Opinion ID: 1199062
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Sandra B.'s Testimony

Text: (31) Defendant contends that manipulation by the prosecution led Sandra B. to assert her Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination when defendant called her as a witness at the guilt phase, but to waive the privilege when the prosecution called her as a witness at the penalty phase. A defendant's constitutional rights to compel the attendance of witnesses, as guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment, and to due process, as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, are violated when the prosecution interferes with the defendant's right to present witnesses. ( In re Martin (1987) 44 Cal.3d 1, 29-30 [241 Cal. Rptr. 263, 744 P.2d 374].) The defendant, however, bears the burden of showing that the prosecutor's conduct was entirely unnecessary to the proper performance of the prosecutor's duties and was of such a nature as to transform a defense witness willing to testify into one unwilling to testify. In addition, the defendant must establish interference, that is, a causal link between the prosecutorial misconduct and the defendant's inability to present the witness. ( Id. at p. 31.) In this case, defendant has failed to establish prosecutorial misconduct. Sandra B.'s trial was severed from defendant's, and she was independently represented by counsel. At the guilt phase, she asserted her privilege against self-incrimination on the advice of her attorney, not because the prosecutor had told her to do so. Nor did the prosecutor's testimony, in which the prosecutor disclosed the substance of his discussions with Sandra's attorney, indicate any interference with defendant's constitutional right to present the testimony of witnesses.