Opinion ID: 6105748
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Striking of defendant's testimony at the suppression hearing

Text: The defense filed a pretrial motion to suppress defendant's statements to interrogating officers on the ground that the statements were obtained in  violation of Miranda v. Arizona (1966) 384 U.S. 436 , 86 S.Ct. 1602 , 16 L.Ed.2d 694 . Defendant testified at a hearing on the motion, but the trial court ordered defendant's testimony stricken in its entirety after he refused to answer one of the prosecutor's questions during cross-examination. The court ultimately granted the motion to suppress in part, ruling that some of the custodial statements were improperly obtained.  Of those statements that the court found admissible, only one was presented to the jury in the prosecution's case-in-chief. Defendant asserts that his conviction and death sentence must be reversed because the ruling striking his testimony prevented the court from properly evaluating his motion to suppress in violation of various state and federal constitutional rights, including his due process rights to a fair trial and to present a defense. Alternatively, defendant urges that the judgment be vacated and the matter remanded to the trial judge to reconsider his suppression motion in light of defendant's testimony at the hearing. As we will explain, neither reversal nor vacation of the judgment is required. Even were this court to conclude that the trial court abused its discretion by striking defendant's testimony in its entirety, any error could not have prejudiced defendant because the custodial statement that was presented at trial was similar to, and less damaging than, defendant's other properly admitted statements implicating himself in the murder.
Defendant was arrested on July 21, 1999. He was taken to the Colorado Springs police station, where Colorado Springs Detective Derek Graham conducted an unrecorded interview of defendant. The next day, while still detained in Colorado Springs, defendant spoke with Los Angeles Police Department Detective Lindy Gligorijevic and her partner Detective Rick Gonzalez in a videotaped interview. Four days later, on July 26, defendant made additional statements to Gligorijevic and Gonzalez, first, while they transported him to the airport and second, during the flight back to Los Angeles. Before trial, the defense moved to suppress all four of defendant's statements to the interrogating officers on the ground they were obtained in violation of Miranda v. Arizona, supra, 384 U.S. 436 , 86 S.Ct. 1602 , arguing both that defendant had not waived his Miranda rights and that the officers failed to stop their questioning when defendant invoked his right to counsel. The court held a hearing over the course of two days. 1. Testimony of Detective Graham Detective Graham of the Colorado Springs Police Department testified that he spoke with defendant for approximately three hours, during which time  Graham mostly listened while defendant volunteered a substantial amount of information about the crimes. Graham indicated that he spent the first 30 minutes sitting with defendant while he and defendant ate hamburgers out on a patio, listening to his concerns and talking with him about his Miranda rights. When defendant was then formally advised of his rights and presented with a written waiver form, he signed the form and agreed to speak with Graham. According to Graham, defendant never asked for an attorney at any time, either before or after signing the waiver form or at any point during the three-hour interview.  2. Testimony of Detective Gligorijevic A transcript of the interrogation conducted by Detectives Gligorijevic and Gonzales the day after defendant's arrest showed that Gligorijevic began her formal interview by confirming with defendant that he had been advised of and waived his Miranda rights before speaking with Detective Graham the previous day. Detective Gligorijevic testified at the hearing that she interrogated defendant for about two hours, stopping the interview at the point she believed defendant clearly was asking for counsel.  Detective Gligorijevic testified further that defendant spoke to her and her partner four days later during the drive to the airport and the flight to Los Angeles. The conversation began in the car when defendant asked Gligorijevic if she and Detective Gonzalez were wearing wires or tape recording him. Gligorijevic assured him that they were not. Defendant then asked whether making a fuller statement could be used against him. Gligorijevic responded that whatever defendant said now would not be used against him because they were merely transporting him and he was outside Miranda . According to Gligorijevic, defendant then spoke with the officers nonstop for hours, providing detailed information regarding his relationship with Kerr and the events leading up to and including her death, which Gligorijevic related to the court. 3. Defendant's testimony on direct examination Defendant testified on his own behalf at the hearing. With regard to his dealings with the arresting officers, defendant testified that at the time of his arrest in Colorado Springs, he asked how he could speak with a lawyer but the officer blew it off. According to defendant, he repeated that question about 30 minutes later, when Detective Graham and his partner took him into a coffee room at the police station. Defendant acknowledged at the hearing that he later signed a written waiver of his Miranda rights, but he explained that he did so because the officers had led him to believe they would help him.  Defendant also described his interview with the detectives from Los Angeles. According to defendant, during that interrogation, he repeatedly asked why there was no one helping him, and told the detectives several times that he was uncomfortable and wanted to leave the room. Defendant explained at the hearing that he had not wanted to be in the interrogation room, both because he believed he was being secretly videotaped and because no one was there speaking for him or helping him. 4. Cross-examination of defendant The prosecutor began his cross-examination of defendant by asking him several questions about his flight back to Los Angeles with Detectives Gligorijevic and Gonzalez. When the prosecutor then asked defendant whether he told the detectives during the flight that he had killed Kerr, defense counsel objected. Specifically, he argued that the question went beyond the scope of direct examination and was irrelevant to the issue before the court, which was whether defendant had been told by the detectives while driving to the airport that anything he said could not be used against him. Counsel acknowledged that he had not objected when the prosecutor elicited from Detective Gligorijevic the substance of defendant's incriminating statements during the ride to the airport and the flight to Los Angeles. Counsel pointed out, however, that he had not covered that subject with defendant during his testimony, and argued that the prosecutor's cross-examination had therefore exceeded the scope of direct examination. The court observed that the subject matter of all of the statements at issue in the suppression motion seemed fair game for questioning, and overruled the defense objection. 5. Refusal to answer and striking of testimony When the proceedings resumed after a short recess, defense counsel moved the court for reconsideration of its prior ruling. Counsel explained that he did not question defendant about his statements  en route to the airport and during the flight to Los Angeles because the defense position was  that those statements must be suppressed on the ground defendant was told that anything he said would not be used against him. Counsel also informed the court that although he had advised defendant not to answer any questions about the flight, defendant was more than willing to answer all questions concerning the time period covered on direct examination. The court denied the motion for reconsideration and reaffirmed its prior ruling. The court emphasized that although defense counsel had questioned defendant regarding only two of the four statements that had been placed in  issue by the suppression motion, Detective Gligorijevic had provided significant testimony regarding the other two statements, about which the prosecutor was entitled to cross-examine defendant. When the court subsequently ordered defendant to answer the prosecutor's question, defendant refused to do so. The court then granted the prosecutor's motion to strike all of defendant's direct examination testimony, observing that defendant was not permitted to pick and choose the questions he is willing to answer. 6. Rulings on the motion to suppress defendant's statements to interrogating officers The court ruled that defendant's statements to Detective Graham during the 30-minute period prior to his signing the waiver form would be suppressed because he had not been properly advised of his Miranda rights, but that any statements he made thereafter were admissible. At trial, the prosecutor elicited defendant's postwaiver statements during Graham's testimony. The court also granted in part and denied in part the motion to suppress defendant's statements to Detectives Gligorijevic and Gonzalez. Relying primarily on the transcript of the July 22 interrogation in the police station, the court found that defendant had unequivocally and unambiguously invoked his right to counsel well before the detectives ceased their questioning, and ordered all statements after his request for a lawyer to be suppressed. Although the court declined to suppress the portion of defendant's July 22 statement that he made before invoking his right to counsel, the prosecution did not present that evidence during its guilt phase case. Finally, the court ordered that defendant's statements to the detectives during the ride to the airport and the flight to Los Angeles be suppressed in their entirety. As the court put it, basic justice demanded that all of these admissions be excluded from the prosecution's case-in-chief.
Defendant argues that the court erred by striking his suppression hearing testimony in its entirety because the question he refused to answer was not relevant to the issue before the court. He further asserts that the order to strike prevented the court from accurately evaluating and determining whether all of his admissions were obtained in violation of Miranda v. Arizona, supra , 384 U.S. 436 , 86 S.Ct. 1602 and must be suppressed. We conclude that defendant is not entitled to relief, as explained below.  A criminal defendant's due process right to defend against the state's accusations includes the right to testify in his or her own behalf. ( Chambers v. Mississippi (1973) 410 U.S. 284 , 294, 93 S.Ct. 1038 , 35 L.Ed.2d 297 ;  People v. Robles (1970) 2 Cal.3d 205 , 215, 85 Cal.Rptr. 166 , 466 P.2d 710 ; People v. Reynolds (1984) 152 Cal.App.3d 42 , 45-46, 199 Cal.Rptr. 379 .) However, a defendant's right to take the witness stand to offer his or her account of the events in question coexists with the prosecutor's right to fairly test that testimony through cross-examination. ( Fost v. Superior Court (2000) 80 Cal.App.4th 724 , 733-734, 95 Cal.Rptr.2d 620 ; People v. Reynolds, at p. 46, 199 Cal.Rptr. 379 ; see generally Chambers v. Mississippi, at p. 295, 93 S.Ct. 1038 .) And it is well settled furthermore that [a] defendant cannot, by testifying to a state of things contrary to and inconsistent with the evidence of the prosecution, thus indirectly denying the testimony against him, ... limit the cross-examination to the precise facts concerning which he testifies. (  People v. Cooper (1991) 53 Cal.3d 771 , 822, 281 Cal.Rptr. 90 , 809 P.2d 865 ; accord, People v. Cornejo (1979) 92 Cal.App.3d 637 , 655, 155 Cal.Rptr. 238 .) Courts have long recognized that when a defendant refuses to answer some or all of a prosecutor's relevant questions during cross-examination, the trial court has discretion to strike the defendant's direct testimony, either in part or in its entirety. ( People v. Miller (1990) 50 Cal.3d 954 , 999, 269 Cal.Rptr. 492 , 790 P.2d 1289 ; People v. Reynolds, at p. 47, 199 Cal.Rptr. 379 ; People v. McGowan (1926) 80 Cal.App. 293 , 298-299, 251 P. 643 .) In People v. Reynolds, supra , 152 Cal.App.3d 42 , 199 Cal.Rptr. 379 , the Court of Appeal was mindful that the trial court's order striking all of the defendant's direct testimony in that case prevented [the] defendant from exercising a fundamental right. ( Id . at p. 47, 199 Cal.Rptr. 379 .) Accordingly, the appellate court recommended that a court exercising its discretion to strike testimony consider first whether the witness has refused to submit to cross-examination altogether, rather than refused to answer only one or more questions. In the latter circumstance, the Court of Appeal suggested, the witness's direct testimony need not be stricken in its entirety in every case, and the court should consider both the motive for the refusal to answer and the materiality of the answer. The Court of Appeal also suggested that the court consider solutions short of striking a defendant's entire testimony, such as striking only a portion of the testimony, or instructing the jurors that they may take into account the refusal to answer when assessing the defendant's credibility. ( Id . at pp. 47-48, 199 Cal.Rptr. 379 .) We find that the decision in People v. Reynolds provides a useful framework, not only for a trial court to follow in exercising its discretion in these circumstances, but also for a reviewing court to use when assessing an appellant's challenge to the trial court's ruling on a motion to strike his or her direct testimony. We follow the suggested approach here to consider defendant's claim that the court abused its discretion in striking his suppression hearing testimony in its entirety.  Defendant's motive for refusing to answer the prosecutor's question appears to have been a matter of tactics. Defense counsel strongly disagreed with the trial court's ruling rejecting his arguments that the prosecutor's line of questioning went beyond the scope of direct examination and was irrelevant to the issue before the court, which was whether the detectives had assured defendant that nothing he said could be used against him. Counsel informed the court, moreover, that he had advised defendant not to answer any questions about the flight to Los Angeles, acknowledging that the court would likely strike defendant's testimony were defendant to refuse to respond to the prosecutor's question. By accepting counsel's  advice and refusing to answer, defendant apparently decided that there was more utility in keeping out of the record his response to the prosecutor's question than there was in having the court consider his hearing testimony up to that point. Defendant's tactical decision did not exempt him from cross-examination. (Cf. People v. Reynolds, supra , 152 Cal.App.3d at p. 46, 199 Cal.Rptr. 379 [defendant's fear of attack by prison inmates for being a snitch were he to answer the prosecutor's question, although not baseless, did not constitute a legal exemption from cross-examination].) Less clear is whether the prosecutor's question asking defendant whether he told the detectives that he had killed Kerr was material to the issues at the suppression hearing. We agree with the People that defendant's credibility was central to the outcome of the hearing, which largely pitted defendant's word regarding the timing of his invocation of the right to counsel and the possibility of an improper inducement to waiving his rights against that of the testifying officers. Although whether or not defendant admitted to the detectives that he killed Kerr did not bear directly on either of those disputed issues, it may have been relevant to his credibility. Were defendant to have said that he told the detectives he had killed Kerr, that response might have bolstered his credibility, generally speaking, in that such a statement would have been against his penal interest and could have been used to impeach him in the event he decided to testify on his  own behalf at trial. (See People v. Seminoff (2008) 159 Cal.App.4th 518 , 527, 71 Cal.Rptr.3d 582 [using similar reasoning to conclude that the codefendant's responses to questions she refused to answer on 5th Amend. grounds were crucial to an assessment of her credibility in the suppression hearing].) By contrast, were defendant to deny having confessed to killing Kerr, his denial might have reflected poorly on his credibility generally, given Detective Gligorijevic's highly detailed testimony relating defendant's account of events leading up to and including the homicide. Defendant's credibility was not critical to whether the statements defendant made to detectives on the drive to the airport and on the flight to Los Angeles should be suppressed, however. As previously mentioned, defense counsel had successfully argued that those statements must be excluded because  defendant had been assured by the detectives that anything he said to them at that time could not be used against him. And as defendant points out, counsel's effort to suppress those statements relied, not on defendant's own testimony, but on the testimony of Detective Gligorijevic. Even assuming for argument, however, that the court abused its discretion by declining to consider defendant's testimony when ruling on the motion to suppress and that, had it done so, the court would have suppressed all of the challenged statements, we conclude that any error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. ( Chapman v. California (1967) 386 U.S. 18 , 24, 87 S.Ct. 824 , 17 L.Ed.2d 705 ; People v. Davis (2009) 46 Cal.4th 539 , 598, 94 Cal.Rptr.3d 322 , 208 P.3d 78 .) The court fully suppressed two of the four sets of challenged statements, and suppressed sizeable portions of the other two. Of those portions of the statements that the court found admissible, only one of them was presented to the jury during the prosecution's case-in-chief, when Detective Graham recounted what defendant had said regarding his relationship with Kerr and his activities around the time of her death. Specifically, Graham testified that defendant told him that at 1:30 a.m. on the day of the fire, he and Kerr had had a brief  argument at her apartment and that she was angry when she left in her car. According to defendant, he was driving on the freeway in the early morning hours when he saw Kerr's car in flames and firefighters at the scene. Defendant explained to Graham that he believed Kerr was having a sexual relationship with Harvey and that he felt angry and betrayed by Kerr, particularly because he was paying for her apartment. He also indicated to the officer that he had formed his suspicions and was feeling angry at Kerr well before the night of her death. But what Detective Graham told the jury about defendant's relationship with Kerr and his activities around the time of her death was both cumulative of, and less damaging than, other testimony and evidence admitted at trial that established defendant's guilt. Like Graham, defendant's plumbing assistant Heiserman testified that defendant told him he was upset with Kerr because he suspected she was having a sexual relationship with Harvey, and that defendant had argued with Kerr on the night of her death. Both witnesses also indicated that defendant was angry with Kerr well before her death. But Heiserman also testified that defendant had expressed a desire to kill Kerr by blowing up her car or setting it on fire. And, Heiserman informed the jury that defendant admitted following Kerr to Harvey's house where he listened to their conversation, and then strangled her and put her in the back of her car. Defendant's Colorado Springs roommate David Jayne likewise testified that defendant admitted strangling his girlfriend after secretly listening to a conversation between her and a man with whom, he believed, she was sexually involved.  The People point out that the defense did not challenge the evidence that defendant killed Kerr, but had argued instead that he killed her in the heat of passion and therefore was guilty of voluntary manslaughter, not murder. Defendant asserts, however, that defense counsel's theory was substantially impacted by the court's rulings striking defendant's testimony and refusing to suppress his admissions to Graham. Had the court suppressed those statements as well, he posits,  it is likely the defense would not have conceded that defendant killed Kerr. We find defendant's assertion highly speculative, given that defendant made far more damaging admissions to other witnesses, as discussed above. For a similar reason, we reject defendant's further contention that defense counsel's concession was the only connection between defendant and Kerr's death. Defendant's statements to Detective Graham indeed placed defendant at the location where Kerr's burning vehicle had been found. But there was other, strong evidence connecting defendant to her death, such as defendant's call to Heiserman on the morning of Kerr's death asking, Is she dead? and the mobile telephone records showing his immediate flight from Southern California. We conclude that the court's striking of defendant's testimony at the suppression hearing and refusal to suppress defendant's statements to Graham, even if error, was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.