Opinion ID: 1399120
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Testimony of Buckley and Rowan

Text: Defendant contends that the prosecutor and trial judge improperly vouched for the credibility of witnesses Buckley and Rowan and misled the jury about the inducements they received for their testimony. Their actions, he claims, violated various rights guaranteed him by the Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments.
At the outset of Brian Buckley's testimony, and again in closing argument, the prosecutor read to the jury the text of Buckley's plea agreement. We reproduce it in the margin. [4] (7a) Defendant contends that the agreement told the jury that the prosecutor and the judge were making all necessary findings regarding Buckley's credibility. This, he argues, improperly vouched for Buckley's credibility. Defense counsel made no objection to the reading of the plea agreement. Accordingly, defendant may not complain about it on appeal. (Evid. Code, § 353.) Defendant suggests that for various reasons he should be relieved of the requirement of contemporaneous objection. He does not persuade us. Nonetheless, even if the claim were properly before us, we would find no reversible error. (8) As defendant acknowledges, the existence of a plea agreement is relevant impeachment evidence that must be disclosed to the defense because it bears on the witness's credibility. ( Giglio v. United States (1972) 405 U.S. 150, 153-155 [31 L.Ed.2d 104, 108-109, 92 S.Ct. 763].) Indeed, we have held that when an accomplice testifies for the prosecution, full disclosure of any agreement affecting the witness is required to ensure that the jury has a complete picture of the factors affecting the witness's credibility. ( People v. Phillips (1985) 41 Cal.3d 29, 47 [222 Cal. Rptr. 127, 711 P.2d 423].) (7b) Defendant's objection is not to admission of the agreement per se, but to the failure to excise certain portions that he views as vouching for Buckley's credibility and as placing on the trial court rather than the jury the responsibility to determine whether Buckley was telling the truth. Defendant first argues that reference to the district attorney's preliminary determination of Buckley's credibility as a condition of the plea agreement was improper because it implied the existence of information, known to the prosecutor but undisclosed to the jury, that proved Buckley was telling the truth. ( United States v. Roberts (9th Cir.1980) 618 F.2d 530, 536.) (9) Defendant correctly notes that a prosecutor may not express a personal opinion or belief in a witness's credibility when there is `substantial danger that jurors will interpret this as being based on information at the prosecutor's command, other than evidence adduced at trial.' ( People v. Adcox, supra, 47 Cal.3d at p. 236 (quoting People v. Bain (1971) 5 Cal.3d 839, 848 [97 Cal. Rptr. 684, 489 P.2d 564)].) (7c) We agree that the plea agreement's reference to the district attorney's preliminary determination of Buckley's credibility had little or no relevancy to Buckley's veracity at trial, other than to suggest that the prosecutor found him credible. Thus, the reference should have been excised on a timely objection on the ground of irrelevancy. We conclude, however, that its presentation to the jury was harmless under these circumstances. ( People v. Watson (1956) 46 Cal.2d 818, 836 [299 P.2d 243].) The prosecutor argued for Buckley's credibility based on the evidence adduced at trial, not on the strength of extrajudicial information obliquely referred to in the plea agreement. Moreover, common sense suggests that the jury will usually assume  without being told  that the prosecutor has at some point interviewed the principal witness and found his testimony believable, else he would not be testifying. We note, too, that the requirement that Buckley preliminarily satisfy the prosecutor as to his credibility cuts both ways: it suggests not only an incentive to tell the truth but also a motive to testify as the prosecutor wishes. ( United States v. Henderson (4th Cir.1983) 717 F.2d 135, 137.) Thus, even if defendant had preserved an objection to admission of the challenged portion of the Buckley plea agreement, we would decline to reverse his conviction. Defendant further argues that the plea agreement made the trial court a monitor of Buckley's truthfulness, and thereby placed its prestige behind Buckley's testimony, by providing that [i]n the event of a dispute, the truthfulness of Mr. Buckley's testimony will be determined by the trial judges who preside over these hearings. He contends this provision caused the jury to feel a lesser responsibility to make an independent determination of Buckley's truthfulness. Our decision in People v. Phillips, supra, 41 Cal.3d 29, requires full disclosure to the jury of any agreement bearing on the witness's credibility, including the consequences to the witness of failure to testify truthfully. Full disclosure is not necessarily synonymous with verbatim recitation, however. Portions of an agreement irrelevant to the credibility determination or potentially misleading to the jury should, on timely and specific request, be excluded. Here, it was crucial that the jury learn what would happen to Brian Buckley in the event he failed to testify truthfully in defendant's trial. But the precise mechanism whereby his truthfulness would be determined was not a matter for its concern. The provision detailing the judge's determination of Buckley's credibility in the event of any dispute arguably carried some slight potential for jury confusion, in that it did not explicitly state what is implicit within it: that the need for such a determination would arise, if at all, in connection with Buckley's sentencing, not in the process of trying defendant's guilt or innocence. For these reasons, had defendant objected to its admission, the trial court would have acted correctly in excluding it on a relevancy objection. Nonetheless, we see no possibility that defendant was prejudiced by its admission. The jury could not reasonably have understood Buckley's plea agreement to relieve it of the duty to decide, in the course of reaching its verdict, whether Buckley's testimony was truthful. Nor could the jury have been misled by prosecutorial argument. The prosecutor argued that Buckley had nothing to gain by lying because the trial court would make a determination of his credibility in the event of a dispute. The context of the remarks made it clear that determination would occur if the prosecutor sought to repudiate its agreement with Buckley after trial in defendant's case. Our conclusion is reinforced by the fact that the trial court instructed the jury, before the start of the prosecution's case and after closing argument, that [e]very person who testifies under oath is a witness. (10)(See fn. 5.) You are the sole judges of the believability of a witness and the weight to be given to his testimony.... [5] (CALJIC No. 2.20.) (7d) We presume, in the absence of any contrary indication in the record, that the jury understood and followed this instruction. ( People v. Modesto (1963) 59 Cal.2d 722, 755 [31 Cal. Rptr. 225, 382 P.2d 33].) The prosecutor, in his opening statement, likewise emphasized the jurors' role as sole judges of credibility. In sum, the reading of Buckley's plea agreement did not constitute reversible error. [6]
(11) Buckley's credibility was the most significant issue in the guilt phase of defendant's trial. The prosecutor urged the jury to believe Buckley because, under the terms of his plea agreement, he had nothing to fear as long as he told the truth. Defendant contends that the prosecutor misled the jury as to Buckley's incentives to testify because the plea agreement said nothing about other crimes of which Buckley was suspected and failed to specify what, if any, arrangement Buckley had with the prosecutor regarding those crimes. This, defendant contends, denied him his rights to due process of law, to protection from cruel and unusual punishment, to freedom from arbitrary and unreliable imposition of the death penalty, and to trial by a fair and impartial jury. Apart from the Urell matter, defendant contends, Buckley was subject to prosecution for his role in (1) a commercial burglary and theft of motorcycles, (2) an assault with a vehicle in a parking lot, and (3) the murder of David Church. If there was an agreement with the prosecutor regarding these episodes, defendant reasons, it was never disclosed to the jury; if there was no such agreement, the jury never learned that Buckley had other incentives to testify against defendant. The flaw in defendant's argument is the absence of evidence that Buckley in fact feared prosecution for the other offenses. Nothing in the record indicates that Buckley was ever charged in connection with any of these crimes, and there is insufficient evidence before us to warrant the belief that prosecution was a reasonable probability. As to the motorcycle theft incident, Buckley admitted on cross-examination in the penalty phase that in the summer of 1986 he and Christopher Caldwell stole two motorcycles and that Caldwell was convicted of the offense, but that he himself was not charged. Defendant suggests no reason why his counsel could not have argued, at either phase of trial, that Buckley remained vulnerable to charges arising out of this incident. In any event, the record contains insufficient evidence to enable us to conclude that he feared prosecution. As to the parking lot incident, the record indicates that during the guilt phase of trial, defense counsel was aware that Buckley had been accused of trying to run down an individual in a parking lot, but that nothing had come of the incident. The trial court properly refused to allow counsel to use the evidence to impeach Buckley's testimony by showing that he had a violent character (Evid. Code, § 787), but permitted counsel to use it as impeachment in the event Buckley claimed to be a nonviolent person. Counsel did not bring up the subject by asking Buckley whether he hated violence or was sickened by seeing Urell beaten, so no evidence of the automobile assault came before the jury. As with the motorcycle incident, defense counsel was not precluded from attempting to present the evidence and arguing that Buckley was subject to prosecution, and the record lacks evidence from which we can confidently say Buckley could have been prosecuted. Finally, as to the murder of David Church, the evidence does not support the conclusion that Buckley was subject to prosecution. Evidence at the penalty phase indicated that defendant and Caldwell removed Church from Buckley's apartment and killed him with an ax handle. Defendant cites drug use during Buckley's party and Buckley's desire to rid himself of an obnoxious gatecrasher as possible motives for murder. He also notes that the murder weapon belonged to Buckley. The inference is far from compelling, however, that Buckley had reason to fear prosecution for Church's killing. [7] Defense counsel could have questioned Buckley during the guilt phase about his involvement in the Church murder, but for obvious tactical reasons chose not to do so. The lack of evidence that Buckley either feared prosecution for other crimes or had some undisclosed agreement regarding those offenses leads us to conclude that defendant has failed to prove that the prosecutor misled the jury. (12)(See fn. 8.) We also conclude  contrary to defendant's claim  that he was not denied due process, his rights of confrontation and cross-examination, his right to be protected against cruel and unusual punishment, his right to a reliable penalty determination, or his right to trial by a fair and impartial jury in the presentation of Buckley's plea agreement to the jury. [8]
Mel Rowan, testifying under a grant of immunity, provided significant corroborative evidence. While outlining Rowan's expected testimony during his opening statement, the prosecutor displayed a poster consisting of an enlarged page from the transcript of Rowan's preliminary hearing testimony containing incriminating statements defendant made to Rowan. The prosecutor read aloud the following portion of Rowan's preliminary hearing testimony: As the conversation took place, Mel Rowan asked Curtis Fauber, `You didn't hurt him, did you?' And Curtis said, `I think I killed him.' `Are you sure? You got to be kidding.' `Yeah, I'm pretty sure.' `Are you positive he's dead? Just don't tell me he's dead.' And Fauber said, `Well, when I left, he was having a hard time breathing.' `And I said, Well, why did you do it? And he said, `Well, he  he saw my face, and I'm not in any hurry to leave Ventura County.' Defense counsel objected to the form of the poster, specifically to highlighting of some portions. He contended it took parts of Rowan's preliminary hearing testimony out of context and was prejudicial to defendant. The trial court ruled that the poster could be used as an illustrative aid in the prosecutor's opening statement. (13) Defendant contends the ruling constituted error because the poster preconditioned the jury to believe Rowan's testimony. He also now advances the new ground that the poster contained hearsay and was for that additional reason improper. The error, he contends, violated his Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights. We find no error in the trial court's ruling, as use of the poster neither violated the rule against hearsay nor constituted any species of vouching. The purpose of the opening statement `is to prepare the minds of the jury to follow the evidence and to more readily discern its materiality, force and effect' [citation].... ( People v. Green (1956) 47 Cal.2d 209, 215 [302 P.2d 307].) The use of photographs and tape recordings, intended later to be admitted in evidence, as visual or auditory aids is appropriate. ( Ibid.; People v. Kirk (1974) 43 Cal. App.3d 921, 929 [117 Cal. Rptr. 345].) Similarly, the illustrative use of an enlarged page of transcript was not improper, as Rowan ultimately testified consistently with the transcript. It is axiomatic that nothing the prosecutor says in an opening statement is evidence. Had the prosecutor, instead of preparing a poster, simply recited Rowan's preliminary hearing testimony in his opening statement to the jury, defendant could not urge a hearsay objection. Additionally, we cannot agree with defendant that the mere appearance of the poster could have been so official that it caused the jury to prejudge Rowan's credibility.
(14) Defendant contends that the prosecutor improperly emphasized Rowan's immunity in his guilt phase argument. The prosecutor said, Mel Rowan received immunity in this case. Mr. Farley [defense counsel] has told us that he has every motive to lie to you, but the fact remains that once Mel Rowan received that immunity, he could come up here and testify as to what happened during the course of those crimes and go completely protected from any prosecution. Defendant contends this argument was misleading because Rowan was obliged to testify consistently with his preliminary hearing testimony or risk prosecution for perjury. For the same reasons we rejected this argument as applied to Brian Buckley, we reject it as to Mel Rowan. (See, ante, at p. 826, fn. 8.) ( People v. Allen, supra, 42 Cal.3d at p. 1254.) Defendant relies on People v. Morris (1988) 46 Cal.3d 1 [249 Cal. Rptr. 119, 756 P.2d 843] for a contrary result, but that case is inapposite. In Morris, the prosecutor argued that the witness had received no benefit from testifying, and that the jury would have heard about it had any evidence of such a benefit existed. In fact, however, the witness had benefited from his preliminary hearing testimony, in that a parole violation and other charges had been favorably disposed of a year before trial. ( Id. at p. 33.) We noted that the nondisclosure rendered the prosecutor's argument misleading. We rejected the People's contention that the argument was accurate because the witness had received a benefit not for his trial testimony but for his preliminary hearing testimony: the witness, we noted, reasonably could have believed he owed an ongoing debt to the prosecution in return for his freedom. Here, by contrast, the prosecutor fully disclosed the benefit Rowan received. In any event, defense counsel was free to point out the possibility that Rowan might have been subject to perjury charges if he testified inconsistently with his preliminary hearing testimony.