Opinion ID: 1194882
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: Admitting Rebuttal Evidence of Traces of Blood on Defendant's Pants

Text: (12) Defendant contends in effect that the court violated the due process clauses when it ruled, over his objections on grounds of relevance, undue prejudice (Evid. Code, § 352), and offering improper rebuttal evidence, that the jury could hear, during the prosecution's rebuttal case, newly discovered evidence that two specks of blood had been found on the pants he was wearing on the morning of his arrest. The specks were too small to reveal whom they might have come from, and one was so small that the prosecution's criminalist could not even testify that it was human blood, only that it tested presumptively positive for blood of some type. The prosecution offered the evidence to rebut defendant's testimony that he was more than 10 feet from Haro when Trone shot her. As with the claim regarding character evidence, ante, the predicate of defendant's evidentiary claims is that the court abused its discretion (see People v. Rodrigues, supra, 8 Cal.4th at p. 1164) in admitting this rebuttal evidence. Accordingly, we scrutinize the claim for a violation of state law. As far as relevance and undue prejudice are concerned, no violation of state law occurred. The evidence was relevant, even if the jury decided that it was minimally important. The jury could have used it to decide that defendant was close to Haro when she was killed, and hence it supported a conclusion that he was the triggerman, a question placed in issue by the allegation that he used a firearm. Nor was the evidence unduly prejudicial: Defendant was barely spattered, and he admitted that he was present when Haro was killed. We find no abuse of discretion in admitting the evidence. The jurors could assign the weight to it that it deserved. In cross-examination and closing argument, defendant emphasized the evidence's slight value: The blood could have come from anyone at any time. The same is true with regard to the claim of improper introduction of rebuttal evidence. Defendant's testimony permitted the prosecution to introduce evidence suggesting that he was closer to Haro than he had declared. ( People v. Daniels (1991) 52 Cal.3d 815, 859 [277 Cal. Rptr. 122, 802 P.2d 906].) We find no state law error, and no violation of the due process clause.