Opinion ID: 2631133
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Asserted misstatement of evidence

Text: The prosecution presented evidence that at 12:24 p.m. on the day of the murders, the Westminster Police Department notified officers to be on the lookout for two male suspects in a red dual-wheel pickup truck. Westminster Police Officer Steve Moore, then on motorcycle patrol, saw a truck matching this description, and followed it for about one mile. Moore noticed that codefendant Wynglarz, who was driving the truck, turned around several times and looked at him. The prosecution's guilt phase closing argument included the following: After the killings, [Wynglarz] drives the getaway car. Is that an accident? Remember, I was asking, `Well, Mr. Tafoya, if it's your car and you don't want other people driving it, why didn't you ask for the keys?' [¶] The reason, I would submit, is Mr. Tafoya was the one with the gun. So if there would be a problem, if there would be a police officer who pulls them over, Mr. Wynglarz needs both hands on the wheel. He needs to drive. Mr. Tafoya has the gun free if he needs to use it. That is why Mr. Wynglarz is driving Mr. Tafoya's truck. He's the getaway driver. It allows the gun to be used if need be. Fortunately for all of us, [ ] Officer Moore did not try to pull them over, because who knows what would have happened to Officer Moore. Defendant complains the prosecutor misstated the evidence by arguing that defendant had the gun on his person while he and codefendant Wynglarz escaped in defendant's truck and by suggesting that defendant would have shot Officer Moore had he tried to stop them. We disagree. While counsel is accorded `great latitude at argument to urge whatever conclusions counsel believes can properly be drawn from the evidence,' counsel may not assume or state facts not in evidence [citation] or mischaracterize the evidence. ( People v. Valdez (2004) 32 Cal.4th 73, 133, 8 Cal.Rptr.3d 271, 82 P.3d 296.) Whether the inferences drawn by the prosecutor are reasonable is a question for the jury. ( People v. Dennis (1998) 17 Cal.4th 468, 522, 71 Cal.Rptr.2d 680, 950 P.2d 1035.) Here, the prosecution neither mischaracterized the evidence nor assumed facts not in evidence, but merely drew permissible inferences from it. Although defendant testified that he put the gun in a bag, and threw the bag in the back of his truck, no other witness so testified to his version of events. Moreover, according to codefendant Wynglarz, defendant had the gun on his lap as they drove away from Skillman's house. Thus, the prosecution's argument that defendant was armed during the getaway was consistent with the evidence and not improper. Furthermore, the prosecution could reasonably infer from the evidence that defendant, a passenger in the getaway truck, might have used the gun he held to shoot Officer Moore had the latter stopped defendant's truck. The evidence showed that defendant had just shot two unarmed men, Skillman and Rita, almost immediately after he entered Skillman's house.