Opinion ID: 4521869
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Defendant’s state of mind

Text: On appeal, defendant argues the trial court erred in sustaining the prosecution’s hearsay objections to exclude evidence he maintains was crucial to his defense. For instance, the prosecution questioned Greg Herring, a family law attorney that Pamela had hired to replace another attorney in November 2007, a month or so after defendant had filed for divorce. Herring testified that Pamela was dissatisfied with how the divorce case started off, which included stipulations between defendant and Pamela allowing defendant to control the companies and providing Pamela a modest salary. Herring also testified about the potential assets at stake in the divorce (“either hundreds of millions or maybe even a billion or more”), and his concern that defendant would liquidate assets. He also testified that the divorce proceedings had reached a “fever pitch” shortly before Pamela was murdered. On cross-examination, defense counsel asked Herring about a letter defendant’s divorce attorney, John Foley, had sent Herring about defendant’s intention to liquidate the E-bullion and Goldfinger entities. Defense counsel questioned Herring about statements in the letter explaining defendant’s “rationale for why he is liquidating” the E-bullion and Goldfinger companies. In response to the prosecution’s hearsay objection, defense counsel explained that he would ask Herring “whether the liquidation was motivated in part by a desire to avoid having 69 PEOPLE v. FAYED Opinion of the Court by Chin, J. to spend the money on buying licenses that Pam was insisting on.” The trial court sustained the prosecution’s hearsay objection, and defendant did not propose that a hearsay exception applied, nor did he raise the issue again. On appeal, defendant claims for the first time that this hearsay statement was admissible under the state of mind exception (Evid. Code, § 1250), because it would show that defendant was intending to wind down their e-currency business, purportedly negating various prosecution theories for why defendant killed Pamela. Although defense counsel explained that he intended to question Herring about the letter, he “did not show that the testimony came within an exception to the hearsay rule, and did not attempt, by offer of proof or otherwise, to lay the proper foundation for that exception.” (People v. Livaditis (1992) 2 Cal.4th 759, 778.) Even if defendant preserved this claim for review, we conclude that any error in preventing this line of questioning was harmless. Without objection, defense counsel earlier asked Herring what he thought defendant and his divorce attorney were “trying to accomplish” by informing Pamela about their intent to liquidate the E-bullion and Goldfinger entities and whether Herring’s “perspective was that he was going to threaten to liquidate the company in order to prevent you from getting Pam Fayed a proper accounting and a proper compensation.” Herring replied that he did not know what defendant “was thinking” or what his attorney “was thinking when he sent” the letter to Herring. Thus, any further questioning of Herring on this issue would have likely yielded little information. 70 PEOPLE v. FAYED Opinion of the Court by Chin, J.