Opinion ID: 844218
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Admission of Deputy Lyons's Testimony Concerning Deputy Blair's Police Work

Text: Defendant contends the trial court erred when it allowed Deputy Lyons to testify, in essence, that Deputy Blair was not the type of deputy who would harass people. This contention is without merit. During direct examination, Deputy Lyons testified that earlier during their patrol on the night of the shooting, he and Deputy Blair had talked with a group of approximately 15 members of a gang in Compton, who were standing around their cars, drinking beer, and listening to loud music. Although Deputy Blair told them to discard their beer and to turn down the music, the encounter was not particularly adversarial. The gang members soon thereafter entered their cars and drove away. The prosecutor later asked Deputy Lyons whether he and Deputy Blair jack[ed] them around and [said] get in your car and then watch them drive away and then stop them for driving under the influence? After Deputy Lyons answered no, the prosecutor continued, You sort of laughed when I asked you that question. Why is that? Deputy Lyons answered, That's just notwe just didn't do that. We weren'tI'm not that type of deputy and Deputy Blair was not that type of deputy. Defense counsel then objected that Deputy Lyons's answer was nonresponsive, and the trial court overruled the objection. On appeal, defendant contends the trial court should have struck Deputy Lyons's answer that he and Deputy Blair were not the type of deputies who would jack around people in the manner the prosecution suggested, because the testimony was irrelevant, lacked a proper foundation, and was prejudicial. The only objection he raised at trial, however, was that the answer was nonresponsive. The trial court properly overruled that objection because the answer was, in fact, responsive to the question the prosecution had asked, which was why Deputy Lyons had laughed at the previous question that had been posed. Defendant forfeited the grounds he asserts on appeal by not raising them at trial. ( Clark, supra, 3 Cal.4th at pp. 125-126.) Nonetheless, even if defendant had preserved his appellate challenges, and assuming for the sake of argument that the testimony should have been excluded as irrelevant or lacking a proper foundation, any error was harmless under the standard of People v. Watson (1956) 46 Cal.2d 818, 836 [299 P.2d 243]. (See Scheid, supra, 16 Cal.4th at p. 21 [applying the Watson standard to claim of erroneous admission of evidence].) There is no reasonable probability the jury would have reached a more favorable verdict had the trial court struck Deputy Lyons's brief statement that he and Deputy Blair were not the type of deputies who would jack around people by ordering them to do something and then arresting them after complying.