Opinion ID: 1152592
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Defense counsel's questioning.

Text: (11a) Defendant claims his counsel were incompetent because they failed to secure the admission of the testimony of witnesses Sandoval and Croffoot regarding defendant's drug use in the hours before the crime. As noted above, these defense witnesses asserted the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. Defendant faults counsel for failing to demonstrate to the trial court that the defense could propound specific questions regarding the witnesses' observation of defendant's drug and alcohol use on the day of the crimes that would not have focused on the witness's activities and hence would not have implicated the witnesses' Fifth Amendment rights. Through such a course, he claims, counsel could have secured essential evidence in support of defendant's claim of intoxication and unconsciousness. Defendant's claim depends on the assumption the court would have required the witnesses to answer questions regarding their observation of defendant's activities. His claim is speculative. He does not state what questions should have been asked, nor can he, on the appellate record, establish what the answers would have been to more specific questions. Moreover, he cannot demonstrate the court would have or should have required the witnesses to answer questions directed to their observations of defendant, as opposed to those directed to the witnesses' own activities. As we explain, the court could reasonably conclude the proposed testimony might tend to incriminate the witnesses. Defendant's claim depends upon an unduly restrictive view of the privilege against self-incrimination. (12) Witnesses may refuse to answer questions calling for a potential link in a chain of evidence of guilt, as well as questions calling for clear admissions against penal interest. ( People v. Cudjo (1993) 6 Cal.4th 585, 616 [25 Cal. Rptr.2d 390, 863 P.2d 635]; People v. Ford (1988) 45 Cal.3d 431, 441 [247 Cal. Rptr. 121, 754 P.2d 168].) Although the court should make a particularized inquiry as to whether or not a claim of privilege is well founded ( Blackburn v. Superior Court (1993) 21 Cal. App.4th 414, 428 [27 Cal. Rptr.2d 204]), in order to approve invocation of the privilege `it need only be evident from the implications of the question, in the setting in which it is asked, that a responsive answer to the question or an explanation of why it cannot be answered might be dangerous because injurious disclosure could result.' ( People v. Cudjo, supra, 6 Cal.4th at p. 617, quoting Hoffman v. United States (1951) 341 U.S. 479, 486 [95 L.Ed. 1118, 1123-1124, 71 S.Ct. 814].) Innocent persons, as well as the guilty, are entitled to invoke the privilege. As the high court has declared, `[t]he privilege serves to protect the innocent who otherwise might be ensnared by ambiguous circumstances.' ( Grunewald v. United States (1957) 353 U.S. 391, 421 [1 L.Ed.2d 931, 953, 77 S.Ct. 963]; see also Ratner, Consequences of Exercising the Privilege Against Self-Incrimination (1957) 24 U. Chi. L.Rev. 472, 472-473.) Further, as we have noted, our Evidence Code provides that when a witness grounds refusal to testify on the privilege against self-incrimination, a trial court may compel the witness to answer only if it `clearly appears to the court' that the proposed testimony `cannot possibly have a tendency to incriminate the person claiming the privilege.' (Evid. Code, § 404.) ( People v. Cudjo, supra, 6 Cal.4th at p. 617.) (11b) Here, defendant proposed to ask the witnesses a series of questions regarding their activities with him on the date of the crime, including their use of controlled substances, their observations regarding his use of controlled substances, and their other activities together with defendant that day. Even if counsel had limited the questions to the witnesses' observations of defendant, we cannot say on this record the court would or should have refused to permit the witnesses to invoke the privilege against self-incrimination. Naturally, any testimony regarding the witnesses' observation of defendant's condition would call for cross-examination directed at the witnesses' opportunity and ability to observe. Such questions would subject the witnesses to the same danger of self-incrimination as would the questions of defense counsel of which defendant now complains. Moreover, the prosecutor made it clear that independent witnesses placed Sandoval and Croffoot with defendant at a time close to the time of the crimes, and placed Croffoot with defendant as little as half an hour before the murders. The prosecutor also explained that the physical evidence did not rule out the possibility that more than one person perpetrated the murders. Thus, not only could any question about the witnesses' observations regarding defendant's drug ingestion provide a link in the chain of evidence establishing their own illegal use of drugs, but, as the prosecutor chillingly pointed out, any testimony useful to establish defendant's state of intoxication near the time of the crime could provide a link in the chain of evidence tending to incriminate the witnesses as accomplices or accessories in a double murder. (See People v. Ford, supra, 45 Cal.3d at p. 442, fn. 7 [if no alibi defense, witness may invoke privilege regarding association with defendant prior to crime because of risk of inference of aiding and abetting the defendant].) The possibility is at best remote that had defense counsel framed their questions differently, the court would have required the witnesses to answer questions regarding their activities with defendant on the night of the crimes. Nor can we evaluate whether any alleged incompetence was prejudicial, without a record that establishes the answers to such questions. Defendant's reliance on Brown v. United States (1958) 356 U.S. 148 [2 L.Ed.2d 589, 78 S.Ct. 622, 72 A.L.R.2d 818] for the proposition that a witness may testify as to certain matters, but may invoke the privilege on cross-examination before the reliability of his testimony has been tested fully, is misplaced. In Brown, the court held that a defendant who took the stand in her own defense could not refuse, on the ground of the privilege against self-incrimination, to answer questions on cross-examination relevant to her testimony on direct examination. The court reasoned that such a witness voluntarily waives the privilege when she volunteers to testify. The high court distinguished a case in which a witness compelled by subpoena to testify in a bankruptcy proceeding was permitted to invoke the privilege for the first time in cross-examination. The court pointed out that in such a case, the witness had no occasion to invoke the privilege until testimony was sought that would tend to incriminate. At that point, the invocation had to be respected, though it would permit the witness to withdraw from the cross-fire of interrogation before the reliability of his testimony has been fully tested. ( Id. at p. 155 [2 L.Ed.2d at p. 597].) This observation is inapposite here, where our review of the record indicates that in fact, any question relevant to defendant's defense would present a clear danger of incriminating the witnesses. The People argue defense counsel had no obligation to ask specific questions and require the witnesses to invoke the privilege as to each, citing People v. Cornejo (1979) 92 Cal. App.3d 637, 658-659 [155 Cal. Rptr. 238].) In that case, the Court of Appeal determined the court had no obligation to require the meaningless ritual of asking a litany of specific questions of a witness who had made it clear he would answer no questions and would invoke the privilege as to any relevant question. In Cornejo, the court had information before it making it plain that the witness's federal parole prohibited him from acting as an informant, but that [a]ll relevant questions which would have been posed to [the witness] could only have related to his activities as an informant. ( Id. at p. 658; see also People v. Hill (1992) 3 Cal.4th 959, 991 [13 Cal. Rptr.2d 475, 839 P.2d 984] [no need to conduct meaningless ritual of requiring witness to invoke privilege before jury].) The Cornejo case is of limited relevance, however, because there was no claim, as here, that counsel was ineffective for failing to pursue a certain line of questioning that would not present a danger of incriminating the witness. To the extent it was clear to counsel in this case, however, that the witnesses intended to invoke the privilege as to any question regarding their activities with defendant on the night of the crimes, such a circumstance does undermine defendant's claim that counsel should have put other questions to the witnesses.