Opinion ID: 1175478
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 11

Heading: evidence of child-kidnapping in connection with prior rape and robbery

Text: (18) As already explained, the prosecution introduced at the penalty phase a record of a defendant's conviction, in January 1977, of robbery and of rape by threats of great bodily harm, and presented testimony by Linda D., the victim of those crimes. Prior to her testimony, defendant moved to exclude from it, as unduly prejudicial, any reference to defendant's conduct toward her five-year-old daughter. The motion was denied. In her testimony, Linda D. stated that defendant drove her in her car, with the child in the back seat, to a check-cashing place where he let her out to cash her welfare check, threatening that if she said anything, he would kill the child. Defendant contends that this part of the testimony should have been excluded because it was not relevant to the crimes of rape and robbery for which defendant had been convicted, but pertained only to an unadjudicated offense of kidnapping (ง 207 et seq.). We disagree. The testimony was probative of criminal activity to be considered in aggravation of the penalty because it involved the express or implied threat to use force or violence (ง 190.3, factor (b)). Evidence of an unadjudicated crime is admissible to prove this aggravating factor whether the crime was never charged ( People v. Balderas, supra, 41 Cal.3d 144, 205) or was included in a charge that was dismissed without determination of its merits ( People v. Ghent, supra, 43 Cal.3d 739, 774). (19) Defendant contends that the jury instruction requiring that prior criminal activity be proved beyond a reasonable doubt (see People v. Ghent, supra, 43 Cal.3d 739, 773; People v. Robertson (1982) 33 Cal.3d 21, 53-55 [188 Cal. Rptr. 77, 655 P.2d 279]) improperly focused on the conviction of rape and robbery and the rape itself in such a way as to mislead the jury into not applying the reasonable doubt requirement to the unadjudicated kidnapping. After properly instructing on the burden of proof, the court added: And here [is] what the court is talking about. The burden of proving alleged criminal activity and the prior felony conviction beyond a reasonable doubt is in regards to the testimony of the woman in regards to the alleged rape that she testified to and the document that was received by you. The court is instructing you that as to that conduct you must find, if you are to consider that, that he was responsible for that โ I mean that he committed that, and that burden is beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty. We see no reasonable possibility that the jury was misled. The only evidence of prior criminal activity introduced at the penalty phase was the record of defendant's conviction of raping and robbing Linda D. and her testimony of the events underlying that conviction. The jury may well have understood the court's reference to the testimony of the woman in regards to the alleged rape to include her testimony of the entire incident involving rape, robbery, and kidnapping. The court did not state that the principle applied only to the rape as such. To the contrary, immediately after the above-quoted passage, the instructions continued: So, let me say that again. A defendant is presumed to be innocent of criminal activity and of any prior felony conviction until the contrary is proved, and in the case of a reasonable doubt whether such prior criminal activity or prior felony conviction is satisfactorily shown, you are instructed not to consider such alleged criminal activity or alleged felony conviction. This strong reiteration of the general rule eliminated any possibility of the misleading effect which defendant now claims to find in the court's preceding comments.