Opinion ID: 2624500
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Evidence Regarding Continuing Investigation

Text: Finally, defendant argues the trial court erred in refusing, under Evidence Code section 352, to allow evidence that in 1988 and 1989, years after his 1981 conviction, the district attorney's office conducted investigations into allegations that Jessie Moffett, a defendant in another murder case, bragged to others that he took part in the murder of Eleanore Buchanan. Again, we find no error. Before the penalty retrial, defendant learned that in 1988, detectives of the San Diego Police Department interrogated one Rory Keller regarding a series of residential robberies. During the interrogation, Keller told Detective Bordine that her boyfriend, Jessie Moffett, confessed to her that in 1979 he was involved in several murders, including the one that Bernard Hamilton got blamed for. [15] Keller also told Bordine that her mother, Geraldine Elmore, told her that a Clarence Horn told her defendant was at his house at the time of Eleanore Buchanan's murder and therefore could not have participated in the murder. Investigators interviewed Geraldine Elmore in 1989. [16] Defendant now argues the court erred in not allowing him to support his defense of lingering doubt by establishing, through the testimony of the investigators, the fact that investigation continued into the murder of Eleanore Buchanan years after defendant's conviction for the crime. The trial court did not err. The record reveals the investigators concluded the only evidence that might have implicated Jessie Moffett in the murder of Eleanore Buchanan was this one kind of wild hair statement of Rory Keller. The court did not abuse its discretion in concluding this evidence bore little probative value to the defense of lingering doubt and thus properly excluded it under Evidence Code section 352.