Opinion ID: 2588259
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Exclusion of evidence of victim's violence

Text: At trial the defense sought to portray murder victim Bud Smith as a violent, manipulative man who had threatened defendant with physical violence if he did not pay Smith his drug debts and overdue rent. The defense sought to introduce evidence of Smith's past violent reprisals for unpaid debts to establish provocation sufficient to reduce defendant's killing of Smith to second degree murder, and to bolster the defense that defendant formed an intent to rob only after he completed his attacks on Smith and Balestri, and thus did not kill Smith in the course of a robbery. Consistent with this theory, defense counsel in opening statement told the jury the defense would elicit testimony from two witnesses that Smith had forcibly evicted former housemate Pat Malone for not paying rent, and that Balestri and defendant were present when Smith had done so. On cross-examination, Balestri testified that Smith had evicted Malone with force. The trial court overruled the prosecutor's objection that the character of the deceased is not relevant. Defense counsel then asked Balestri if she remembered Billy Mackey and a dispute between Mackey and Smith over money Mackey owed Smith. After the trial court sustained the prosecutor's relevance objection, defense counsel asked Balestri: It's true, isn't it, that when people owed Bud money and they didn't pay physical violence often occurred. The trial court sustained the prosecutor's relevance objection. Defendant argues that this last ruling was erroneous because the evidence he sought to elicit was not character evidence of Smith's prior bad acts (Evid. Code, § 1103, subd. (a)), but was evidence of Smith's conduct that was part of the events surrounding the crime. The claim is unpersuasive. Smith's customary debt collection practices were not relevant to show defendant's state of mind at the time he killed Smith unless defendant knew of those practices. Defendant did present evidence of Smith's violence directed at Malone in defendant's presence. There was no evidence, however, that defendant knew of violent acts by Smith against Mackey. Defendant contends the trial court should not have sustained the prosecutor's relevance objection when defense counsel asked Pat Malone about the circumstances in which [he] left the [Smith] house. We disagree. Balestri had already testified that Smith had forcibly evicted Malone. The trial court could reasonably have found that the broadly framed question might get an answer going well beyond Smith's violent behavior. Only relevant evidence is admissible, and the trial court has broad discretion to determine the relevance of evidence. ( People v. Scheid (1997) 16 Cal.4th 1, 13-14, 65 Cal.Rptr.2d 348, 939 P.2d 748.) Defense counsel asked Paul Jorgensen, who visited Smith daily in the fall of 1985, if he had heard Smith make threats about what Smith would do if defendant tried to leave the house without paying his debts. The trial court sustained the prosecutor's hearsay objection. Defense counsel responded, I'm offering it for the purpose of state of mind. An out-of-court statement is admissible as an exception to the hearsay rule when offered to prove the declarant's state of mind, provided the declarant's state of mind is at issue. (Evid.Code, § 1250, subd. (a)(1).) Whether or not the statement was hearsay, any threat Smith may have made was irrelevant. Smith's state of mind was not at issue, nor was it relevant to show his conduct in conformity with that state of mind, because he was asleep when he was shot. (Evid.Code, § 1250, subd. (a)(2); People v. Ireland (1969) 70 Cal.2d 522, 530-531, 75 Cal.Rptr. 188, 450 P.2d 580.) Thus the court did not err in sustaining the prosecutor's objection. Defendant contends these isolated rulings had the effect of preventing him from establishing a pattern of provocation created by Smith's threats. We disagree. The United States Constitution guarantees criminal defendants a meaningful opportunity to present a defense. ( Crane v. Kentucky (1986) 476 U.S. 683, 690, 106 S.Ct. 2142, 90 L.Ed.2d 636.) Evidence that falls short of exonerating a defendant may still be critical to a defense. ( Delaney v. Superior Court (1990) 50 Cal.3d 785, 809, 268 Cal.Rptr. 753, 789 P.2d 934.) Here the trial court's rulings did not prevent defendant from presenting evidence from which the jury might have concluded defendant's killing of Smith was the result of provocation. Defendant introduced evidence that Smith was adamant about being repaid and, in defendant's presence, had forcibly evicted Malone for nonpayment of rent. In closing argument, defense counsel emphasized defendant's increasingly desperate plight as his debt to Smith grew day by day, and characterized defendant's attack as an outburst of rage rather than an act of premeditated murder or murder for the purpose of robbery. In these circumstances we cannot conclude that the trial court's rulings prevented defendant from presenting those defenses.