Opinion ID: 1147228
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Request for Judicially Conferred Immunity

Text: (2a) Defendant next contends that the trial court erred in denying his request to grant judicial use immunity to his girlfriend, Judith Goldstein, so as to overcome Goldstein's Fifth Amendment claim. Defendant premises his argument on the Sixth Amendment right to compulsory process and the Fifth Amendment right to due process. The district attorney had charged Ms. Goldstein with being an accessory after the fact to the murders. Her case was pending at the time of defendant's trial. The defense called her to testify but she refused to answer any questions on the basis of her Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. Defense counsel thereupon renewed his request, raised prior to trial, to grant use immunity to Ms. Goldstein. The trial court asked counsel for an offer of proof as to what he expected Ms. Goldstein's testimony to reveal. Counsel, in response, recalled that earlier testimony had established that on the morning of the murder, December 28, 1981, defendant had accompanied Ms. Goldstein to the funeral of the mother of Ms. Goldstein's roommate, Carol Lange. Counsel then explained: It is my understanding that during the course of that [funeral] ceremony ... [defendant] made the statement to Judith Goldstein  or a question, possibly  `Why is it the good people die and the bad still live.' [¶] I submit, Your Honor, that it is material to the question of the mental state of the defendant on the 28th day of December of 1981. The trial court denied the request. (3) It is settled in California that the granting of transactional immunity is conditioned upon a written request by the prosecutor that the witness be compelled to answer. (§ 1324; In re Weber (1974) 11 Cal.3d 703, 720 [114 Cal. Rptr. 429, 523 P.2d 229].) (4) (See fn. 4.), (2b) Defendant contends, however, that the defendant in a criminal action should be entitled to request that the court grant use immunity to a defense witness who has knowledge of essential, exculpatory evidence. [4] The contention is unavailing. As the Attorney General points out, the Courts of Appeal of this state have uniformly rejected the notion that a trial court has the inherent power, in such circumstances, to confer use immunity upon a witness called by the defense. (See People v. Estrada (1986) 176 Cal. App.3d 410, 418 [221 Cal. Rptr. 922]; People v. DeFreitas, supra, 140 Cal. App.3d at pp. 839-841; People v. Sutter (1982) 134 Cal. App.3d 806, 812-817 [184 Cal. Rptr. 829].) With few exceptions, federal and state judicial authority across the nation is to the same effect. (See People v. DeFreitas, supra, 140 Cal. App.3d at pp. 838-839; Annot. (1981) 4 A.L.R.4th 617.) Though it is possible to hypothesize cases where a judicially conferred use immunity might possibly be necessary to vindicate a criminal defendant's rights to compulsory process and a fair trial (see e.g., Note, Separation of Powers and Defense Witness Immunity (1977) 66 Georgetown L.J. 51), that is not a question we need here decide. For defendant's offer of proof at trial in support of his request fell well short of the standards set forth in the one case which has clearly recognized such a right, Government of Virgin Islands v. Smith (3d Cir.1980) 615 F.2d 964. While holding that in certain cases a court may have authority to confer a judicially fashioned immunity upon a witness whose testimony is essential to an effective defense, the Smith court also recognized that the opportunities for judicial use of this immunity power must be clearly limited; ... the proffered testimony must be clearly exculpatory; the testimony must be essential; and there must be no strong governmental interests which countervail against a grant of immunity.... [¶] [T]he defendant must make a convincing showing sufficient to satisfy the court that the testimony which will be forthcoming is both clearly exculpatory and essential to the defendant's case. Immunity will be denied if the proffered testimony is found to be ambiguous, not clearly exculpatory, cumulative or it is found to relate only to the credibility of the government's witnesses. ( Id., at p. 972.) As noted above, defense counsel's offer of proof was that Ms. Goldstein would testify that defendant was depressed as a result of attending a funeral, and that he had made the statement, Why is it the good people die and the bad still live. Even assuming that the proffered testimony was not inadmissible hearsay, it did not meet Smith's requirement that the evidence be clearly exculpatory and essential. At best, the evidence was cumulative of the extensive testimony of other defense witnesses. It was well established that defendant had been abused by his father. Furthermore, defendant's sister testified that she spoke with defendant the day after the murder, and recalled that defendant stated he was feeling depressed from having attended a funeral the previous day. In addition, Dr. Lunde, a psychiatrist, offered his expert opinion that defendant was clinically depressed on the day of the murder and could not, as a result, have committed a willful, deliberate and premeditated murder. In short, defendant failed to demonstrate that the proffered testimony was clearly exculpatory and essential to his defense. Defendant points out that the testimony of three witnesses for the prosecution, Thomas Henkemeyer, Jefferson Schar and Gary Sayers, had been obtained pursuant to a request for transactional immunity by the district attorney under the authority of section 1324. There is no evidence to suggest, however, that the prosecutor intentionally withheld transactional immunity from Goldstein solely to assure the exclusion of her testimony. (5) We agree the prosecutor's duty is to administer the immunity power evenhandedly, with a view to ascertaining the truth, and not as a partisan engaged in a legal game. ( People v. Ruthford (1975) 14 Cal.3d 399, 405 [121 Cal. Rptr. 261, 534 P.2d 1341]; In re Ferguson (1971) 5 Cal.3d 525, 531-532 [96 Cal. Rptr. 594, 487 P.2d 1234]; cf. United States v. DePalma (S.D.N.Y. 1979) 476 F. Supp. 775, 780-782 [conviction reversed because of government's selective grant of immunity to two prosecution witnesses and refusal to grant immunity to two other key defense witnesses]; United States v. Herman (3d Cir.1978) 589 F.2d 1191, 1204, cert. den. 441 U.S. 913 [60 L.Ed.2d 386, 99 S.Ct. 2014] [government may not selectively grant or refuse immunity with the deliberate intention of distorting the judicial fact finding process].) (2c) However, there is no evidence here that the prosecutor intentionally refused to grant immunity to a key defense witness for the purpose of suppressing essential, noncumulative exculpatory evidence. Thus, even if in appropriate circumstances an essential witness for a criminal defendant should be granted judicial use immunity  a question we do not decide  the record establishes that the circumstances were not appropriate here and the court did not err in denying the immunity request. (6) Defendant also asserts that the trial court erred in denying his request to continue his case until the conclusion of Goldstein's case. As Goldstein's testimony was not shown to be essential, however, we cannot say that the trial court abused its discretion in denying the request.