Opinion ID: 2590272
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Denial of defendant's severance motions

Text: (8) We also conclude the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying defendant's motions for severancemotions founded on defendant's contention that admission of the codefendants' statements would prejudice him at a joint trial. Our Legislature has expressed a preference for joint trials. ( Lewis, supra, 43 Cal.4th at p. 452; People v. Boyde (1988) 46 Cal.3d 212, 231, 250 [250 Cal.Rptr. 83, 758 P.2d 25]; cf. People v. Soper (2009) 45 Cal.4th 759, 771-772 [89 Cal.Rptr.3d 188, 200 P.3d 816] [expressing judicial preference for joinder in context of joined charges].) Section 1098 provides in pertinent part: `When two or more defendants are jointly charged with any public offense, whether felony or misdemeanor, they must be tried jointly, unless the court order[s] separate trials.' The court may, in its discretion, order separate trials if, among other reasons, there is an incriminating confession by one defendant that implicates a codefendant, or if the defendants will present conflicting defenses. ( Lewis, supra, 43 Cal.4th at p. 452, citing People v. Avila (2006) 38 Cal.4th 491, 574-575 [43 Cal.Rptr.3d 1, 133 P.3d 1076]; see People v. Massie (1967) 66 Cal.2d 899, 917 [59 Cal.Rptr. 733, 428 P.2d 869].) Additionally, severance may be called for when `there is a serious risk that a joint trial would compromise a specific trial right of one of the defendants, or prevent the jury from making a reliable judgment about guilt or innocence.' ( Lewis, supra, 43 Cal.4th at p. 452, quoting Zafiro v. United States (1993) 506 U.S. 534, 539 [122 L.Ed.2d 317, 113 S.Ct. 933] [addressing severance under Fed. Rules Crim.Proc., rule 14, 18 U.S.C.]; see also People v. Coffman and Marlow (2004) 34 Cal.4th 1, 40 [17 Cal.Rptr.3d 710, 96 P.3d 30].) We review a trial court's denial of a severance motion for abuse of discretion based upon the facts as they appeared when the court ruled on the motion. ( Lewis, supra, 43 Cal.4th at p. 453; People v. Hardy (1992) 2 Cal.4th 86, 167 [5 Cal.Rptr.2d 796, 825 P.2d 781].) If we conclude the trial court abused its discretion, reversal is required only if it is reasonably probable the defendant would have obtained a more favorable result at a separate trial. ( Lewis, supra, 43 Cal.4th at p. 453; People v. Coffman and Marlow, supra, 34 Cal.4th at p. 41; People v. Keenan (1988) 46 Cal.3d 478, 503 [250 Cal.Rptr. 550, 758 P.2d 1081].) If the court's joinder ruling was proper when it was made, however, we may reverse a judgment only on a showing that joinder `resulted in `gross unfairness' amounting to a denial of due process.' ( Lewis, supra, 43 Cal.4th at p. 452, quoting People v. Mendoza (2000) 24 Cal.4th 130, 162 [99 Cal.Rptr.2d 485, 6 P.3d 150]; see also People v. Soper, supra, 45 Cal.4th at p. 783 [`if a trial court's ruling on a motion to sever is correct at the time it was made, a reviewing court still must determine whether, in the end, the joinder of counts or defendants for trial resulted in gross unfairness depriving the defendant of due process of law'].) As a threshold matter, in each count defendant was charged along with both of his codefendants with having committed `common crimes involving common events and victims.' ( Lewis, supra, 43 Cal.4th at pp. 452-453, quoting People v. Keenan, supra, 46 Cal.3d at p. 500.) In light of this circumstance, the trial court was presented with a classic case for a joint trial. ( Lewis, supra, 43 Cal.4th at p. 453; see also People v. Avila, supra, 38 Cal.4th at p. 575; People v. Coffman and Marlow, supra, 34 Cal.4th at p. 40; People v. Keenan, supra, 46 Cal.3d at pp. 499-500.) Moreover, in judging the circumstances as they appeared at the time of the ruling on the motion (see People v. Cleveland (2004) 32 Cal.4th 704, 726 [11 Cal.Rptr.3d 236, 86 P.3d 302]), any error under Aranda and Bruton in admitting the codefendants' statements is to be evaluated under Gray, supra, 523 U.S. 185, decided in 1998, four years after defendant's 1994 trial. ( Lewis, supra, 43 Cal.4th at p. 456.) In Gray, the high court extended Bruton 's reasoning regarding unredacted statements to redacted statements, holding that the Sixth Amendment barred the admission of statements that were redacted in a manner that operated just like a confession that names the defendantthey point an accusatory finger at the person `sitting at counsel table,' i.e., the defendant on trial. ([ Gray, supra, 523 U.S.] at p. 192.) ( Lewis, at p. 455.) As the Attorney General concedes, the redactions in the present case, although not as obvious as those considered in Gray, where the court substituted blanks and the word delete for the defendant's proper name, nonetheless led to the obvious inference that defendant was the other who shot Kondrath. Before Gray, however, the law regarding the admissibility of redacted codefendant confessions was unsettled. (See, e.g., People v. Fletcher, supra, 13 Cal.4th 451.) Although Gray is retroactive to this case and we apply it here, we cannot fault the trial court for failing to anticipate Gray 's holding. ( Lewis, supra, 43 Cal.4th at p. 455.) Therefore, no abuse of discretion appears in the denial of severance in the present case. ( Ibid. ) Defendant nonetheless contends he was prejudiced by the denial of the severance motion and the admission of the codefendants' statements, because the defenses presented by his two codefendants were antagonistic to his defense. He asserts that both Burnett's and Rembert's statements minimized their own culpability in Kondrath's murder and in the crimes that preceded it, laying blame instead on defendantimproperly painting him as the main perpetrator and thereby undermining his defense that he was guilty only of second degree murder because he did not participate in the victim's kidnapping and robbery, and because he shot the victim only under threat by his codefendants. Aside from defendant's own self-serving statements to the police, no evidence was presented at trial indicating that Burnett and Rembert, rather than defendant, were the main perpetrators of the crimes against Kondrath. As related above, defendant admitted in his statement that he joined his codefendants in robbing the victim of his automobile, asked the victim for the time as a ruse before forcing him from his automobile at gunpoint, was present when his codefendants demanded the victim's wallet and forced the victim into the trunk of his own automobile, and returned to the trunk to retrieve the victim's keys upon realizing the victim had left them in the keyhole. Most notably, Jeanette Roper testified that defendant informed heras he admitted in his statement to the policethat he shot the victim, and although he now contends the evidence established that he did so under threat of harm from his codefendants, neither his statement to the police nor any other evidence supports such a claim. In his statement, defendant merely claimed that the codefendants informed him repeatedly that the victim must be killed because he had seen the three men and would be able to identify them, and that one of the codefendants threatened to blast the victim himself. Nothing in defendant's statement indicates that either Burnett or Rembert threatened defendant with harm if he did not shoot the victim, and no other evidence establishes that Burnett or Rembert, rather than defendantwho was the actual shooterwas more culpable for Kondrath's murder. Indeed, defendant specifically informed the detectives that he did not hand the gun to Burnett and did not insist that Burnett shoot the victimnot because defendant feared that Burnett intentionally would hurt defendant, but because he was frightened that Burnett was too drunk and accidentally might shoot defendant. Instead, defendant willingly chose to shoot the victim himself, and because defendant did not want to look at the victim's face, he shot him assertedly without taking aim. Antagonistic defenses do not warrant severance unless the acceptance of one party's defense would preclude acquittal of the other. ( Lewis, supra, 43 Cal.4th at p. 461; People v. Hardy, supra, 2 Cal.4th at p. 168.) Here, defendant's defense and those of his codefendants were not so irreconcilable that only one could be guilty. ( Lewis, supra, 43 Cal.4th at p. 461.) The prosecution presented independent evidence supporting each defendant's participation in the group's mutual criminal endeavors. No gross unfairness resulted from the joint trial. ( Ibid. ; see also People v. Avila, supra, 38 Cal.4th at pp. 574-576; People v. Coffman and Marlow, supra, 34 Cal.4th at p. 41; People v. Box (2000) 23 Cal.4th 1153, 1195-1197 [99 Cal.Rptr.2d 69, 5 P.3d 130].) Defendant also asserts that the joint trial prejudiced him because his own statement was redacted to replace all instances of Burnett's name with the word other, thereby precluding defendant from informing the jury that Burnett, who was older than defendant and had gang ties, initiated the events on the night of Kondrath's murder, and that defendant acted only at the urging of his older codefendants. No evidence of any significance was eliminated as a result of the redaction of defendant's statement. First, the circumstance that codefendant Burnett may have instigated the night's events does not obviate defendant's own admitted culpability in the crimes committed against Kondrath. Moreover, although defendant's specific references to Burnett were replaced with the word other, the jury nonetheless was made aware of the substance of defendant's statementsthat he left the apartment with two men, one of whom wanted to seek out Watergate Crips gang members in revenge for an earlier assault, that this same man directed defendant to go to Jeffrey Howard's home to borrow a shotgun, and that the men he was with fired that weapon in Watergate Crips territory. [10] The sole statement defendant points to in his own account that was deleted from the transcript of defendant's interview is his assertion that Burnett gave him the weapon and told him to kill the victim. The omission of this statement did not prejudice defendant, however, because other statements made by him to the police informed the jurors that one of the others handed defendant a gun and told him to kill the victim, and that the reason defendant did not hand the gun back to the other was that defendant feared being accidentally shot by his drunken companion. In sum, neither the redaction of the codefendants' statements nor the redaction of defendant's own statement prejudicially undermined defendant's defense, and the joint trial itself did not result in gross unfairness depriving defendant of a fair trial. If any error occurred, it did not result from the trial court's denial of severance, but from its related but separate ruling admitting codefendants Rembert's and Burnett's redacted statements. As we have explained above, the admission at the joint trial of these two statements did not result in gross unfairness to defendant, and any error was harmless. ( Lewis, supra, 43 Cal.4th at p. 456.)