Opinion ID: 1399120
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Admission of Buckley Plea Agreement

Text: 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]