Opinion ID: 2515784
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Rojas's Involvement in a Separate Assault on Defendant's Niece

Text: Rojas testified, inter alia, that: (1) he remembered taking a trip to Santa Cruz with some women; (2) he did not recall bringing a firearm to North Hayes and did not have a habit of carrying a .357-caliber magnum; and (3) he had smoked KJ once, a week or two before the gathering at North Hayes, and did not like it. After the prosecution rested its case, out of the presence of the jury, defense counsel told the court he had given the prosecutor a report involving Melissa Bonillas and Jessica Trujillo, two potential witnesses for defendant. These individuals would testify that, on July 7, 1991, approximately three weeks before the gathering at North Hayes, Rojas was in Santa Cruz and assaulted Bonillas, defendant's niece. Bonillas would also testify that she saw Rojas with a firearm and saw him smoke KJ. Defendant wanted to present this testimony to show he would not have offered to kill Medina and Sanchez at Rojas's request and to impeach Rojas's testimony about his usage of KJ and handling of firearms. The trial court ruled that, to the extent the evidence was being offered to show that Rojas had a bias against defendant, it was an extremely tenuous connection. Accordingly, the court excluded the evidence under Evidence Code section 352. The court also precluded counsel from eliciting testimony that Bonillas saw Rojas with a gun and saw him smoking KJ, ruling they were collateral, insignificant matters under Evidence Code section 352. Defendant now contends that the trial court abused its discretion in excluding evidence that Rojas assaulted his niece three weeks before the events at issue here. Defendant concedes such evidence was unrelated to the Spring J. incident, but argues the court's ruling was inconsistent with its ruling on the admissibility of De Anda's testimony about Spring's statement to him ( ante, pt. III.C.5.). Defendant further contends that the court's error in excluding the evidence that Rojas assaulted his niece violated his rights to a fair jury, to due process of law, to a reliable guilt verdict, and to confrontation and cross-examination, under the Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. We see no abuse of discretion. Evidence that Rojas assaulted Bonillas weeks before Medina and Sanchez were killed was irrelevant to the current crimes. To the extent it could be considered evidence of bias on the part of Rojas against defendant, it was, at best, weak. Any bias would stem from the fact that Bonillas was related to defendant. But defendant did not proffer evidence that defendant knew Rojas had previously assaulted his niece, or that Rojas knew that Bonillas was his niece. Accordingly, the probative value of Rojas's prior assault on Bonillas, if any, was substantially outweighed by the probability that its admission would necessitate undue consumption of time or create substantial danger of undue prejudice or of confusing the issues, as the court below noted. [52] We similarly see no abuse of discretion or federal constitutional error in the exclusion of evidence that Bonillas saw Rojas smoke KJ or saw him with a weapon on a previous occasion. The court reasonably concluded such evidence was insignificant and collateral. Defendant argues that, even assuming that the evidence of a prior assault by Rojas on Bonillas was collateral, the trial court nevertheless abused its discretion in excluding it, in light of its admission of similarly collateral evidence  a purported statement by Spring that she had stripped for money  to attack De Anda's credibility. We reject the notion that the admission of collateral evidence in one instance necessitates admission of similarly collateral evidence in another instance.