Opinion ID: 844221
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Admission of Uele's Hearsay Statements

Text: Defendant faults the trial court for admitting the hearsay statements Anna Sara Uele made to Misty Sinks on the night of Gordon's murder. Uele testified for the prosecution regarding the assault on Gordon. She described her participation in the assault, but denied that she was an accomplice to the murder. Uele admitted, however, that she had opened the trunk of the Cadillac when defendant asked her to do so, after which defendant put Gordon in the trunk and shut it, without Uele's help. Defendant's counsel cross-examined Uele regarding her version of the assault on Gordon, and Uele admitted that at the preliminary hearing she had denied opening the trunk. Uele also acknowledged other minor inconsistencies between her testimony at trial and her prior statements. [7] In addition, Uele's testimony differed from that of the other women on a couple of minor points. [8] In an effort to corroborate Uele's testimony, the prosecution asked to present the testimony of Misty Sinks, who had talked to Uele on the night of Gordon's murder and who could testify to what Uele had said to her. Defendant objected on hearsay grounds, but the trial court allowed the testimony as a prior consistent statement admissible under Evidence Code section 791. Sinks then testified that on a night in 1995 she got home between 10:00 p.m. and midnight, and Uele and another woman were waiting there. Uele had blood on her shorts and top. Uele told Sinks that she and some others had beat up a girl over a debt, and that defendant had put the girl in the trunk. This testimony was apparently significant to the jury, because the jury asked to hear it again during its deliberations. (3) On this appeal, defendant argues that the trial court erred by admitting Uele's statement to Sinks under Evidence Code section 791. That statute's subdivision (b), in combination with Evidence Code section 1236, makes evidence of a witness's prior consistent statement admissible if it is offered after an implied charge has been made that [the witness's] testimony at the hearing is recently fabricated . . . and the statement was made before the . . . motive for fabrication . . . is alleged to have arisen. (Evid. Code, § 791, subd. (b).) [9] Defendant concedes that his trial counsel's cross-examination of Uele amounted to an implied charge that her testimony had been recently fabricated (Evid. Code, § 791, subd. (b)), but he argues that Uele's statement to Sinks was not made before the . . . motive for fabrication was alleged to have arisen ( ibid. ) and therefore did not meet the temporal requirement of Evidence Code section 791. Defendant argues that Uele's motive to fabricate arose at the time of defendant's assault on Gordon or immediately thereafter. Therefore, according to defendant, Uele had the same motive to fabricate when making her statement to Sinks as she had when later testifying at trial. Uele's testimony at trial was broadly impeached when defense counsel brought out on cross-examination inconsistencies between her testimony and her prior statements and also between her testimony and the testimony of the other women. Defense counsel's implied charge was that Uele's entire testimony was unreliable, not just that Uele had fabricated some specific point, and this broad charge of fabrication warranted admission of a prior consistent statement for purposes of rehabilitating the witness. In People v. Kennedy (2005) 36 Cal.4th 595, 614 [31 Cal.Rptr.3d 160, 115 P.3d 472], for example, we said that Evidence Code section 791 permits the admission of a prior consistent statement when there is a charge that the testimony given is fabricated or biased, not just when a particular statement at trial is challenged. On this appeal, defendant renews the argument that Uele's motive for fabrication arose at the time of her participation in the assault on Gordon, and therefore Uele's statement to Sinks was not made before the motive for fabrication arose. But defense counsel's implied charge of fabrication was largely based on inconsistencies between Uele's trial testimony and her testimony at the preliminary hearing, and therefore the implied charge of fabrication must contemplate some motive to fabricate that arose after the preliminary hearing. We do not know what, if any, motive to fabricate arose after the preliminary hearing, but assuming one did, Uele's statement to Sinks was made before the preliminary hearing, and therefore the temporal requirement of Evidence Code section 791, subdivision (b) was satisfied.