Opinion ID: 2594806
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Admission of the Kansas Tape

Text: Defendant contends that the trial court abused its discretion under Evidence Code section 352 and violated his due process rights by admitting at the competency hearing, over his objection, the tape recording he made in which he described, in graphic and brutal detail, the string of murders he committed between April 22 and April 27, 1991. The tape had been seized upon defendant's arrest in Kansas. Prior to his competency hearing, the defense moved to exclude the tape as more prejudicial than probative. (Evid.Code, § 352.) In opposition, the prosecution argued that the tape was relevant to its theory that defendant was malingering to avoid punishment for his crimes. As the prosecutor explained, the portrait of defendant painted for purposes of the competency hearing was that he speaks gibberish, ... cannot remember the names of three simple objects. That his memory is barely intact. In other words, an extremely low level of functioning. The tape, however, in the prosecutor's estimation, supported the prosecution's theory that defendant was feigning his mental illness to avoid the death penalty because it demonstrates that this defendant has a remarkable memory for detail, remembering things that occurred over the last four days in chronological sequence, in rich detail. [¶] So it shows no memory problems. It shows a person who's not stumbling over his words. Who is not, as Dr. Fricke in his report says, stumbling and barely able to concentrate. It shows a person whose concentration is good. [¶] For those reasons I think the jury is entitled to hear it so they can compare that with the level of functioning that he experiences now. The trial court agreed that the tape was highly probative and directly relevant to the issue of whether the defendant is feigning incompetence now to avoid a trial and possible punishment. Accordingly, the court admitted the tape. [A]n appellate court applies the abuse of discretion standard of review to any ruling by a trial court on the admissibility of evidence, including one that turns on the relative probativeness and prejudice of the evidence in question [citations]. Evidence is substantially more prejudicial than probative (see Evid.Code, § 352) if, broadly stated, it poses an intolerable `risk to the fairness of the proceedings or the reliability of the outcome' ( People v. Alvarez [(1996)] 14 Cal.4th [155], 204, fn. 14, 58 Cal.Rptr.2d 385, 926 P.2d 365). ( People v. Waidla (2000) 22 Cal.4th 690, 724, 94 Cal.Rptr.2d 396, 996 P.2d 46.) The admission of relevant evidence will not offend due process unless the evidence is so prejudicial as to render the defendant's trial fundamentally unfair. ( People v. Falsetta (1999) 21 Cal.4th 903, 913, 89 Cal.Rptr.2d 847, 986 P.2d 182.) We conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion by admitting the tape nor did the admission of the tape violate due process. The question in a competency proceeding is whether, as a result of mental disorder or developmental disability, the defendant is unable to understand the nature of the criminal proceedings or to assist counsel in the conduct of a defense in a rational manner. (§ 1367, subd. (a).) Defendant acknowledges that the Kansas tape, even though it was made two years before his competency trial, to the extent it established a rational capacity to recall and communicate, had some relevance on the issue of his present competence to stand trial. (Cf. People v. Samuel (1981) 29 Cal.3d 489, 504, 174 Cal.Rptr. 684, 629 P.2d 485 [defendant's confession, obtained one year before competency proceeding, had some probative value in determining his present competency but, in relation to other evidence, was not highly probative and reversal of competency finding was required].) Nonetheless, he maintains the evidence should have been excluded because its probative value was weak in comparison with its potential to prejudice the jury against him. In this connection, he argues that the tape was cumulative of other, far less sensational evidence that would also have established his capacity for rational behavior. Specifically, he points out that Dr. Missett's report listed a number of reasons for his conclusion that defendant was competent to stand trial, including past evidence of rational behavior that did not involve criminal conduct. In addition, defendant notes, the trial court was aware of the proposed testimony of percipient witnesses to defendant's behavior in the period between his release from prison and commission of the crimes which would have made the same point regarding defendant's ability to function as the prosecution sought to make with the tape recording. We do not agree that the tape recording was cumulative to the testimony of other witnesses regarding defendant's capacity to act rationally. The tape, in defendant's own voice, sequentially recounting the circumstances of his crimes in great detail when he had no motive to feign mental illness, was not only highly probative of whether he was malingering but also uniquely probative in a way that neither Dr. Missett's report nor the testimony of other witnesses could be. We conclude, therefore, that the trial court did not abuse its discretion by admitting the tape recording. Defendant argues, however, that the effect of the evidence was to invoke an emotional bias against him on the part of the jury that impelled the jury to punish defendant, presumably by finding him competent. As the Attorney General points out, the jury was instructed that its sole function was to determine the defendant's competence to stand trial, not whether he was guilty of a crime; apprised that it was not to consider the consequences of a finding either of competence or incompetence in rendering its verdict; and admonished that it was not to be influenced by pity for the defendant or prejudice against him, nor by sentiment, conjecture, sympathy, passion, prejudice, public feeling or public opinion. Defendant asks us to presume that the tape recording evidence rendered the jury incapable of following these instructions but, absent some indication in the record, we must presume that jury understood and applied these instructions. ( People v. Frank (1990) 51 Cal.3d 718, 728, 274 Cal.Rptr. 372, 798 P.2d 1215.) In short, we conclude the trial court did not abuse its discretion under Evidence Code section 352. We conclude further that the admission of the evidence did not violate defendant's due process by rendering the trial fundamentally unfair. ( People v. Falsetta, supra, 21 Cal.4th at p. 913, 89 Cal.Rptr.2d 847, 986 P.2d 182.)