Opinion ID: 2575864
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Exclusion of Videotape of Interrogation

Text: Defendant contends that the trial court erred in excluding a videotape of his interrogation by police detectives on May 18, 1991, shortly after his arrest for the murder of Terry Holloway. He further contends that this error violated his rights under the Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the federal Constitution. As part of its case in mitigation, the defense proposed to have the jury watch a videotape that was made, without defendant's knowledge, while he was being interrogated by police detectives about the murder of Terry Holloway. During the interrogation, defendant at first denied any involvement in the murder, but eventually he admitted killing Holloway, and he insisted that he had done it entirely on his own and that neither Denise Shigemura nor Anna Humiston was present. He said he killed Holloway because he was in danger and his family was in danger. He expressed fear that Brian Johnsen had friends in prison who would kill him or his mother or other family members in retaliation for killing Holloway. He also expressed concern that he would be perceived in prison as a snitch and killed for that reason, or that he would have to spend his entire life in prison. During this part of the interrogation, defendant displayed considerable emotion, sobbing and at one point grasping an interrogating officer's hand. The defense argued that the evidence of defendant's emotional responses was admissible to show his remorse for the killing. The prosecution objected that the videotape was inadmissible under the hearsay rule (Evid.Code, § 1200), because defendant's emotional displays were assertive conduct, and also under Evidence Code section 352, because the evidence's probative value was substantially outweighed by the risk of undue prejudice and jury confusion. After viewing the videotape, the trial court sustained the hearsay objection and excluded the evidence. The court agreed with the prosecution that defendant's emotional displays were a form of hearsay and not within any exception to the hearsay rule. The court also rejected the defense argument that defendant's constitutional right to present mitigating evidence in a capital case overrode the hearsay rule in this instance. The court noted there was no compelling need for the evidence, because defendant could testify to any remorse he might have felt, and that the evidence was not particularly trustworthy as evidence of remorse because on the videotape defendant never articulated any feelings of sorrow or regret for killing Teresa Holloway, or any sympathy for Holloway or her family, although he did indicate concern for his own safety and well-being, and also concern for his mother and for Anna Humiston. Thus, in the court's view, it was by no means clear that defendant's emotional display was in any way caused by remorse, and it seemed more likely that it was caused entirely by concern for his own predicament. The defense raised the issue again after both sides had rested at the penalty phase and the prosecutor had given his closing argument to the jury. Defense counsel requested permission to reopen the evidence to play the videotape for the jury to rebut the prosecutor's assertion, in argument to the jury, that defendant lacked a conscience. Defense counsel pointed out that during the videotaped interview defendant said, in response to a question asking whether he had received any injuries in his struggle with Teresa Holloway, The only injury I got is from my, just from my conscience. The trial court denied the request to reopen. The defense raised the issue a final time after the jury had returned the penalty verdict of death. In a motion for a new trial, the defense argued that the trial court had erred in excluding the videotape. To demonstrate prejudice, the defense submitted declarations by three trial jurors stating that evidence that defendant lacked remorse for killing Teresa Holloway was an important factor in aggravation, and that evidence that defendant had an emotional reaction to the murder and talked about his conscience would have counterbalanced that evidence. The trial court denied the motion for a new trial. Defendant is correct that, by themselves, defendant's emotional displays were nonassertive conduct, and thus not within the hearsay rule. For purposes of the hearsay rule, conduct is assertive if the actor at the time intended the conduct to convey a particular meaning to another person. (Evid.Code, § 225 [defining statement to include nonverbal conduct of a person intended by him as a substitute for oral or written verbal expression].) For example, a nod of the head in response to a question calling for a yes-or-no answer, or a gesture pointing to a particular person when asked to identify a perpetrator, are examples of assertive conduct. Here, nothing in the videotape suggests that defendant's emotional responses were voluntary or that he intended them to convey any particular meaning to the interrogating officers. But the defense sought to introduce more than just evidence of the emotional displays themselves. To explain the significance of the emotional displays, and particularly defendant's statement that as a result of the murder he had received an injury from [his] conscience, the defense sought to introduce the statements defendant made during the videotaped interview. As defendant must concede, those statements, including assertions and descriptions of his own feelings and other mental states, were hearsay. They were not admissible under the state-of-mind exception to the hearsay rule (Evid.Code, § 1250) if they were made under circumstances indicating a lack of trustworthiness ( id., § 1252). As the trial court correctly determined, the circumstance that defendant made his statements during a postarrest police interrogation, when he had a compelling motive to minimize his culpability for the murder and to play on the sympathies of his interrogators, indicated a lack of trustworthiness. In past decisions, we have upheld the exclusion of self-serving postcrime statements made under similar circumstances. ( People v. Livaditis (1992) 2 Cal.4th 759, 779-780, 9 Cal.Rptr.2d 72, 831 P.2d 297; People v. Edwards (1991) 54 Cal.3d 787, 820, 1 Cal.Rptr.2d 696, 819 P.2d 436; People v. Whitt (1990) 51 Cal.3d 620, 642-643, 274 Cal.Rptr. 252, 798 P.2d 849.) We have also rejected the argument that exclusion of this sort of hearsay evidence violates a capital defendant's right to a fair trial and a reliable penalty determination under the federal Constitution. As we have explained, a capital defendant has no federal constitutional right to the admission of evidence lacking trustworthiness, particularly when the defendant seeks to put his own self-serving statements before the jury without subjecting himself to cross-examination. ( People v. Stanley, supra, 10 Cal.4th at pp. 838-840, 42 Cal.Rptr.2d 543, 897 P.2d 481; People v. Livaditis, supra, 2 Cal.4th at p. 780, 9 Cal.Rptr.2d 72, 831 P.2d 297; People v. Edwards, supra, 54 Cal.3d at pp. 820-821, 1 Cal.Rptr.2d 696, 819 P.2d 436; People v. Whitt, supra, 51 Cal.3d at p. 644, 274 Cal.Rptr. 252, 798 P.2d 849.) In excluding the entire videotape of defendant's postarrest interrogation, the trial court did not err under state law, nor did it violate defendant's rights under the federal Constitution. The defense never offered to redact the videotape to show only the nonassertive conduct, and, even if it had done so, any error in excluding the admissible portions of the videotape was harmless.