Opinion ID: 2545831
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Prior statements of Jeanne Aplington

Text: Jeanne Aplington was defendant's girlfriend for about three years, including the summer of 1985 when his mother disappeared. On June 12, 1985, a few days after defendant reported his mother missing, Butte County District Attorney investigator Tony Koester interviewed Aplington and prepared a report. On November 18, 1985, the Butte County District Attorney's Office deposed Aplington. The prosecution subpoenaed Aplington to testify at the penalty phase of defendant's capital trial. She appeared with counsel, but refused to talk to the prosecutor. The trial court held a hearing outside the jury's presence to decide whether the prosecutor could use prior statements by Aplington from her June 12, 1985, interview by investigator Koester and her November 18, 1985, deposition to impeach her before the jury. At that hearing, Aplington claimed she could not remember the statements she made to investigator Koester and in her deposition. The trial court ruled that Aplington had given a series of evasive answers and her stated lapse of memories are in effect denials, and therefore, over defense objection, allowed the prosecutor to use Aplington's Prior statements to impeach her. The statements included (1) claims by Aplington that she spoke by telephone with Geraldine Sapp on June 4 and 5, 1985, and that defendant spent the night of June 5, 1985, at Aplington's home in Contra Costa County, and (2) recitations by Aplington of defendant's comments implicating himself in Geraldine's disappearance. Defendant now contends that these prior statements by Aplington were inadmissible hearsay (Evid.Code, ง 1200) whose admission denied him the right of confrontation under the Sixth Amendment to the federal Constitution. Because defendant concedes that defense counsel did not raise a Sixth Amendment objection in the trial court, that issue is not properly before us. In any event, we reject the contention. A statement by a witness that is inconsistent with his or her trial testimony is admissible to establish the truth of the matter asserted in the statement under the conditions set forth in Evidence Code sections 1235 and 770. ( People v. Johnson (1992) 3 Cal.4th 1183, 1219, 14 Cal. Rptr.2d 702, 842 P.2d 1.) Those statutes, as relevant here, provide for the admission against a hearsay challenge of a prior statement by a witness if the statement is inconsistent with his testimony at the hearing and is offered in compliance with Section 770. (Evid.Code, ง 1235.) Under Evidence Code section 770, prior inconsistent statements are admissible only if: (a) The witness was so examined while testifying as to give him an opportunity to explain or to deny the statement; or [A] (b) The witness has not been excused from giving further testimony in the action. Defendant does not deny that the conditions of Evidence Code section 770 were satisfied here. Rather, he asserts that Aplington's trial testimony was not inconsistent with her former statements because she testified that she could not recall either the specific events in 1985 regarding the disappearance of defendant's mother or what she had said about those events at that time. We spoke to this exact issue in People v. Johnson, supra, 3 Cal.4th at page 1219, 14 Cal. Rptr.2d 702, 842 P.2d 1: Normally, the testimony of a witness that he or she does not remember an event is not inconsistent with that witness's prior statement describing the event. [Citation.] However, courts do not apply this rule mechanically. `Inconsistency in effect, rather than contradiction in express terms, is the test for admitting a witness' prior statement [citation], and the same principle governs the case of the forgetful witness.' [Citation.] When a witness's claim of lack of memory amounts to deliberate evasion, inconsistency is implied. [Citation.] As long as there is a reasonable basis in the record for concluding that the witness's `I don't remember' statements are evasive and untruthful, admission of his or her prior statements is proper. (Italics added.) That is the situation here. Ample evidence supports the trial court's determination that Aplington's lack of memory amounted to deliberate evasion. Thus, there was no state law error. Furthermore, admission of Aplington's prior statements under one of this state's traditional hearsay rule exceptions did not implicate defendant's Sixth Amendment right to confront and cross-examine her because she testified and thus was subject to defendant's cross-examination. ( People v. Zapien (1993) 4 Cal.4th 929, 955, 17 Cal. Rptr.2d 122, 846 P.2d 704.) Because there was no confrontation clause violation, we reject on the merits defendant's claim that his trial counsel was ineffective in failing to object to the admission of Aplington's prior inconsistent statements on that ground.