Elavil, lithium, and Stelazine, which are psychotropic medications that Roland Johnson testified he was taking at the time of the events underlying the present crime. Instead of pursuing the question of the effect of such medication on the ability of a person to perceive and recollect, however, defense counsel inquired as to the condition for which Stelazine was prescribed. Dr. Shoenfeld testified that Stelazine is a [m]ajor tranquilizer[] . . . generally used in the treatment of psychoses. Stelazine is one of the older drugs used for the treatment of psychosis. It's related closely to [T]horazine, for example. It's another antipsychotic drug. When defense counsel asked, [W]hat do you mean by psychoses? Is that some sort of mental condition?, the prosecutor objected. The prosecutor explained to the court that he feared defense counsel was trying to establish what's wrong with Roland Johnson mentally and physically based on these short questions of what drugs he was taking. And I don't believe [there is] a proper foundation for this doctor to now discuss that we use this drug for psychoses. We don't know what  anything about [why] Roland Johnson . . . was prescribed this drug, and I don't think [defense counsel] has laid a foundation for that. [¶] And I would note that he [Roland Johnson] said he used them as needed. And without knowing more about it, this doctor's never treated him, we don't know when, why he's on them. In questioning by the court, Dr. Shoenfeld commented that, in addition to its use as an antipsychotic, Stelazine may be prescribed for relief of nausea or as a tranquilizer. It was established that the witness had neither examined Roland Johnson nor reviewed Johnson's medical records. The court determined defendant had not established a foundation from Mr. Johnson's doctor as to whether he, in fact, has prescribed [S]telazine . . . . Roland Johnson's not even qualified to tell us for sure what he's getting. More importantly, we don't have a medical opinion why it was prescribed for him. The court also commented that, according to Dr. Shoenfeld, the drug is prescribed for reasons other than psychosis, and hence further questioning concerning the psychiatric condition for which Roland Johnson might have been prescribed the drug would be speculative. The court ultimately ruled that defense counsel could explore the likely effects upon a person taking Stelazine and lithium but that counsel could not elicit Dr. Shoenfeld's opinion concerning the probable condition for which the drugs had been prescribed. The court explained that this sort of reverse diagnosis on the basis of prescribed medication was too speculative, referring to Evidence Code section 352. The court characterized the line of inquiry as speculative, because Dr. Shoenfeld had not examined Roland Johnson or prescribed medication for him. In addition, the court pointed out that defendant could introduce direct evidence of Roland Johnson's condition and the reasons he took the medication by calling his prescribing physician as a witness. Contrary to defendant's claim, neither the trial court's application of the rule of evidence requiring the proponent of evidence to supply an adequate foundation (Evid.Code, § 403), nor the court's exercise of discretion pursuant to Evidence Code section 352, deprived defendant of his Sixth Amendment right to present a defense. [6] The decision whether foundational evidence is sufficiently substantial is a matter within the court's discretion. ( People v. Lucas, supra, 12 Cal.4th at p. 466, 48 Cal.Rptr.2d 525, 907 P.2d 373.) We see no abuse of discretion in the present case, particularly because Dr. Schoenfeld lacked personal knowledge concerning Johnson's condition. (See ibid. ) In addition, the physician informed the court that there were a number of reasons Stelazine might be prescribed. Defendant was able to elicit testimony from Dr. Shoenfeld demonstrating that Stelazine primarily is used to treat psychosis, and thus the jury could have surmised that Johnson suffered from some variety of psychosis. More specific information concerning Johnson's condition could have been made available by calling Johnson's prescribing physician as a witness. There was nothing fundamentally unfair about applying ordinary rules of evidence to exclude speculative opinion testimony, especially because of the availability of an obvious other source for the same information, as pointed out by the trial court. (See People v. Ramos, supra, 15 Cal.4th at pp. 1175-1176, 64 Cal.Rptr.2d 892, 938 P.2d 950.)