Opinion ID: 2575864
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Weapon Possession in Jail

Text: In regard to the prosecution's evidence at the penalty phase that defendant illegally possessed a weapon in the county jail, defendant claims, first, that the evidence was insufficient to establish that the weapon he possessed was a deadly weapon within the meaning of section 4574; second, that the trial court misinstructed the jury regarding the elements of a section 4574 violation; and, third, that the trial court should not have permitted the jury at the penalty phase to consider the section 4574 violation as an aggravating circumstance because the offense does not necessarily involve an actual or implied threat of violence. Section 4574 makes it a felony for a county jail inmate to possess a deadly weapon. Within the meaning of this penal statute, an object is a deadly weapon if it has a reasonable potential of inflicting great bodily injury or death. ( People v. Pollock, supra, 32 Cal.4th at p. 1178, 13 Cal.Rptr.3d 34, 89 P.3d 353; see People v. Hughes (2002) 27 Cal.4th 287, 383, 116 Cal.Rptr.2d 401, 39 P.3d 432.) Arguing that here the prosecution's evidence was insufficient to establish that the weapon he possessed had a reasonable potential of inflicting great bodily injury or death, defendant asserts that the evidence did not show which of several weapons he possessed and that some of the weapons, such as soap bars in socks, were incapable of inflicting great bodily injury. We disagree with defendant's characterization of the evidence. Mark Thiede testified, on direct examination, that on September 5, 1993, he was working as a deputy sheriff at the county jail in San Diego when he saw groups of Black and Hispanic inmates facing off against each other in one of the tanks. Several Hispanic inmates had steel poles or posts that they were slamming against the steel bunks and using to make stabbing motions to keep the Black inmates in another part of the room. He later wrote a report identifying four inmates who possessed weapons. Defendant was one of the four. Asked to describe with a little more particularity what type of weapons . . . these inmates were possessing, Thiede replied: The weapons that was used in the riot, they're bars about between 12 and 18 inches long, quarter inch in diameter. There was also socks. They take a sock and they put two, one or two bars of soap in the socks to make it weighted. You can use that as a clubbing instrument. Thin pieces about a half inch wide, five or six inches long with tape on the end that you can sharpen down to a point. Those are I believe the weapons that were found.  (Italics added.) Defendant argues that from this testimony the jury could not determine which weapon, of the several that Deputy Thiede described, he had possessed during the riot, and thus the jury could not determine whether the weapon satisfied the section 4574 definition of a deadly weapon. The more likely interpretation of this testimony, we think, is that defendant was one of four inmates that Thiede saw wielding the steel poles or posts and that the other weapons were merely found during a later search of the tank. Moreover, any confusion or uncertainty in this regard was dispelled by cross-examination. Defense counsel asked: You never saw Mr. Jurado, or the person that you identified as Mr. Jurado, that is, the person in the tank that you said had the pipe, you never saw that individual strike anybody, did you? (Italics added.) Thiede replied, No, I didn't. Thus, the evidence before the jury sufficiently established that defendant possessed one of the steel objects 12 to 18 inches in lengthvariously described as poles, posts, bars, and pipesthat the inmates were slamming against bunks and using to make stabbing motions. As defendant does not dispute, an object of this sort is capable of inflicting great bodily injury or death, and thus it is a deadly weapon within the meaning of section 4574. We next consider defendant's claim that the trial court misinstructed the jury regarding the elements of a section 4574 violation. Specifically, the trial court instructed the jury that in reaching the penalty verdict it could consider evidence that defendant had engaged in criminal activity that involved the express or implied use of force or violence or the threat of force or violence. The court then stated: And indeed, evidence has been introduced during this phase of the trial for the purpose of showing and proving that [defendant] committed the following criminal activity: . . . possession of a weapon in the county jail. Defendant contends that this instruction was inaccurate or at least misleading because it referred merely to a weapon rather than a deadly weapon. As defendant recognizes, we considered a similar claim in People v. Hughes, supra, 27 Cal.4th 287, 116 Cal.Rptr.2d 401, 39 P.3d 432. There, the prosecution introduced evidence at the penalty phase of a capital trial that the defendant while in a county jail had possessed a four-inch, slightly bent but straightened, hard, sharp object with a loop at the end. ( Id. at p. 381, 116 Cal.Rptr.2d 401, 39 P.3d 432.) The trial court instructed the jury that `evidence has been introduced for the purpose of showing that the defendant has committed the following criminal act: possession of a sharpened instrument while confined in the county jail. . . .' ( Id. at p. 382, 116 Cal.Rptr.2d 401, 39 P.3d 432.) We concluded that the trial court had erred in instructing in these terms because possessing a sharpened instrument while confined in the county jail was, at the time, and without more (that is, a showing that the object was a deadly weapon), not a crime. ( Id. at p. 383, 116 Cal.Rptr.2d 401, 39 P.3d 432.) The trial court's instruction should have used the words `deadly weapon' rather than `sharpened instrument,' an error we characterized as minor. ( Id. at p. 384, 116 Cal.Rptr.2d 401, 39 P.3d 432.) We also concluded, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant was not prejudiced by the error. We observed that the object the defendant had possessed qualified as deadly weapon under section 4754. ( People v. Hughes, supra, 27 Cal.4th at p. 383, 116 Cal.Rptr.2d 401, 39 P.3d 432.) We reasoned: To find prejudice, we would need to hypothesize two things, which tend to be self-canceling: (i) that the jury would consider the shank, although a sharpened instrument, not to be a deadly weapon, and (ii) that despite such a finding, the jury nonetheless considered the evidence to be so important that it affected the penalty determination. [¶] It is quite unlikely that the jury would find the object to be a sharpened instrument but not a deadly weapon. But if the jury made that improbable finding, thus minimizing the seriousness of the evidence, it is also quite unlikely that it would then consider the evidence to be so important as to control, or even have a significant impact upon, the penalty determination. ( Id. at p. 384; 116 Cal.Rptr.2d 401, 39 P.3d 432; see also People v. Pollock, supra, 32 Cal.4th at p. 1179, 13 Cal.Rptr.3d 34, 89 P.3d 353.) Similarly here, we conclude that defendant was not prejudiced by the trial court's description of the alleged criminal conduct as defendant's possession of a weapon rather than a deadly weapon. It is quite unlikely that the jury would view the object that defendant possesseda steel rod or bar 12 to 18 inches in lengthas a weapon but not a deadly weapon. It is also quite unlikely that if the jury made such an improbable finding, it would then nonetheless treat the incident as sufficiently aggravating to have affected the penalty verdict. The combination of these improbabilities persuades us beyond a reasonable doubt that the instructional error was harmless. Defendant also argues that the instruction was erroneous insofar as it required the jury to treat defendant's possession of a deadly weapon in county jail as aggravating without making its own determination that the conduct involved actual or threatened force or violence. Defendant argues that the instruction precluded the jury from considering any possible innocent explanation for his weapon possession. We have previously rejected this argument ( People v. Gray, supra, 37 Cal.4th at p. 235, 33 Cal.Rptr.3d 451, 118 P.3d 496; People v. Monterroso (2004) 34 Cal.4th 743, 793, 22 Cal.Rptr.3d 1, 101 P.3d 956), and defendant does not persuade us to reconsider these decisions. Finally, we reject defendant's argument that the trial court should not have permitted the jury at the penalty phase to consider the section 4574 violation as an aggravating circumstance because the offense does not necessarily involve illegal violence. This court has consistently concluded, to the contrary, that a prisoner's possession of a weapon is conduct that necessarily involves an actual or implied threat to use force or violence. (E.g., People v. Hines (1997) 15 Cal.4th 997, 1057, 64 Cal.Rptr.2d 594, 938 P.2d 388; People v. Ramirez (1990) 50 Cal.3d 1158, 1186-1187, 270 Cal.Rptr. 286, 791 P.2d 965; People v. Harris (1981) 28 Cal.3d 935, 962-963, 171 Cal.Rptr. 679, 623 P.2d 240.) The trier of fact is free to consider any `innocent explanation' for defendant's possession of the item, but such inferences do not render the evidence inadmissible per se. ( People v. Tuilaepa (1992) 4 Cal.4th 569, 589, 15 Cal.Rptr.2d 382, 842 P.2d 1142.)