Opinion ID: 1247657
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Ring Diagrams.

Text: On the day of the murder Gary Ingalls had prepared a diagram of two rings the killer had worn. One was a white gold ring with an L-shaped area with two or three diamonds worn on the left little finger. The other was a large diamond encircled by smaller diamonds. The diagrams were given to the police and were lost by them. Defendant was wearing a diamond ring on his left small finger when he was arrested on November 18, 1980. Charles Ray said the ring defendant had been wearing could be the one he had seen on the killer's finger. Gary Ingalls said the ring defendant had been wearing looked similar to one he had seen the killer wearing. Ingalls gave conflicting testimony regarding the description of the non-L-shaped ring he had drawn. At one point he said he could not remember how he had described the second ring. The trial court denied a motion to strike the testimony of other witnesses regarding the ring defendant was wearing when arrested, but it stated it would entertain a motion to strike the testimony of Ingalls as to that matter. (31) The striking of Ingalls's testimony would have been sufficient to dispel any prejudice resulting from the loss of the diagrams. Defendant's failure to seek such relief, in our view, constitutes abandonment of the claim. (See People v. Saddler (1979) 24 Cal.3d 671, 684 [156 Cal. Rptr. 871, 597 P.2d 130].) (29b) In any event, defendant was still able to impeach Ingalls's testimony by having Officer Morasci duplicate in court the diagrams which had been lost. Moreover, the evidence pertaining to the rings was tangential at best since defendant could have changed rings many times in the two and a half weeks between the murder and his arrest. Thus, in Trombetta terms, the diagram could not be expected to have had a significant role in defendant's defense, and defendant was able to obtain comparable evidence by Officer Morasci's duplication of the diagram. ( California v. Trombetta, supra, 479 U.S. at pp. 488-489 [81 L.Ed.2d at p. 422].)