Opinion ID: 2599880
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Bag Containing Suspicious White Powder (Lewis, Oliver)

Text: Defendants contend the trial court erred in excluding, as irrelevant, evidence that a plastic bag containing white powder resembling cocaine was found in the Mount Olive Church after the capital crime. (See Evid.Code, § 350.) Lewis further argues that counsel rendered ineffective assistance in failing to have the substance chemically tested. Citing the Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments, and parallel provisions of the state Constitution, defendants assert the additional legal consequence that they were denied their constitutional right to present a defense. They also invoke their Sixth Amendment right to confront and cross-examine witnesses. (See Davis v. Alaska (1974) 415 U.S. 308, 318, 94 S.Ct. 1105, 39 L.Ed.2d 347.) The confrontation claim is forfeited. ( Partida, supra, 37 Cal.4th 428, 435, 35 Cal.Rptr.3d 644, 122 P.3d 765.) We find no state law error, and no ineffective assistance of counsel. In a police property report dated July 25, 1989, Detective Aldahl stated that, while inspecting the Mount Olive Church after the killings, he found a [c]lear plastic zip-lock baggie containing a white powdery substance resembling cocaine[]17.0 grams. At a hearing on April 20, 1992, the question arose of admitting the plastic bag and its contents into evidence. The prosecutor stated that the white powder had not been tested by anyone, that nothing connected it to the murder victims, and that its introduction would distract the jury by portraying the victims and prosecution witnesses in a false light. Defendants argued that if testing proved the bag contained cocaine but did not bear their fingerprints, then some third person must have shot the victims and either thrown or dropped the bag, possibly during a drug deal gone bad. The trial court questioned relevance. The court said, however, that if defendants intended to rely on an abortive-drug-deal theory for the murders, it would admit the bag of powder. The defense promised to test the powder. On October 14, 1992, the prosecution moved in writing to exclude, as irrelevant, the baggie evidence described in the police report. According to the motion, the item was found on the opposite side of the church from the victims, and at least 16 feet away from the shooter. A hearing on the motion was held two days later, on October 16, 1992, while Lewis was representing himself. Oliver's counsel indicated that two unnamed inmates could confirm, for reasons counsel did not describe, that the church was used for selling drugs. It became clear that defendants had not tested the substance for cocaine. They argued that, even so, the evidence would have shown the shooting was in retaliation for the sale of bunk cocaine. The trial court granted the motion, excluding the evidence as irrelevant. The trial court properly could have denied outright the motion to admit the baggie evidence. (See People v. Pride (1992) 3 Cal.4th 195, 237-238, 10 Cal.Rptr.2d 636, 833 P.2d 643 [third party must be linked to `actual perpetration' of charged crime (applying People v. Hall (1986) 41 Cal.3d 826, 226 Cal.Rptr. 112, 718 P.2d 99)]; see Holmes v. South Carolina (2006) ___ U.S. ___, ___, fn. , 126 S.Ct. 1727, 1733, fn. , 164 L.Ed.2d 503.) Whether the substance was cocaine or an innocuous white powder resembling it, the mere presence of a saleable quantity of suspicious powder in the church does not tend to prove that someone other than defendants committed murder as part of a drug deal, or that the police overlooked such evidence. Even assuming the presence of the substance suggested drug dealing or gang activity inside the church, the suspicious powder does not raise a reasonable doubt as to defendants' guilt of the crimes they committed. No error or incompetence occurred.