Opinion ID: 2632408
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Denial of Motion to Sever Counts 6 and 10

Text: Prior to trial, defendant moved to sever from the information count 6 (first degree burglary) and count 10 (conspiracy to commit murder), which involved charges arising out of defendant's return to the victims' apartment after the shootings. Count 6 charged defendant with burglary based upon his theft of several items when he returned to the apartment; count 10 charged defendant with conspiracy to commit murder because he returned to the scene in order to make sure Martin was dead. The trial court denied defendant's motion to sever these counts from the information. Defendant now contends that the trial court's failure to sever those counts was an abuse of discretion requiring reversal of the judgment, because [t]he evidence supporting Counts 6 and 10 was extraordinarily prejudicial and added nothing on the question of [defendant's] personal culpability for the deaths of Dorsey and Martin. He contends that this violated his rights to a fair trial under the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments. `The law prefers consolidation of charges.' ( People v. Manriquez (2005) 37 Cal.4th 547, 574, 36 Cal.Rptr.3d 340, 123 P.3d 614; People v. Ochoa (1998) 19 Cal.4th 353, 409, 79 Cal.Rptr.2d 408, 966 P.2d 442.) An accusatory pleading may charge two or more different offenses connected together in their commission, or different statements of the same offense or two or more different offenses of the same class of crimes or offenses, under separate counts, and if two or more accusatory pleadings are filed in such cases in the same court, the court may order them to be consolidated. (§ 954.) We review the trial court's denial of a severance motion for abuse of discretion. ( People v. Ochoa, supra, 19 Cal.4th at p. 408, 79 Cal.Rptr.2d 408, 966 P.2d 442.) On appeal, the court must consider whether a gross unfairness occurred that denied defendant a fair trial or due process. ( People v. Cleveland (2004) 32 Cal.4th 704, 726, 11 Cal.Rptr.3d 236, 86 P.3d 302.) To demonstrate that a denial of severance was reversible error, defendant must `clearly establish that there [was] a substantial danger of prejudice requiring that the charges be separately tried.' ( People v. Davis (1995) 10 Cal.4th 463, 508, 41 Cal.Rptr.2d 826, 896 P.2d 119, quoting Frank v. Superior Court (1989) 48 Cal.3d 632, 640, 257 Cal.Rptr. 550, 770 P.2d 1119.) Refusal to sever charges on a defendant's motion may be an abuse of discretion where: `(1) evidence on the crimes to be jointly tried would not be cross-admissible in separate trials; (2) certain of the charges are unusually likely to inflame the jury against the defendant; (3) a weak case has been joined with a strong case, or with another weak case, so that the spillover effect of aggregate evidence on several charges might well alter the outcome of some or all of the charges; and (4) any one of the charges carries the death penalty.' ( People v. Davis, supra, 10 Cal.4th at p. 508, 41 Cal.Rptr.2d 826, 896 P.2d 119 (joinder of claims was appropriate in a capital case], quoting People v. Balderas (1985) 41 Cal.3d 144, 173, 222 Cal.Rptr. 184, 711 P.2d 480.) The trial court in this case properly exercised its discretion in denying defendant's motion to sever. The statutory requirements for joinder were met in this case. The crimes charged in the counts defendant sought to sever were connected in their commission to the other charges the crimes charged in counts 6 and It) were no more than a continuation of the earlier crimes, involving the same victims, the same crime scene, and occurred on the same night as the charged murders. Defendant does not dispute that the crimes charged in counts 6 and 10 were connected in their commission to the remaining charged offenses. Rather, defendant maintains that the trial court abused its discretion because the evidence offered in support of those claims was not cross-admissible to prove the remaining charges and was likely to inflame the jury against defendant. Defendant asserts that the evidence supporting counts 6 and 10 was irrelevant to defendant's personal culpability for the murders of Dorsey and Martin. Even assuming that defendant is correct, this court has noted that complete cross-admissibility is not necessary to justify joinder. ( People v. Cummings (1993) 4 Cal.4th 1233, 1284, 18 Cal.Rptr.2d 796, 850 P.2d 1.) Additionally, because defendant's return to the apartment to confirm that Martin was dead is relevant to whether the murder was premeditated, it is reasonably probable that evidence relating to the return visit would have been admissible even if the court had ordered severance. In People v. Alvarez (1996) 14 Cal.4th 155, 58. Cal.Rptr.2d 385, 926 P.2d 365, this court found denial of a motion to sever appropriate where two crimes were connected in their commission by a close temporal and spatial relationship, and where the later crime may have been connected to a desire to avoid apprehension for the earlier crime. ( Id. at p. 188, 58 Cal. Rptr.2d 385, 926 P.2d 365.) Here, the evidence tended to show that defendant returned to the victims' apartment hours after the murders were committed in order to confirm that Martin was dead and unable to snitch. Defendant's return to the apartment was certainly close in time (the same night) and space (the same apartment) to the earlier crimes. Additionally, defendant returned to the scene of the earlier crimes in order to assure himself that Martin would not be able to identify defendant as the perpetrator. The earlier crimes committed by defendant were so tightly intertwined temporally, spatially, and motivationally with the latter crimes so as to constitute a continuation of the former. None of the other relevant factors support defendant's contention that counts 6 and 10 should have been severed. The charged offenses of burglary and conspiracy to commit murder were no more likely to inflame the jury against defendant than were the remaining counts. Nor were any of the charged offenses joined to take advantage of a spillover effect of aggregate evidence; all charges were proved with the same body of evidence. We therefore hold that the trial court acted within its discretion in denying defendant's motion to sever counts 6 and 10.