Opinion ID: 2630926
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Other Crimes As Motive for, or to Facilitate, Flight (Letner, Tobin)

Text: The trial court instructed the jury, pursuant to a modified version of CALJIC No. 2.50, that evidence concerning defendants' commission of crimes other than those charged in this case had been admitted for the limited purpose of demonstrating either motive for flight or facilitation of flight. The jury was not permitted to consider that evidence for any other purpose, such as defendants' predisposition to commit crimes. Defendants contend the giving of this instruction was constitutional error. Again without considering the trial court's instruction that the case against each defendant was to be considered separately, defendants initially reiterate the claim we have found meritless that the instruction failed to distinguish between them. Second, defendants contend that the instruction was erroneous because it failed to identify precisely which other-crimes evidence had been admitted. This contention is misplaced. We have held that in order to avoid confusion in a case in which evidence of a defendant's criminal activity includes not only convictions admitted to impeach the defendant's own testimony, but also other-crimes evidence admitted under section 1101, subdivision (b) of the Evidence Code, the trial court must specify which evidence is referred to in the CALJIC No. 2.50 instruction given to the jury. ( People v. Catlin (2001) 26 Cal.4th 81, 148 [109 Cal.Rptr.2d 31, 26 P.3d 357]; People v. Rollo (1977) 20 Cal.3d 109, 123, fn. 6 [141 Cal.Rptr. 177, 569 P.2d 771] [CALJIC instructions are properly neutral and objective, but in certain circumstances clarity requires that they be made to refer specifically to the facts of the case before the court.].) There was no possibility of such confusion in the present case, because no criminal impeachment evidence was offered. Therefore, the trial court's instruction remained properly neutral and objective by not referring to particular crimes. (36) Finally, defendants attack the propriety of giving the instruction at all. Letner argues in a conclusory fashion that the instruction was not logical or permissible. To the contrary, evidence establishing that, for example, Tobinwith Letner's encouragementassaulted Jeanette Mayberry and vandalized her apartment and car only the day before Pontbriant was murdered, and that defendants were found driving Pontbriant's car on a highway leading out of town, tended to demonstrate that defendants had a reason to leave Visalia (that is, the possibility of criminal charges being filed against them), and that they had robbed and murdered Pontbriant in order to facilitate their departure. Similarly, a rational juror could find that the circumstance that Letner was in possession of stolen property, which defendants took with them in the victim's car, was evidence tending to demonstrate they were fleeing town after robbing and murdering Pontbriant, because they brought this merchandise with them in order to sell it to pay their travel expenses. Tobin's argumentthat the other-crimes evidence should not have been admitted because it was not similar to the charged offensesis entirely off the mark. The requirements we acknowledged in People v. Ewoldt (1994) 7 Cal.4th 380, 402-403 [27 Cal.Rptr.2d 646, 867 P.2d 757] (upon which Tobin relies) concerning the degree of similarity between the charged offenses and the other crimes evidence required to prove intent, identity, or a common design or plan, are inapplicable in the present case, because the evidence at issue was not admitted for any of those purposes. (See People v. Demetrulias (2006) 39 Cal.4th 1, 15 [45 Cal.Rptr.3d 407, 137 P.3d 229] [the probativeness of other-crimes evidence on the issue of motive does not necessarily depend on similarities between the charged and uncharged crimes, so long as the offenses have a direct logical nexus].)