Opinion ID: 1113193
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 17

Heading: Foster Freeze firearm.

Text: (11) Defendant claims there was legally insufficient evidence he used a lethal handgun, rather than a harmless starter pistol, during the 1972 Foster Freeze robbery. Hence, he urges, the jury should not have been instructed on the crime of assault with a deadly weapon (ง 245) in connection with that aggravating incident. He further insists the prosecution committed prejudicial bad faith, amounting to a due process violation, by attempting to show use of a true firearm. The evidence of firearm use was sufficient. Defendant brandished a handgun at Denise Brown, who said it looked real. When fleeing the scene, he actually fired the weapon at Ronald Jones, who heard two shots and ducked. Evidence that Jones suspected the gun was a starter pistol, and that he heard no bullets, hardly compels the inference that the gun was not real. [15] Moreover, the 1986 trial record demonstrates no bad faith on the prosecution's part. The 1972 abstract of judgment demonstrates at most that defendant pled guilty to a second degree robbery in connection with the Foster Freeze incident, and that weapon and firearm enhancements were not included. It is well-settled that the charges to which defendant pled guilty in a prior case do not limit the aggravating evidence the prosecution may present in a subsequent capital trial. ( People v. Melton, supra, 44 Cal.3d 713, 755-756.) [16] To support his claim of bad faith, defendant points to comments by the prosecutor during the first 1979 penalty trial that the 1972 offense appeared to involve a starter pistol, that no bullet holes were found, and that the presumption was that [the robbery] was a second degree, [which] ... is what he pleaded to. But nothing in these remarks precluded the prosecution from reevaluating the strength of its aggravating evidence between 1979 and 1986. In any event, the potential for prejudice was minimal at most. The jury could evaluate the relative weakness of the handgun evidence. Moreover, as defendant concedes, even if he used only a starter pistol, he brandished and fired it to facilitate a robbery, thus committing a serious offense involving violence or the express or implied threat [of] ... violence. (ง 190.3, factor (b).) Under these circumstances, any inference that the gun was not real would make the incident only marginally less aggravating. Given the brutal nature of the capital murder and the other evidence of defendant's violence and recidivism, admission of real gun evidence thus cannot have affected the penalty outcome.