Opinion ID: 1133414
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: Trial Court's Denial of Defendant's New Trial Motion

Text: In seeking a new trial based on newly discovered evidence, defendant presented a declaration from defense investigator Barbara Lancaster-Jordan describing a conversation with a jail inmate who claimed to have overheard from a distance of two cells away a statement by Dennis Morgan that he had been at defendant's house visiting his granddaughter, Amanda, on the day of her injuries. The declaration stated that the inmate refused to come forward because he feared retribution by the prosecutor who the inmate said had already punished him for cooperating with defendant's lawyers, by causing the loss of his work assignment and his transfer to the worst jail facility. The trial court denied the motion for a new trial, finding the inmate's story inherently untrustworthy... and not worthy of belief. Defendant argues that the denial was error. Because a ruling on a motion for new trial rests so completely within the trial court's discretion, we will not disturb it on appeal absent `a manifest and unmistakable abuse of discretion.' ( People v. Turner (1994) 8 Cal.4th 137, 212, 32 Cal.Rptr.2d 762, 878 P.2d 521.) None appears here.