Opinion ID: 1386250
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Admission of Facts of Violent Criminal Activity

Text: At the penalty phase of the trial, the prosecution sought to establish aggravating circumstances by offering evidence of criminal activity by defendant involving force or violence. (ง 190.3, factor (b).) Maggie Granell testified that on July 5, 1978, about 4 a.m., she and her husband were working at a store they owned in New York City when defendant and another man came into the store. Defendant held a gun to Mrs. Granell's head, cocked it and said, Shut up or I kill you, while the other man emptied the cash register. During this time, Mr. Granell, who had a gun, was hiding behind some shelves. When defendant and his companion fled in a car, Mr. Granell ran after them and fired at the car's rear window. New York Police Officer Dominic DiGregorio was in the area in a marked police car with a partner officer when he heard the shots and saw a car speed away. DiGregorio chased the getaway car through the city streets at speeds of up to 90 miles per hour. During the chase, defendant, who was the passenger in the car, fired at Officer DiGregorio seven to nine times through the car's broken rear window. When the getaway car crashed into another vehicle, Officer DiGregorio arrested defendant, who was then 16 years old, and recovered the gun.
Based on the incident described above, New York authorities filed a 15-count felony indictment, which included charges of robbery, attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon and illegal possession of a loaded firearm. On August 29, 1978, defendant entered a plea of guilty to robbery. The remaining counts against him were dismissed. At the penalty phase in this case, the prosecution presented evidence of the New York robbery, attempted getaway, and shootout as criminal activity by the defendant involving force or violence, an aggravating factor. [8] (ง 190.3, factor (b).) Defense counsel objected to the admission of evidence of the chase and shootout. He relied on language in section 190.3, which prohibits the admission of aggravating evidence pertaining to prior criminal activity for an offense for which the defendant was prosecuted and acquitted. (13a) Counsel characterized as an implied acquittal the New York court's plea-bargained dismissal of the counts involving the getaway attempt and shootout. In support, he cited People v. Harvey (1979) 25 Cal.3d 754, 758-759 [159 Cal. Rptr. 696, 602 P.2d 396], which holds that for purposes of sentence enhancement, a court may not consider facts that pertain solely to a charge that has been dismissed as part of a plea bargain. We conclude that the trial court did not err in admitting the evidence, for reasons that follow. After the trial in this case, we held in People v. Heishman (1988) 45 Cal.3d 147, 193 [246 Cal. Rptr. 673, 753 P.2d 629], that for purposes of section 190.3, an acquittal did not include a charge dismissed as part of a plea bargain and thus not based on any judicial determination with respect to the truth or falsity of the charge.... (Accord People v. Melton (1988) 44 Cal.3d 713, 755 [244 Cal. Rptr. 867, 750 P.2d 741].) We explained that the constraint [set out in People v. Harvey, supra, 25 Cal.3d 754, 758] against reliance on facts underlying the dismissed count to fix the sentence in the very case for which the plea bargain was executed does not preclude the use of such facts in the penalty phase of a later, separate trial for murder with special circumstances, in order to show criminal activity involving violence as an aggravating factor. ( People v. Heishman, supra, at p. 193, italics added.) Thus, in Heishman, we rejected the same argument that defendant in this case raised in the trial court. Defendant nonetheless maintains that his case is not controlled by People v. Heishman, supra, 45 Cal.3d 147, but rather by People v. Sheldon (1989) 48 Cal.3d 935, 951-952 [258 Cal. Rptr. 242, 771 P.2d 1330]. In Sheldon, we held that admission of other-crimes evidence concerning lesser included offenses of attempted murder violated section 190.3, in view of the defendant's acquittal of attempted murder in a Nevada jury trial. We stated that under Nevada law [the defendant's] acquittal of attempted murder would bar conviction or retrial of all necessarily included offenses including those the prosecution had introduced as other-crimes evidence. ( People v. Sheldon, supra, 48 Cal.3d at p. 951.) Based on this reference to Nevada law, defendant suggests that we have held that the law of the state in which a defendant has been acquitted controls on the issue of what constitutes an acquittal for purposes of section 190.3, and he argues that under New York law he was acquitted of the dismissed charges. Defendant misreads Sheldon. Our conclusion in People v. Sheldon, supra, 48 Cal.3d 935, 951, that admission of other-crimes evidence was error, was premised on our earlier holding in People v. Heishman, supra, 45 Cal.3d 147, 193, that for purposes of section 190.3, an offense for which the defendant [was] `prosecuted and acquitted' was one where the falsity of the charge had been judicially established. As we acknowledged, after such an acquittal, principles of double jeopardy and due process would bar a retrial of the same charge or of lesser offenses that are included in that charge. ( People v. Sheldon, supra, 48 Cal.3d at p. 951, citing People v. Melton, supra, 44 Cal.3d 713, 756, fn. 17.) Thus it was in that context that we looked to Nevada law in Sheldon to decide whether the evidence that had been presented was for crimes that were lesser included offenses of the charge of attempted murder of which the defendant had been acquitted. ( People v. Sheldon, supra, 48 Cal.3d 935, 951-952.) We did not at all suggest that the law of another state would control on the issue of what constituted an acquittal for purposes of section 190.3. (14)(See fn. 9.), (13b) Additionally, defendant argues that admission of evidence of facts pertaining to the dismissed charges violated the full faith and credit clause of the United States Constitution. (U.S. Const., art. IV, ง 1.) [9] He maintains that under New York law the facts involving a charge that has been dismissed as part of a plea bargain may not be considered as an aggravating circumstance, and that the trial court in this case had to apply New York law. We disagree. Under New York law, the dismissal of criminal charges as part of a plea bargain is an acquittal of those charges, which precludes prosecution on the dismissed charges ( People v. Romer (1972) 38 A.D.2d 757 [329 N.Y.S.2d 719, 721]) or consideration of their underlying facts for the purpose of imposing a sentence to a reduced charge ( People v. Griffin (1960) 7 N.Y.2d 511, 515-516 [199 N.Y.S.2d 674, 166 N.E.2d 684]). Thus, when as part of a plea bargain, a defendant pleads to a reduced charge and the remaining charges are dismissed, New York law precludes courts from considering the allegations supporting the dismissed charges when imposing sentence. ( People v. Griffin, supra, 7 N.Y.2d at p. 515.) A plea to a lesser charge does not presuppose the truth of the facts pleaded in the indictment.... [Defendant's] plea only admits the facts stated in the plea as constituting the lesser crime. ( Ibid. ; accord People v. Ayiotis (1965) 23 A.D.2d 760 [258 N.Y.S.2d 554, 556]; People v. DeFini (1964) 20 A.D.2d 250 [246 N.Y.S.2d 485, 487-488]; People v. Hall (1961) 28 Misc.2d 769 [216 N.Y.S.2d 148, 149-150].) These cases, however, do not purport to define what constitutes an acquittal for purposes of the admission of aggravating evidence in a California capital case. As previously explained, we have defined an offense for which the defendant [was] `prosecuted and acquitted' under section 190.3 as one in which there has been a judicial determination of the truth or falsity of the charge. ( People v. Heishman, supra, 45 Cal.3d 147, 193.) An offense falls within this definition only if such a judicial determination has been made; a foreign jurisdiction's contrary definition of acquittal has no bearing on our construction of section 190.3. Accordingly, assuming that the full faith and credit clause applies in criminal cases, it does not require us to follow New York cases defining an acquittal.
(15) Defendant characterizes as stale the evidence of the New York robbery, chase, and shootout, which occurred nine years before the trial in this case, and points to three separate factors that he claims prevented him from effectively challenging that evidence: the trial court's determination that there was no need for a preliminary inquiry into the sufficiency of the prosecution's evidence of other crimes (see People v. Phillips (1985) 41 Cal.3d 29, 72, fn. 25 [222 Cal. Rptr. 127, 711 P.2d 423]); the refusals by Mrs. Granell and Officer DiGregorio to meet with defense counsel; and (because defendant had pleaded guilty) the absence of any trial transcript from the New York case. Under these circumstances, defendant contends, admission at the penalty phase of evidence of the robbery, chase and shootout violated both his due process right to effectively refute the evidence and the requirement of heightened reliability that the Eighth Amendment imposes in a capital case. We reject these contentions. We previously have held that under section 190.3, factor (b), the prosecution can offer evidence in aggravation of criminal violence which has occurred at any time in the defendant's life. ( People v. Balderas (1985) 41 Cal.3d 144, 202 [222 Cal. Rptr. 184, 711 P.2d 480].) In addition, we have rejected timeliness challenges to the use of such evidence on both due process ( People v. Robertson (1989) 48 Cal.3d 18, 43 [255 Cal. Rptr. 631, 767 P.2d 1109]) and Eighth Amendment grounds ( People v. Douglas (1990) 50 Cal.3d 468, 529-530 [268 Cal. Rptr. 126, 788 P.2d 640]). These holdings control here. The three separate factors that defendant points out as having interfered with his discovery efforts do not compel a different result.
(16) Defendant argues that allowing the jury to consider evidence of the New York robbery placed him twice in jeopardy for the same offense. (See U.S. Const., Amend. V; Cal. Const., art. I, ง 15; United States v. DiFrancesco (1980) 449 U.S. 117, 127-128 [66 L.Ed.2d 328, 339, 101 S.Ct. 426].) As defendant acknowledges, we have consistently rejected substantially similar contentions, holding that the constitutional guarantees against double jeopardy do not apply when the prior criminal activity is considered by the penalty jury as a proper aggravating factor under section 190.3, factor (b). ( People v. Douglas, supra, 50 Cal.3d 468, 528; accord People v. Melton, supra, 44 Cal.3d 713, 756, fn. 17.) Defendant presents no persuasive reason to reconsider these holdings. (17) Defendant also contends that to permit the jury to decide that death is the appropriate punishment without jury unanimity on the existence of the other-crimes evidence does not meet the heightened need for reliability in the determination that death is the appropriate punishment, as compelled by the Eighth Amendment. ( Woodson v. North Carolina (1976) 428 U.S. 280, 305 [49 L.Ed.2d 944, 961-962, 96 S.Ct. 2978].) We disagree. People v. Robertson (1982) 33 Cal.3d 21, 53-55 [188 Cal. Rptr. 77, 655 P.2d 279], requires a trial court to instruct a penalty phase jury that, before considering evidence of the defendant's other crime(s) as a circumstance in aggravation (ง 190.3, factor (b)), it must be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the uncharged crime(s) occurred. Here, the trial court did so. It had no sua sponte obligation to instruct the jury that its finding of uncharged criminal activity must be unanimous. ( People v. Ghent (1987) 43 Cal.3d 739, 773 [239 Cal. Rptr. 82, 739 P.2d 1250].) We explained in Ghent that to require jury unanimity as to each incident of uncharged criminal activity disclosed during the penalty phase would immerse the jurors in lengthy and complicated discussions wholly collateral to the penalty determination which confronts them. ( Id. at pp. 773-774.) In Ghent, the trial court instructed the jury that `to make a determination as to the penalty, all twelve jurors must agree'; that instruction, we held, was sufficient under existing law.... ( Id. at p. 773.) Here, too, the trial court gave such an instruction. Defendant interprets Ghent as holding that the instruction satisfies due process of law. He argues, however, that we have yet to decide whether the instruction comports with the Eighth Amendment's reliability requirement. Although we did not mention the Eighth Amendment when we discussed this instruction in Ghent, we impliedly rejected the argument defendant makes here when we concluded that the instruction was sufficient under existing law. ( Ibid. ) (18) In addition, defendant argues that the cumulative impact of permitting the same jury that considered guilt to hear the other-crimes evidence and to decide penalty without instruction on the elements of those crimes violates both the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Defendant acknowledges that in People v. Balderas, supra, 41 Cal.3d 144, 204-205, we rejected a challenge to section 190.3, factor (b), on the ground that it violated due process by allowing a jury which has already decided defendant's guilt to consider, on the issue of penalty, other violent crimes on which defendant was neither charged nor convicted. Defendant, however, claims that in Balderas we resolved the issue only in terms of due process and we therefore did not reject the argument on Eighth Amendment grounds. Not so. In People v. Balderas, supra, 41 Cal.3d at pages 204-205, we considered the challenged procedure in light of the relevant United States Supreme Court authorities and concluded it was neither `prejudicial,' `unreliable,' `irrelevant,' [n]or `fundamentally unfair.' ( Id. at p. 205, fn. 32.) We also have rejected the other part of defendant's cumulative-impact argument when we previously held that a trial court has no sua sponte duty to instruct on the elements of the underlying other crimes. ( People v. Ghent, supra, 43 Cal.3d 739, 773.) Evaluation of defendant's cumulative impact argument is therefore unnecessary in light of our rejection on the merits of both of its components. ( People v. Sully (1991) 53 Cal.3d 1195, 1249 [283 Cal. Rptr. 144, 812 P.2d 163].) (19) Finally, defendant contends that the procedures for proving other crimes under section 190.3, factor (b) are less stringent than those for proving prior felonies for purposes of sentence enhancement (see ง 667.5; People v. Guerrero (1988) 44 Cal.3d 343 [243 Cal. Rptr. 688, 748 P.2d 1150]), arguing that the penalty phase procedures violate principles of equal protection. As we have stated, The penalty phase is unique, intended to place before the sentencer all evidence properly bearing on its decision.... ( People v. Balderas, supra, 41 Cal.3d 144, 205, fn. 32.) The facts of a capital defendant's [p]rior violent criminality are obviously relevant to this decision. ( Ibid. ) The purpose served by the rules governing sentence enhancement is not similar. (See People v. Lang (1989) 49 Cal.3d 991, 1037-1039 [264 Cal. Rptr. 386, 782 P.2d 627].) Under these circumstances, there is no equal protection violation. (See People v. Marshall (1990) 50 Cal.3d 907, 945 [269 Cal. Rptr. 269, 790 P.2d 676].)
(20) Defendant challenges the admission of evidence of his codefendant's criminal conduct during the New York robbery incident in driving the getaway car at breakneck speeds through populated city streets. He argues that consideration of criminal conduct committed by someone other than the defendant is impermissible under section 190.3, factor (b). He also points out that the prosecution's notice listing its intended penalty phase evidence did not specify the codefendant's driving, as distinguished from defendant's own violent conduct during the robbery and chase. According to defendant, this omission violates the notice requirements of section 190.3. [10] He also contends that allowing the jury to hear evidence of violent conduct committed by someone other than the defendant violates the constitutional constraint on capital sentencing that it reflect the jury's `reasoned moral response to the defendant's background, character, and crime.' ( Sumner v. Shuman (1987) 483 U.S. 66, 76, fn. 5 [97 L.Ed.2d 56, 66, 107 S.Ct. 2716], italics added and deleted.) We reject these arguments. Defendant concedes that as an accomplice in the robbery and getaway he could have been criminally liable for harm resulting from his codefendant's actions. He argues, however, that the rule of accomplice liability does not apply to the presentation of other-crimes evidence under section 190.3, factor (b), arguing that such evidence must be limited to criminal activity involving force or violence in which defendant was himself the perpetrator. We previously have rejected a similar contention in People v. Hayes (1990) 52 Cal.3d 577, 633 [276 Cal. Rptr. 874, 802 P.2d 376], when we held that evidence of a defendant's aiding and abetting of a violent criminal offense was admissible under factor (b). In addition, we consistently have held that the prosecution is entitled to present evidence of a defendant's other crimes in context. ( People v. Melton, supra, 44 Cal.3d 713, 754; accord People v. Keenan (1988) 46 Cal.3d 478, 526 [250 Cal. Rptr. 550, 758 P.2d 1081].) Section 190.3, factor (b) is not violated when, as here, defendant could have been liable as an accomplice for conduct by the codefendant, and evidence of that conduct is necessary to place the defendant's own conduct in context. Equally lacking in merit is defendant's argument that the prosecution's notice was insufficient under section 190.3. The prosecution gave notice of its intent to present evidence of the New York robbery and gun battle as aggravating circumstances. That notice adequately advised defendant that the described evidence would include reference to the attempted getaway during which the gun battle took place. We also reject defendant's contention that permitting the jury to consider his participation in a criminal joint venture violated the constitutional requirement that the sentencing decision in a capital case be based on the character and record of the individual offender.... ( Woodson v. North Carolina, supra, 428 U.S. 280, 304 [49 L.Ed.2d 944, 961].) Moreover, in light of the evidence of violent criminal conduct personally attributable to defendant during this same incident (threatening Mrs. Granell with a gun pressed against her head and, after fleeing the scene, repeatedly firing at the pursuing officers), any possible error in admitting evidence of the codefendant's reckless driving was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. ( Chapman v. California (1967) 386 U.S. 18, 24 [17 L.Ed.2d 705, 711, 87 S.Ct. 824, 24 A.L.R.3d 1065].)