Opinion ID: 1291295
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Consideration of Waidla's Probation Report

Text: Because Waidla was sentenced prior to defendant's modification hearing and the same judge presided in both cases, defendant claims the trial court must have considered information from the probation officer's report prepared for Waidla's sentencing in denying defendant's motion for modification of sentence. Consideration of the Waidla report, defendant contends, violated his due process and Eighth Amendment rights because, defendant asserts, the report was not available to his trial attorney (see § 1203.05 [limiting availability of probation reports to nonparties]); defendant claims he was thereby sentenced on the basis of information he did not have a full opportunity to confront or rebut. (See Gardner v. Florida (1977) 430 U.S. 349, 97 S.Ct. 1197, 51 L.Ed.2d 393 [capital sentencing based in part on confidential portion of the defendant's presentence investigation report, which was not disclosed to defense counsel, violated due process].) [15] The record, however, provides not the slightest reason to suppose the trial court here relied upon or considered the Waidla report in denying defendant's modification motion. To the contrary, the court expressly stated it had not considered even defendant's probation report on the issue of the capital sentence. The Waidla report was not mentioned by the court or any party at the modification hearing. Although the court had presumably read the Waidla report some months earlier in connection with the noncapital portion of Waidla's sentencing, there is nothing in the record to suggest that the court relied on anything other than the evidence before the jury ( People v. Holt (1997) 15 Cal.4th 619, 694, 63 Cal.Rptr.2d 782, 937 P.2d 213) in denying defendant's modification motion. Gardner v. Florida is readily distinguishable. The trial judge there stated for the record that his decision in favor of a death sentence was based on the evidence presented [at trial], the arguments of counsel, and his review of `the factual information contained in said pre-sentence investigation.' ( Gardner v. Florida, supra, 430 U.S. at p. 353, 97 S.Ct. 1197, quoting trial record.) The high court found Gardner was denied due process of law when the death sentence was imposed, at least in part, on the basis of information which he had no opportunity to deny or explain. ( Id. at p. 362, 97 S.Ct. 1197.) As we have just seen, however, the record in the present case provides no support for an assumption defendant's death sentence was based, in any part, on the Waidla probation report.