Opinion ID: 1447881
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Reliance on Probation Report

Text: (37) Defendant contends that the trial court's comments reflected improper reliance on the probation report. He is right. The function of the trial court in ruling on a motion for modification of a death verdict under section 190.4 is to independently reweigh the evidence of aggravating and mitigating circumstances that were presented to the jury and then to determine, exercising independent judgment, whether the jury's findings and verdicts that the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances are contrary to law or the evidence presented. (ง 190.4, subd. (e).) Because a probation report is not presented to the jury, it was error for the trial court to consider the probation report in ruling on the application for modification of verdict. ( People v. Fauber, supra, 2 Cal.4th at p. 866; People v. Lewis (1990) 50 Cal.3d 262, 287 [266 Cal. Rptr. 834, 786 P.2d 892].) Was the error prejudicial? Defendant contends it was. He focuses on the trial court's reliance on his juvenile record. In particular, he invites our attention to these comments by the trial court: I have reviewed a record which reflects not an accelerating crimes of violence [ sic ] because it appeared from the very earliest stages that Mr. Wader is involved in serious crimes and crimes of violence. [ถ] This has been a matter of his life since he was in his preteen years. As defendant correctly notes, there was no evidence presented to the jury that he was involved in serious crimes or crimes of violence as a juvenile. The jury did hear evidence that defendant had been disciplined for misbehavior at school, had run away from home as a child, and had been picked up by the police and held in juvenile detention facilities and a state facility at Atascadero. The only indication that defendant committed crimes as a juvenile is found in the probation report, which indicated that at the age of six, he robbed a store while armed with his father's revolver, and that he was involved in residential burglaries at the age of ten. According to the probation report, as a juvenile defendant was arrested numerous times for petty theft, attempted rape, burglary, drunk in public and under the influence of narcotics.... [C]harges normally were reduced and he served County time. Defendant contends this case is controlled by People v. Lewis, supra, 50 Cal.3d 262. There, too, the trial court read the probation report, which contained prejudicial information about defendant's juvenile record and prior involvement in a homicide โ information that would not otherwise have been known. ( Id. at p. 287.) We observed that the record reveals that the court referred to this information in stating its reasons for denial of the application. ( Ibid. ) We concluded that, on the basis of these circumstances, the matter had to be remanded for a new hearing on the defendant's application for modification of the death penalty verdict. ( Ibid. ) Here, as in Lewis, the trial court read a probation report that contained prejudicial information about the defendant's prior history of violent crime. And, as in Lewis, the record reveals that the court referred to the information in stating its reasons for denial of the motion. After our decision in Lewis, we have made clear that in determining prejudice, the inquiry must be whether there is a reasonable possibility that the error affected the decision. ( People v. Benson (1990) 52 Cal.3d 754, 812 [276 Cal. Rptr. 827, 802 P.2d 330].) We have also stated elsewhere that a remand is unwarranted when `[t]he statement of decision makes apparent that the [trial] court did not deem the issue of penalty to be a close one.' [Citation.] ( People v. Daniels (1991) 52 Cal.3d 815, 893 [277 Cal. Rptr. 122, 802 P.2d 906].) Here, there is no reasonable possibility that, absent the trial court's consideration of the probation report, the court would have ruled differently on the application for modification. The trial court stated that [i]f this were a first offense by Mr. Wader ... I might view this case differently than I'm disposed to do under the circumstances. But this was not a first offense. Defendant also had a record of serious violent crimes as an adult that the trial court properly took into consideration. As noted above, defendant was twice convicted of rape, and once convicted of aggravated assault. Defendant suffered two convictions for nonviolent felonies. And evidence at the penalty phase showed that, in the two months before he murdered Maxine Brown, defendant committed four armed robberies. This evidence of recent conduct, which was properly before the trial court, could not but have weighed heavily in the trial court's determination. Defendant was 40 years of age when he killed Brown, with a long and serious intervening criminal history as an adult; this considerably diminishes the prejudicial danger of the trial court's erroneous consideration of defendant's juvenile record. The trial court's statement of decision, which we quoted earlier, does not indicate that it viewed the question of penalty as a close one. Under the circumstances, it does not appear reasonably possible that, had it not considered the probation report, the trial court would have reached a different decision on defendant's application for modification of the jury's verdict of death. [13]