Opinion ID: 2624500
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Trial Court Error in Failing to Instruct Sua Sponte Regarding Testimony of Former Prosecutor

Text: Frank Sexton, a retired deputy district attorney for San Diego County, testified at the penalty retrial. He told the jury he had been retired from the practice of law since 1983, and had been hearing impaired since World War II when the plane in which he was serving as a United States Air Force aerial gunner was shot down. He told the jury that in 1978 he was assigned to prosecute defendant for the robbery of Ruth Story and, after the preliminary hearing in that case, received two letters defendant had written while in jail: one defendant sent to Story, who in turn passed it on to Sexton, and one defendant sent to the District Attorney of San Diego County, who also passed it on to Sexton. Sexton testified that the trial for the Story robbery was scheduled to begin on June 19, 1979, but never took place because defendant was arrested for the capital murder in Oklahoma in early June 1979. Sexton was assigned to prosecute the capital murder, traveled to Marietta, Oklahoma, to investigate the case, and, while at the sheriff's office, saw on the wall a wanted poster for Spider, which caught his eye because defendant had been telling stories about how Eleanore Buchanan was still alive and running around with a guy named Spider. He testified that Terry Buchanan, who testified at the first trial, had died on June 2, 1994; that he had kept in contact with Terry since the first trial and thought that the murder had haunted Terry for the rest of his life. Finally, Sexton testified that in the first trial, defendant admitted to having suffered the prior felony convictions for forgery and burglary in San Diego, and auto theft in Fresno and Louisiana, as was alleged in the information. Defendant argues the penalty retrial court erred in not instructing the jury, sua sponte, that they were not to give Sexton's testimony special weight simply because he was a prosecutor associated with this case. He argues this failure violated his federal and state constitutional rights to due process, a fair and impartial trial, and a reliable penalty verdict. We disagree. (28) When a witness is a courtroom officer who testifies to statements defendant made to him during the pendency of the trial and who then resumes his duties in the trial courtroom, the trial court should instruct the jury not to give any artificial weight to the witness simply because he is a courtroom officer. (See People v. Hill (1998) 17 Cal.4th 800, 842-843 [72 Cal.Rptr.2d 656, 952 P.2d 673].) Defendant argues such is the case here, relying on United States v. Torres (2d Cir. 1974) 503 F.2d 1120, 1126, which found reversible error where, in the absence of a showing that he was the only possible source of this information, the second-chair prosecutor testified to an encounter he witnessed between the defendant and a codefendant, and United States v. Birdman (3d Cir. 1979) 602 F.2d 547, which held that where the prosecutor's appearance as a witness was unavoidable, the prosecutor should withdraw from participating in the trial. The danger alluded to in these casesthat the jury would accord greater weight to the testimony of a witness who was an officer of the court and with whom they interacted during trialwas not present in this case. The court commits no error in refusing to instruct when the testifying courtroom officer had no interaction with the jury. (See People v. Guerra, supra, 37 Cal.4th at p. 1122 [no error in failing to give such an instruction when a bailiff testified to statements defendant made to him during a pretrial hearing and the bailiff did not serve at defendant's trial and had no interaction with the jury].) Sexton's participation in the prosecution of defendant had ended 12 years before the penalty retrial, and he was presented as a retired, not an active, prosecutor. Defendant's reliance on People v. Arends (1957) 155 Cal.App.2d 496 [318 P.2d 532], serves him no better. There the reviewing court found reversible error where the prosecutor who conducted the preliminary hearing, but not the trial, testified to his `considered opinion that the defendant was guilty.' ( Id. at p. 509.) The danger was that the jury would view the prosecutor's expressed belief in the defendant's guilt as being based on outside sources. ( People v. Lopez (2008) 42 Cal.4th 960, 971 [71 Cal.Rptr.3d 253, 175 P.3d 4].) Here, in contrast, the majority of Sexton's testimony concerned events to which he was a percipient witnessreceipt by the district attorney's office of letters written by defendant; seeing the Spider wanted poster in the Marietta, Oklahoma, Sheriff's Department; defendant's admission to various prior convictions; and Terry Buchanan's continued suffering. He gave his opinion not as to defendant's guilt or deserved punishment, but only to Terry Buchanan's state of mind at the time of Terry's death, and made it clear the opinion was based on personal contact with Terry over the intervening years. Defendant therefore fails to establish that the trial court erred in not, sua sponte, giving cautionary instructions concerning Sexton's testimony.