Opinion ID: 844218
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Introduction of Defendant's Criminal History

Text: Defendant contends that during trial the prosecutor at times improperly introduced evidence concerning defendant's criminal history and referred to such evidence in his statements to the jury. Although defendant acknowledges the evidence in general was properly admitted, he urges that the prosecutor commented and embellished on the evidence in such an intentionally sarcastic, repetitive and prejudicial manner that it constituted misconduct and a denial of [defendant's] right to confrontation of the evidence against him. Even assuming defense counsel's various trial objections to aspects of this questioning preserved this claim, we discern no misconduct. As the trial court ruled, defendant's criminal history initially was relevant to establish his motive to shoot at the deputies and the truth of the prior prison term sentencing allegations. Ultimately, after defendant introduced evidence to establish Deputy Blair's character for violence, the prosecutor was permitted to establish and comment upon defendant's character for violence, demonstrated by his having committed violent acts, such as the prior assaults using a firearm. (See Evid. Code, § 1103, subd. (b).) Defendant has not convinced us that either the prosecutor's actions regarding the introduction of evidence of defendant's criminal history or the prosecutor's arguments on the subject were improper. To the extent defendant claims the prosecutor's comments during his opening statement to the jury that the shooting of police officers was an unintended but not unanticipated side effect result of the three strikes law, and that [w]e knew that these three strikes candidates are going to kill police officers rather than go to jail constituted misconduct separate from the assertedly improper reliance upon defendant's criminal history, we again are not persuaded. Assuming defense counsel's objection to the first statement as being improper argument was sufficient to preserve defendant's appellate claim, and even assuming misconduct occurred because the statements constituted argument (see People v. Farnam (2002) 28 Cal.4th 107, 168 [121 Cal.Rptr.2d 106, 47 P.3d 988] [`[t]he purpose of the opening statement is to inform the jury of the evidence the prosecution intends to present']), and referred to matters outside the evidence to be presented at trial, defendant could not have been prejudiced by these brief and not particularly inflammatory comments. ( People v. Harris (1989) 47 Cal.3d 1047, 1080 [255 Cal.Rptr. 352, 767 P.2d 619].) This is especially so in light of the trial court's having instructed the jury several times that the statements of the attorneys did not constitute evidence.