Opinion ID: 844218
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Assertedly Unfair Imbalance in Rulings

Text: Defendant claims the trial court's evidentiary rulings, especially those concerning each party's motive evidence (defendant's evidence concerning the Vikings and the lawsuit, and the prosecution's evidence concerning defendant's criminal history), demonstrate the court improperly applied a more burdensome standard of admissibility to defense evidence than the standard it applied to prosecution evidence. We are not persuaded. Defendant points to no instances in the record in which the trial court explicitly applied inconsistent standards. Moreover, as is often the case, the trial court at times excluded evidence proffered by the prosecution, and at other times admitted defense evidence over the prosecution's objections. We have concluded the trial court did not err with regard to the evidence that both sides proffered concerning the motives of defendant and Deputy Blair (see ante ), but even if we were to conclude the trial court had abused its discretion in those (or other) rulings, any such errors would not without more establish that the trial court had improperly employed inconsistent standards. (See People v. Jones (2011) 51 Cal.4th 346, 376-377 [121 Cal.Rptr.3d 1, 247 P.3d 82].) Defendant has not established that the trial court utilized different standards with regard to the admission of evidence at the trial, and, therefore, his claim that his constitutional rights to due process and a fair trial were violated in this manner is without merit. (Cf. People v. Thornton (2007) 41 Cal.4th 391, 420-425 [61 Cal.Rptr.3d 461, 161 P.3d 3] [rejecting the claim that the trial court had imposed different standards in assessing the ability of prospective jurors to serve on a capital case when nothing in the record suggested the court applied different standards].)