Opinion ID: 1237936
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Opinions of Montana Crime Victims

Text: Gerald O'Bresley, a sheriff's officer from Montana, testified as a prosecution witness to the December 1971 incident in which defendant, while being transported in Montana with other prisoners, disarmed O'Bresley and William Farago, another officer, and forced them into the trunk of their patrol car. On redirect, the prosecutor asked: Now, sometime after that, did you have occasion to draft a letter to the parole authorities in Montana recommending that they not release this particular man? Defense counsel objected that the question exceeded the scope of cross-examination, and the trial court sustained the objection. The prosecutor did not pursue the matter with O'Bresley. The next witness was William Farago. On redirect examination, the prosecutor asked: [I]n 1974, did you have occasion to express an opinion to the Board of Pardons concerning whether or not the man who had done this to you should be paroled from the Montana State prison? Defense counsel objected that the question was beyond the scope of cross-examination. The trial court sustained the objection, and the prosecutor did not pursue the matter. (112) Defendant contends that the prosecutor should have known that the questions were improper as calling for an opinion on future dangerousness or an emotional reaction from a crime victim. Defendant contends further that the sustaining of the objection to the question asked of O'Bresley placed the prosecutor on notice that it would be improper to ask essentially the same question of Farago. At the penalty phase, the prosecution may introduce evidence of the emotional effect of defendant's prior violent criminal acts on the victims of those acts. ( People v. Benson (1990) 52 Cal.3d 754, 797 [276 Cal. Rptr. 827, 802 P.2d 330]; People v. Clark, supra, 50 Cal.3d 583, 629; People v. Karis (1988) 46 Cal.3d 612, 641 [250 Cal. Rptr. 659, 758 P.2d 1189].) To the extent the prosecutor sought an emotional reaction from O'Bresley and Farago, the questions were not so plainly improper as to constitute misconduct. Nor did the questions plainly call for a prediction of future dangerousness; they could be understood as merely an assessment of the seriousness of defendant's criminal conduct. Finally, the sustaining of the first objection, on the ground that the question exceeded the scope of cross-examination, did not put the prosecutor on notice that he could not ask the same question of a different witness subjected to different cross-examination.