Opinion ID: 2545831
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Motions to Sever Murder Counts

Text: Before trial, defendant twice sought separate trials on each of the three murder charges. The trial court denied those requests, and the same jury heard evidence of all three offenses in a single trial. Defendant contends that the joint trial of all three murder charges was fundamentally unfair, thus entitling him to reversal. We disagree. Section 954, which governs joinder of counts in a single trial, provides: An accusatory pleading may charge ... two or more different offenses of the same class of crimes or offenses, under separate counts.... These statutory requirements for joinder were met here because the three murder counts were crimes of the same class. ( People v. Mason (1991) 52 Cal.3d 909, 933, 277 Cal.Rptr. 166, 802 P.2d 950.) [1] But section 954 also provides that the court in which a case is triable, in the interests of justice and for good cause shown, may in its discretion order that the different offenses ... be tried separately. We review for abuse of discretion a trial court's decision not to try the offenses separately, that is, not to sever charges under this provision. ( People v. Gutierrez (2002) 28 Cal.4th 1083, 1120, 124 Cal.Rptr.2d 373, 52 P.3d 572; People v. Mayfield (1997) 14 Cal.4th 668, 720, 60 Cal.Rptr.2d 1, 928 P.2d 485.) `The burden is on the party seeking severance to clearly establish that there is a substantial danger of prejudice requiring that the charges be separately tried. [Citation.] ... [ถ] ... Refusal to sever may be an abuse of discretion where: (1) evidence on the crimes to be jointly tried would not be cross-admissible in separate trials; (2) certain of the charges are unusually likely to inflame the jury against the defendant; (3) a weak case has been joined with a strong case, or with another weak case, so that the spillover effect of aggregate evidence on several charges might well alter the outcome of some or all of the charges; and (4) any one of the charges carries the death penalty or joinder of them turns the matter into a capital case.' ( People v. Bradford (1997) 15 Cal.4th 1229, 1315, 65 Cal.Rptr.2d 145, 939 P.2d 259.) With respect to the first factor, defendant contends that if the three murder counts had been tried separately, evidence of the other two would not have been cross-admissible in any other trial because the crimes bore no common identifying characteristics and thus were not probative of any of the factors listed in Evidence Code section 1101, subdivision (b). But, as we explain, even if we assume that the standards for cross-admissibility in the prosecution's case-in-chief were not satisfied here (see People v. Mason, supra, 52 Cal.3d at p. 934, 277 Cal.Rptr. 166, 802 P.2d 950), the evidence of the other two murders would have been cross-admissible on rebuttal in each other case if tried separately. This rebuttal evidence would have shown that, with respect to each murder defendant confessed to, he knew the victim well (Abono was his best friend from high school; Duarte was his former girlfriend; Weber was a drug dealer with whom he did business). And evidence independent of defendant's confession linked him to each of the crimes (Abono was last seen going to buy drugs from defendant; when Duarte disappeared, police searched defendant's van and found caked mud and blood of her blood type; Weber left for a drug-buying trip with defendant days before his body was found). The evidence of the other murders, including defendant's confessions, would have been admissible to refute any contention that defendant frequently made false confessions to murders or, if defendant presented a mental-state defense, to refute any contention that premeditation and deliberation was absent from any murder. Accordingly, defendant suffered no prejudice from the trial court's denial of the severance motion. Defendant argues that because Abono's body was never found, the evidence as to that murder case was relatively weaker than the evidence supporting the other two counts of murder. Thus, defendant contends, the trial court abused its discretion in not severing the Abono murder count from the other two murders. We are not persuaded. As just discussed, the Abono killing resembled the other two murders not only because defendant confessed to it, but also because Abono, like the other victims, was close to defendant. The circumstances of the Abono murder, therefore, satisfied the requirements for cross-admissibility to rebut the defense claim that defendant falsely confessed to the kilhngs, thereby dispelling `any inference of prejudice.' ( People v. Sandoval (1992) 4 Cal.4th 155, 173, 14 Cal.Rptr.2d 342, 841 P.2d 862.) As earlier explained, in determining whether a trial court abused its discretion in denying a severance motion, we consider whether a capital offense has been linked with a noncapital offense, and most particularly whether the linkage `turns the matter into a capital case.' ( People v. Bradford, supra, 15 Cal.4th at p. 1315, 65 Cal.Rptr.2d 145, 939 P.2d 259.) Here, as defendant points out, he could not be sentenced to death for killing Abono because in 1975, when Abono was killed, there was no death penalty law in effect in California. Accordingly, defendant contends that trying that noncapital murder count with the two capital murder counts was an abuse of discretion by the trial court. We disagree. Although the first degree murder conviction on the count involving Abono allowed the jury to find the existence of the multiple-murder special circumstance (ง 190.2, subd. (a)3 [The defendant, in this proceeding, has been convicted of more than one offense of murder in the first or second degree]), that conviction was not crucial to the multiple murder special-circumstance finding. The jury in the same proceeding also returned first degree murder verdicts on the Duarte and Weber murder counts, both charged as capital offenses. These verdicts would, even if the same jury had not decided the charge involving Abono, have provided the basis for a true finding on the multiple-murder special-circumstance allegation. Accordingly, the trial court's decision to allow the jury in the same proceeding that involved the murders of Weber and Duarte to also decide the charge involving Abono did not result in any prejudice to defendant. Having concluded that defendant suffered no prejudice from the joint trial of the three murder counts, we also reject his contention that the joint trial violated his due process rights. (See United States v. Lane (1986) 474 U.S. 438, 446, 106 S.Ct. 725, 88 L.Ed.2d 814, fn. 8 [Improper joinder does not, in itself, violate the Constitution but rather rise[s] to the level of a constitutional violation only if it results in prejudice so great as to deny a defendant his Fifth Amendment right to a fair trial]; People v. Mendoza (2000) 24 Cal.4th 130, 162, 99 Cal.Rptr.2d 485, 6 P.3d 150.)