Opinion ID: 1133414
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Permitting the prosecutor's redirect examination of Virginia MacNair about telephone conversations

Text: Defendant contends the trial court erred in overruling his objection to a line of questions the prosecutor asked defendant's girlfriend, Virginia MacNair, on redirect examination about telephone conversations She had with defendant. These are the relevant facts: On direct examination by the prosecutor, Virginia MacNair testified that on August 25, 1988, the day baby Amanda was rushed to the hospital, defendant had telephoned Mac-Nair at home around 6:00 or 6:30 in the evening and asked about Amanda's condition. MacNair told defendant that deputy sheriffs had said that Amanda had been sexually molested. On cross-examination, when asked by defense counsel if she had ever spoken to defendant since August 25, 1988, when she left for work at 7:00 a.m., MacNair said that had gotten calls from him. Also in response to defense questioning, MacNair denied that she had ever discussed with defendant whether he should run away. On redirect examination, the prosecution asked MacNair if in a telephone conversation during the evening hours of Thursday, Au gust 25, 1988, she had told defendant anything at all about the nature of Amanda's injuries. When defense counsel objected to this question by the prosecutor as beyond the scope of cross-examination, the trial court overruled the objection. The court stated: When there is evidence of conversations on the telephone, the People are not limited to just those conversations. The court relied on People v. Phillips (1985) 41 Cal.3d 29, 56, 222 Cal.Rptr. 127, 711 P.2d 423, which holds that the scope of cross-examination can exceed the scope of direct examination when a defendant takes the witness stand and makes a general denial of committing the crime charged. Defendant argues there was no legal basis for the trial court's ruling. We disagree. The situation here, in which defendant's girlfriend on cross-examination made a general denial that she and defendant had ever discussed his fleeing the authorities, was sufficiently similar to the situation in People v. Phillips , in which the defendant made a general denial of the crime, that the trial court here did not abuse its discretion in allowing the prosecutor, in redirect examination, to question MacNair on this point with regard to the August 25, 1988, telephone conversation. Defendant also makes the sweeping assertion that the trial court's ruling rendered the trial fundamentally unfair and denied him the heightened due process to which he had a right under the Eighth Amendment. Because defendant did not object at trial on these grounds, he is barred from raising these issues on appeal. ( People v. Hines, supra, 15 Cal.4th 997, 1035, 64 Cal.Rptr.2d 594, 938 P.2d 388.)