Opinion ID: 2634308
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Admission of Evidence of a Photographic Lineup

Text: Defendant contends the court erred in admitting evidence regarding the unadjudicated robbery of October 21, 1982. The record indicates that the victim had had brain surgery between the time of the crime and his testimony in July 1995 that might have affected his ability to recall the events of 1982. He testified about the robbery but did not identify defendant as the robber at trial. He did not remember going to the police station to make a photographic identification. However, he identified his signature and his handwriting on the identification document. He also testified that in his dealings with the police regarding the crime and the identify of the robber, he tried to be truthful and as accurate as he could. After the victim testified, defendant objected to admission of evidence of his extrajudicial identification of defendant as the robber. Defense counsel stated, and the prosecutor did not deny, that no copy of the photographic lineup still existed. After discussion and hearing the prosecutor's offer of proof regarding the police officer's proffered testimony, the court overruled the objection. Thereafter, Detective Curtis McMillan testified, that on November 5, 1982, the victim came to the police station to view a photographic lineup. He testified that the victim wrote on the identification form, I looked at six photographs and number 5 was closest to the man robbed me. His-hair is short as he wasAnd his face look the same, but his nose was smaller. Detective McMillan signed the form indicating that he had witnessed the identification. Photograph number 5 was a photograph of defendant. As he did at trial, defendant challenges the admissibility of the extrajudicial identification on numerous grounds. We need not decide whether the court erred in admitting the evidence, for any error was harmless. The criminal incident at issue here was merely one of a long series of prior crimes the prosecution proved at the penalty phase, and not a particularly remarkable one at that. The prosecution proved that defendant had suffered 10 prior felony conviction's for crimes committed on 10 separate occasions. It also presented evidence of the facts and circumstances of the crimes committed on eight of those occasions, as well as seven unadjudicated prior crimes of violence. This totals 17 prior separate criminal episodes, all but one of which involved force or violence (the exception being defendant's conviction of grand theft from the person). In his argument to the jury, the prosecutor mentioned the robbery at issue here only briefly, and even then he recognized that the identification wasn't positive, that it looked like number five, and number five was [defendant]. We see no reasonable possibility (the functional equivalent of the reasonable doubt test; see People v. Gonzalez (2006) 38 Cal.4th 932, 961, 44 Cal. Rptr.3d 237, 135 P.3d 649) the penalty determination turned on whether the jury found defendant had committed 17 previous crimes or only 16. (See People v. Smith, supra, 30 Cal.4th at p. 625, 134 Cal.Rptr.2d 1, 68 P.3d 302; People v. Barnett (1998) 17 Cal.4th 1044, 1173, 74 Cal. Rptr.2d 121, 954 P.2d 384.)