Opinion ID: 2507176
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Exclusion of the Evidence Was Prejudicial

Text: Error in admitting or excluding evidence at the penalty phase of a capital trial is reversible if there is a reasonable possibility it affected the verdict. ( People v. Lancaster (2007) 41 Cal.4th 50, 94, 58 Cal.Rptr.3d 608, 158 P.3d 157; People v. Guerra (2006) 37 Cal.4th 1067, 1144-1145, 40 Cal.Rptr.3d 118, 129 P.3d 321.) Under the particular circumstances of this case, we find that the error was prejudicial. There can be no dispute that the identity of the shooter was the heart of defendant's penalty phase defense. Although the trial court's evidentiary rulings did not entirely preclude defendant from advancing this defense, those rulings surely crippled it. The defense was allowed to present only four eyewitnesses, two of whom Rose Marie Perez and Shequita Chamberlainwere not even on Hoyt Street when the shooting began. They were passengers in cars on Gladstone Avenue. [6] A third witness, Celeste Holt, said she saw a man with a gun who resembled defendant get into the car after the shooting had stopped. Because her grand jury testimony was simply read to the jury, neither side was able to examine her about her observations. But her testimony did little to advance the defense theory, as the defense never disputed that defendant had gotten out of the car to retrieve a weapon after the shooting. In short, the trial court's rulings effectively limited the defense to a single eyewitness who had been present on Hoyt Street from the beginning of the incident, Oscar Martin (whose prior trial testimony was read to the jury), and excluded the defense from presenting testimony from the four other eyewitnessesIrma Esparza, Inijio Choppy Rodriguez, Walter Roberts, and Martina Ruelaswho were also present and who would have described the shooter's complexion as inconsistent with defendant's but consistent with Raynard Cummings's. Esparza, in particular, would have testified that the man with Raynard's complexion shot the officer and that a lighter-skinned male subsequently retrieved the gun, which could have explained why Rosa, Sabrina, and Hans Martin (who looked outside only after the shooting had ended) identified defendant as the man they saw and why Oscar Martin (who was the only Martin to see the shooting) identified Raynard Cummings as the shooter. These additional witnesses would have substantially bolstered the defense theory of lingering doubt. Moreover, although the defense was permitted to offer isolated pieces of a circumstantial theory that Pamela Cummings was lying to cover up her husband's involvement and was attempting to shift the blame to defendant insteadi.e., that she told her sister, Deborah Cantu, as well as the police, that Milton Cook, who resembled Raynard, was the shooter, and that Robin Anderson denied seeing defendant reenact the shooting or claim responsibility for it, as Pamela had claimedthe defense was precluded from presenting the far more powerful evidence that Raynard himself, on at least four occasions, had admitted firing all of the shots. We need not decide whether the evidentiary rulings alone were prejudicial here, though, because the error was compounded by the trial court's instruction to the jury, following opening statement, that defendant's responsibility for the shooting had been conclusively proven and that there would be no evidence presented in this case to the contrary. In opening statement, the defense position was that defendant had not been the shooter, that the jury was entitled to consider what role (if any) defendant had in the murder, but that the defense was not attacking the conviction. The opening statement made reference to several witnesses who subsequently were not permitted to testify about the murder, including Martina Ruelas, Inijio Choppy Rodriguez, Walter-Roberts, and Dr. Kenneth Solomon, and concluded with the contention that we believe the evidence in this case will clearly show that Kenny Gay could not have and did not shoot Officer Verna. Following a recess and before the jury reconvened, the prosecution objected to the defense opening statement to the extent it was inconsistent with the verdict of guilt and urged the court to admonish the jury that they should disregard the opening statement and that they would not be hearing evidence that defendant was not the shooter. Over a defense objection, the court declared that it was going to tell the jury to disregard any statement by you that Mr. Gay is not the shooter. They are to conclusively assume and presume and accept the fact that your client did shoot and kill the officer. When the proceedings resumed, the court instructed the jury accordingly. The court began by taking judicial notice of (and reading) the verdict and explained that when I take judicial notice of something, it means it's conclusively proven. It's a fact that cannot be disputed. This, of course, was no more than a reiteration of its preinstruction to the jury. [7] Over defense objection, however, the court additionally directed the jury as follows: Now, further, any statement by the defense attorneys that you just heard in the opening statement to the effect that Kenneth Earl Gay did not personally shoot Officer Verna, you will disregard it. [¶] It's been conclusively proved by the jury in the first case that this defendant did, in fact, shoot and kill Officer Verna. [¶] So you will disregard any statements they made in the opening statement, and you will not be hearing any evidence to the contrary during the trial. Although the trial court instructed the jury at the close of evidence that [i]t is appropriate for a juror to consider in mitigation any lingering doubt he or she may have concerning defendant's guilt and then defined lingering doubt, the court refused to withdraw its earlier, inconsistent instruction on the issue. Language that merely contradicts and does not explain a constitutionally infirm instruction will not suffice to absolve the infirmity. ( Francis v. Franklin (1985) 471 U.S. 307, 322, 105 S.Ct. 1965, 85 L.Ed.2d 344.) Nor does anything in the record suggest that the jury understood how to weigh the evidence that was admitted. The People in closing argument repeatedly relied on the earlier erroneous instruction, which was printed on a poster displayed to the jury and made part of the People's plea for the penalty of death. The prosecutor even quoted the offending portion in his summation. The jury exhibited its confusion over the instructions by interrupting deliberations to request an explanation of the instruction on lingering doubt, underlining in particular the phrase consider in mitigation any lingering doubt. The trial court's response, once again, was inadequate: There's really no other way to explain that. It should be fairly clear on its face. But you may want to look at all of the instructions given so far. And there is a definition of reasonable doubt that's contained elsewhere in the instructions. Because the court's response did no more than refer the jury to each of the contradictory instructionsthe one that should be fairly clear on its face and the one that was part of all of the instructions given so farwe, as a reviewing court, have no way of knowing which of the two irreconcilable instructions the jurors applied in reaching their verdict. ( Francis v. Franklin, supra, 471 U.S at p. 322, 105 S.Ct. 1965, fn. omitted; see generally Bollenbach v. United States (1946) 326 U;S. 607, 612-613, 66 S.Ct. 402, 90 L.Ed. 350 [When a jury makes explicit its difficulties a trial judge should clear them away with concrete accuracy].) Indeed, the court had previously told the jury that all the instructions, whenever given, were of equal importance. It is discomforting, though, that, following this inadequate reinstruction, the jury reached a verdict the very next morning. The combination of the evidentiary and instructional errors presents an intolerable risk that the jury did not consider all or a substantial portion of the penalty phase defense, which was lingering doubt. The defense could have had particular potency in this case, given the absence of physical evidence linking defendant to the shooting and the inconsistent physical and clothing descriptions given Tsy the prosecution eyewitnesses. (See People v. Cummings, supra, 4 Cal.4th at p. 1259, 18 Cal.Rptr.2d 796, 850 P.2d 1 [Their versions of the events and identification of the shooter or shooters varied greatly].) Robert Thompson, for example, told police in the first few hours after the murder that the passenger in the rear seat had fired all the shots and that this man had a medium-to-dark complexion and was wearing a brown short-sleeved shirt and baggy jeans. [8] Thompson gave the same account to the grand jury and to defense counsel a few months before the pen alty retrial. Gail Beasley's description shortly after the murder of the shirt worn by the shooter that it was burnt orange or redwas likewise consistent with Raynard Cummings's clothing and inconsistent with defendant's. Marsha Holt, who said she was in the bedroom talking to her mother when the shooting began, described the shooter as wearing a long-sleeved white shirt, but her account of the events was impeached by her mother's denial of being in the bedroom at the time as well as by her mother's testimony that she had been unaware of the shooting until Gail Beasley told her about it, by the testimony of the defense expert that Marsha's line of sight and field of view were limited, by Beasley's testimony that neither Marsha nor Celeste appeared to know that an officer had been shot, and by Marsha's inability to identify defendant in a lineup a few days after the murder. The remaining eyewitness to the shooting, Pamela Cummings, had an obviou s interest in protecting her ex-husband. [9] The People are certainly correct that the other aggravating evidence in this case was significant. The series of robberies defendant and Raynard Cummings committed and the arson defendant committed on his own were unusuallyand unnecessarilybrutal and cruel, and there was scant evidence in defendant's social history to excuse or mitigate these heinous crimes. The prosecution also vividly presented the effect of this crime on Officer Verna's family and friends. But it is our firm belief that, notwithstanding this aggravating evidence, there is a reasonable possibility the jury would have selected the lesser but still serious penalty of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole had it been allowed to hear and consider the compelling defense of lingering doubt in full. (Cf. In re Gay, supra, 19 Cal.4th at p. 830, 80 Cal.Rptr.2d 765, 968 P.2d 476.) As other courts have noted, residual doubt is perhaps the most effective strategy to employ at sentencing. ( Chandler v. United States (11th Cir.2000) 218 F.3d 1305, 1320, fn. 28; accord, Williams v. Woodford (9th Cir.2002) 384 F.3d 567, 624; see also Garvey, Aggravation and Mitigation in Capital Cases: What Do Jurors Think? (1998) 98 Colum. L.Rev. 1538, 1563.) The jury's request for clarification of the instructions on the issue of residual doubt, combined with the jury's previous request for the court to read back the eyewitness and expert testimony relating to the circumstances of the murder, strongly indicate that the jury was focused on defendant's role in the murder. Evidence indicating that defendant was not the actual shooter would have been important to the jury in assessing the appropriate penalty. (See In re Hardy (2007) 41 Cal.4th 977, 1032-1035, 63 Cal.Rptr.3d 845, 163 P.3d 853.) Had the jury been allowed to hearand considerthe four statements in which Raynard Cummings claimed to be the sole shooter, the testimony of the four defense eyewitnesses excluding defendant as the shooter, and the testimony that defendant nonetheless was the man who came out of the car to retrieve a weapon from the ground (thus offering an explanation why the prosecution eyewitnesses had been able to recognize him), there is a reasonable possibility the jury would have selected a different penalty. (See Terry, supra, 61 Cal.2d at p. 147, 37 Cal.Rptr. 605, 390 P.2d 381; People v. Humphrey (1996) 13 Cal.4th 1073, 1089-1090, 56 Cal.Rptr.2d 142, 921 P.2d 1 [finding prejudice where the prosecutor's argument and the jury's request for clarification indicated the subject of the misinstruction was critical to their deliberations]; People v. Roder (1983) 33 Cal.3d 491, 505, 189 Cal.Rptr. 501, 658 P.2d 1302 [same]; cf. People v. DeSantis (1992) 2 Cal.4th 1198, 1238-1240, 9 Cal.Rptr.2d 628, 831 P.2d 1210 [no error where the rulings and comments by the court and by the prosecutor merely reminded the jury that it was not to redetermine guilt, the rulings and comments did not remove the question of lingering doubt from the jury, and the defendant was able virtually to retry the guilt phase case under the guise of introducing evidence of the circumstances of the crime to the penalty jury].) [10]