Opinion ID: 2595083
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Deputy District Attorney Berrett's Participation in the Prosecution

Text: Deputy District Attorney Michael Stone was assigned to try defendant's case. But on the first day of trial, Chief Deputy Holly Berrett appeared for the prosecution, explaining that Stone had pneumonia. The next day, as the trial court was screening prospective jurors for hardship, Berrett announced that defendant had subpoenaed her because she had been at the crime scene on the night Esther Alvarado was killed and because she could testify as to whether the district attorney's office had offered compensation to prosecution witness Anthony Ybarra in exchange for his testimony. Berrett had previously testified at the trial of Alfredo Padilla, who was also convicted of murdering Alvarado. (See People v. Padilla, supra, 11 Cal.4th at p. 931, 47 Cal.Rptr.2d 426, 906 P.2d 388.) Defendant asked the trial court to recuse Berrett from further participation in the case except as a witness. The trial court asked if defendant was requesting a mistrial. Defendant said he saw no problem with Berrett's participation in the prosecution up to that point, but he believed a problem would arise if she continued. The court recused Berrett from any further participation in the trial. For the next three days, Deputy District Attorney James Brazelton represented the People, until Deputy District Attorney Stone recovered. Stone handled the rest of the trial. At the guilt phase of trial, the prosecution called Berrett to testify. She described her observations as the district attorney's representative at the crime scene on the night of Alvarado's murder; she said the only consideration her office had given to witness Ybarra in exchange for his testimony was to ask the jail to allow him to serve an eight-month jail sentence in another county and under an assumed name. Defendant asserts that Attorney Berrett violated the trial court's recusal order, claiming she remained involved in the case. He notes that Berrett assigned attorney Brazelton to handle the prosecution until Attorney Stone's recovery from his illness, and that she provided a questionnaire for Brazelton to use during voir dire. We find no violation of the trial court's order. A defendant's motion to disqualify a prosecutor shall not be granted unless it is shown by the evidence that a conflict of interest exists such as would render it unlikely that the defendant would receive a fair trial. (§ 1424.) Here, the trial court appropriately disqualified Chief Deputy Berrett from direct participation in the prosecution of defendant's case, because if she became a witness she and the defense attorneys would face the awkward task of arguing Berrett's credibility to the jury, and because the jury might find it difficult to separate her roles as prosecutor and witness. (See generally People ex rel. Younger v. Superior Court (1978) 86 Cal. App.3d 180, 150 Cal.Rptr. 156.) But the trial court's order did not prohibit Berrett from assigning an attorney to represent the prosecution or from giving that attorney questions to ask the jury. Nor was there any reason for the court to do so. Performing these tasks could not lead to jury confusion, and we see no evidence that Berrett's observations at the scene of the murder caused her to do these tasks in a manner that violated defendant's right to a fair trial. Defendant speculates that Berrett's supervisorial duties ... made it likely that she remained involved in discretionary prosecutorial functions throughout the case. But the record contains no evidence that she was involved in any such activities other than those mentioned in the previous paragraph, and even if she was, such participation did not violate defendant's right to a fair trial. In a footnote, defendant accuses his trial counsel of incompetence for not moving to disqualify the entire Stanislaus County District Attorney's Office on the ground that Chief Deputy Berrett was a material witness. But Berrett's testimony, which pertained only to tasks she performed in her official capacity with the district attorney's office, did not create a conflict of interest that would render it unlikely that the defendant would receive a fair trial (§ 1424) if the district attorney's office handled the prosecution. (See generally People v. McPartland (1988) 198 Cal.App.3d 569, 574, 243 Cal.Rptr. 752 [recusal of an entire district attorney's office is not a step to be taken lightly, even where one or more deputy district attorneys may be called as witnesses]; People ex rel. Younger v. Superior Court, supra, 86 Cal. App.3d 180, 150 Cal.Rptr. 156 [reversing trial court's order recusing district attorney's office because one attorney was a witness to photographic lineups].) Thus, there was no reason for defendant's trial counsel to make the motion in question.