Opinion ID: 1254168
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Failure to Conduct Evidentiary Hearing.

Text: We find no abuse of discretion in failing to conduct an evidentiary hearing. Defense counsel offered nothing to suggest that further inquiry by the court into the misconduct claim would have been productive. In his written reply to the People's opposition to the new trial motion, appellant conceded that information in the statements of defense counsel and the investigator was inadmissible hearsay that would be excluded on objection by the People. He stated that counsel and the investigator would testify, thereby answering the technical objection. He argues now that he thereby indicated an intent to offer evidence at the hearing on the new trial motion. Minsloff and Love could have testified only that they had interviewed Wynn and she had made statements to them. That testimony would not establish misconduct. When the matter was heard, moreover, defense counsel did not seek to testify or to call his investigator to testify. In fact that would have been unnecessary as there was no dispute that Juror Wynn had made statements to Minsloff and Love. All, including the trial judge, recognized that the credibility of Wynn, not counsel or the investigator, was in issue. The issue was not whether the statements of Minsloff and Love were hearsay, but whether evidence of the content of Wynn's out-of-court statements would be admissible. The court excluded evidence of the content of the statements as hearsay, thereby impliedly ruling that the hearsay exception for statements against penal interest (Evid.Code, § 1230), [7] which appellant had argued was applicable, did not apply. [8] We cannot agree with Justice Mosk that the court had before it evidence of juror misconduct or that the People, through an adoptive admission or judicial admission, conceded as much. Apart from inadmissible hearsay that Juror Wynn assertedly repudiated and refused to verify, the court did not have before it evidence demonstrating a strong possibility of prejudicial juror misconduct, as the dissent contends. (Dis. opn., post, at pp. 268, 270.) We do indeed distinguish hearsay assertions in the declarations of Minsloff and Love from the declarations submitted by the People that denied Wynn's claims of misconduct by other jurors. The declarant jurors themselves executed the latter. Wynn refused to sign any declaration, and the double hearsay recitation of Minsloff and Love regarding Borriss's statement regarding Wynn's statement had even less evidentiary value. Indeed, the People disputed the accuracy of the statement attributed to Boriss and offered to obtain a declaration from her about that assertion. Clearly there was no adoptive admission of Wynn's alleged statement regarding her own and other jurors' conduct. The hearsay rule does not bar evidence offered against a party who has admitted the truth of the hearsay statement. Evidence of a statement offered against a party is not made inadmissible by the hearsay rule if the statement is one of which the party, with knowledge of the content thereof, has by words or other conduct manifested his adoption or his belief in its truth.  (Evid.Code, § 1221, italics added.) Even assuming that this adoptive admission exception to the hearsay rule is applicable in these circumstances, although we find no authority supporting invocation of the rule against the People in a criminal case, at no time did the People adopt the statements Wynn made to Minsloff and Love or manifest a belief in their truth. Quite the contrary, they offered evidence to demonstrate that those statements were untrue. [T]he mere recital or description of another's statement does not necessarily constitute an adoption of it: `[A] statement describing another's declaration is normally not regarded as an admission of the fact asserted by the other. One does not admit everything he recounts or describes merely by reason of the relating of it.' ( Estate of Gaines [(1940)] 15 Cal.2d [255,] 262, 100 P.2d 1055.) (1 Witkin, Cal. Evidence (3d ed. 1986) The Hearsay Rule, § 650, p. 636.) Wynn's hearsay statements to Minsloff and Love did not come within any exception to the hearsay rule. The People did not concede that the content of the hearsay statements was evidence of misconduct sufficient to warrant further inquiry by the court. They contended that the statements were inadmissible hearsay and were insufficient to justify any further inquiry. Nor was there a judicial admission by the People that resolved the issue of whether Wynn had admitted misconduct. At most the People acknowledged that Wynn had made contradictory statements to representatives of appellant and the People. Contrary to the view of the dissent, that acknowledgement did not constitute a judicial admission removing the issue of whether juror misconduct occurred from the case. There was no concession or stipulation to that effect, and thus no `conclusive concession of the truth of a matter which has the effect of removing it from the issues,' as was the case in Smith v. Walter E. Heller & Co. (1978) 82 Cal.App.3d 259, 147 Cal.Rptr. 1, on which the dissent relies. There the party in pleadings and elsewhere on the record had conceded specific facts that resolved an issue in the case. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in declining to consider the content of the conflicting statements allegedly made by Juror Wynn in deciding whether to conduct further inquiry into the appellant's assertion of juror misconduct. In sum, notwithstanding the assertion of the dissent that appellant offered to present facts within the personal knowledge of Minsloff and Love, the court did not err. The facts to which Minsloff and Love could have testified were only that they had spoken to Wynn and that she had made statements to them. Testimony to that effect would have been irrelevant to any issue at a hearing on juror misconduct and undoubtedly explains the decision of defense counsel to submit the matter on the papers on file. It has also been suggested that because the court may not have understood that it had the authority to conduct an evidentiary hearing, we should remand this case to permit the court to decide whether a hearing should be held. We reject any suggestion that the court abused its discretion in failing to hold an evidentiary hearing or that the court may not have realized that it had discretion to hold an evidentiary hearing at which Juror Wynn could be called to testify. Whether an evidentiary hearing should be held never arose. The court ruled that evidence of the content of Wynn's out-of-court statements was inadmissible hearsay. [9] The defense made no attempt to call Wynn at the hearing on the new trial motion, did not ask for a ruling on whether that would be permitted, and did not seek a further hearing. No offer of proof was made. No admissible evidence was proffered. In the end, counsel did just what he had done initially. He submitted the matter on the moving papers, adding only additional oral argument. The record does not support a conclusion that the trial court failed to order an evidentiary hearing because the judge believed in this pre- Hedgecock trial that the court was bound by the then recent holding in People v. Scott (1982) 129 Cal. App.3d 301, 308-309, 180 Cal.Rptr. 891. Scott held that jurors could not be questioned at an evidentiary hearing about matters as to which the jurors had refused to execute affidavits. The prosecutor made a statement at the hearing that may have reflected his belief that People v. Scott, supra, 129 Cal.App.3d 301, 180 Cal. Rptr. 891, governed. [10] However, as the Scott dissent had pointed out, there was contrary authority, and appellant's counsel had asserted earlier in his moving papers that the case law was in conflict as to whether a defendant could compel a juror to testify at a hearing. Appellant had stated in his moving papers that he had not subpoenaed Juror Wynn out of respect and consideration. Although he also stated that, if the court ruled that she was not immune, a subpoena would be issued, he did not bring the matter up again, and later submitted the new trial motion on the papers supporting and opposing the motion. In suggesting that the trial court should have realized that appellant still expected a ruling on his right to call Juror Wynn as a witness at the hearing on his motion for new trial, the dissent expects too much from the court. As noted above, at the outset of the hearing on the motion for new trial appellant stated that he would submit the matter, i.e., the motion, on the moving papers. The court was entitled to accept that submission for just what it appeared to be  a stipulation that appellant's entitlement to a new trial would be decided on the basis of the moving papers. The moving papers were the motion, points and authorities, and supporting declarations and the People's opposition and their supporting declarations. That in those papers appellant may have implicitly asked for a ruling on whether he could call Juror Wynn as a witness at an evidentiary hearing does not detract from the incontrovertible fact that when the hearing on the motion was held, he abandoned any implicit or even express request for a ruling on whether Wynn could be called when he submitted the matter on the moving papers. If appellant nonetheless wanted an evidentiary hearing and the right to call Wynn as a witness it was incumbent on him to make that clear. The trial judge was entitled to take him at his word  the matter was submitted on the papers alone. After a brief argument, during which the possibility of Wynn's testifying was not mentioned, the court ruled that evidence of the content of Wynn's statements was inadmissible hearsay as to which no exception applied and denied the new trial motion. Thus, there is no basis on this record for an inference that the trial court failed to order an evidentiary hearing because the judge believed he could not do so. The court's ruling was based only on the hearsay nature of the statements offered by defense counsel. Since defense counsel did not subpoena Wynn, abandoned the request for a ruling on his right to do so, did not request a further evidentiary hearing or indicate that any admissible evidence would be offered at such a hearing, and, in the end simply submitted the new trial motion on the moving papers, there was no reason for the judge to consider the possibility of holding an evidentiary hearing and there could be no abuse of discretion in failing to do so. [11] A trial court's ruling on a motion for new trial is so completely within that court's discretion that a reviewing court will not disturb the ruling absent a manifest and unmistakable abuse of that discretion. ( People v. Delgado (1993) 5 Cal.4th 312, 328, 19 Cal.Rptr.2d 529, 851 P.2d 811.) This is not such a case.