Opinion ID: 2509517
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Evidence of Prior Violent Acts

Text: We earlier summarized the evidence of four prior violent acts by defendant. (See 25 Cal.Rptr.3d at 560, 107 P.3d at 234, ante. ) Evidence of unadjudicated violent acts is admissible under section 190.3, factor (b). (See People v. Michaels, supra, 28 Cal.4th at p. 541, 122 Cal. Rptr.2d 285, 49 P.3d 1032; People v. Carpenter, supra, 15 Cal.4th at p. 401, 63 Cal.Rptr.2d 1, 935 P.2d 708.) In two memorandum opinions dissenting from the denial of certiorari, United States Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall questioned whether evidence of unadjudicated violent acts should be excluded as unreliable. (See Robertson v. California (1989) 493 U.S. 879, 110 S.Ct. 216, 107 L.Ed.2d 169; Williams v. Lynaugh (1987) 484 U.S. 935, 108 S.Ct. 311, 98 L.Ed.2d 270.) Citing those opinions, defendant argues that the admission of this evidence violated his rights under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the federal Constitution. We rejected a similar contention in People v. Koontz (2002) 27 Cal.4th 1041, 1095, 119 Cal.Rptr.2d 859, 46 P.3d 335 and in People v. Kraft (2000) 23 Cal.4th 978, 1078, 99 Cal.Rptr.2d 1, 5 P.3d 68. Defendant argues that his previous crimes, in particular the alleged false imprisonment of young Brian Francis and the alleged battery of young Brian Due, are such trivial matters that they have little bearing on the appropriateness of the death penalty. He questions whether these acts constituted crimes, maintaining that they are simply incidents of children's play. But defendant's act of holding Brian Francis to a wall and threatening to hit him with a ball if he tried to run constitutes false imprisonment (see § 236; People v. Bamba (1997) 58 Cal.App.4th 1113, 1123, 68 Cal.Rptr.2d 450); and defendant's act of choking Brian Due is a battery (see People v. Rocha (1971) 3 Cal.3d 893, 900, fn. 12, 92 Cal.Rptr. 172, 479 P.2d 372). Whether those acts were serious enough to be given weight in the penalty determination is a matter for the jury to decide.