Opinion ID: 1182860
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Defendant's Motion for a Judgment of Acquittal Should Have Been Granted Because Evidence of the Accomplice's Prior Inconsistent Statements Is too Unreliable to Be Deemed Sufficient to Sustain Defendant's Conviction

Text: There is a distinction between admissibility of evidence and the sufficiency of evidence to sustain a verdict or finding. The various exceptions to the hearsay rule deal with admissibility of evidence only. The courts must still determine under particular circumstances whether the evidence introduced at trial  be it hearsay evidence or nonhearsay evidence or a combination thereof  is of sufficient probative value to sustain a criminal conviction. Thus, in People v. Gould (1960) 54 Cal.2d 621 [7 Cal. Rptr. 273, 354 P.2d 865], the court held that a witness' extrajudicial statement identifying defendant as the perpetrator of the crime was admissible under the hearsay exception for prior identification statements (now provided for in Evid. Code, § 1238), even though the victim was unable to repeat this identification on the witness stand. In Gould, this hearsay evidence was the only evidence admitted to connect defendant with the charged offense. The Gould court held that although this hearsay statement of the victim was admissible in evidence under the exception to the hearsay rule for prior identification statements, it was insufficient of itself to sustain the defendant's criminal conviction. The Gould court stated: An extrajudicial identification that cannot be confirmed by an identification at the trial is insufficient to sustain a conviction in the absence of other evidence tending to connect the defendant with the crime. ( Id., at 631.) Similar in principle to Gould is In re Eugene M. (1976) 55 Cal. App.3d 650 [127 Cal. Rptr. 851], in which it was held that evidence of the prior statements of a witness admitted under the hearsay exception provided by Evidence Code section 1235 for statements inconsistent with the witness' testimony, was not sufficiently trustworthy to constitute substantial evidence to sustain a finding that a minor had committed the offenses charged against him, there being no other evidence to connect the minor with the offenses apart from the evidence of a witness' prior inconsistent statements. It is significant that in In re Eugene M., there were circumstances present that cast a doubt upon the reliability or trustworthiness of the witness' prior inconsistent statements. The prior statements were unsworn out-of-court statements made by an apparent accomplice under threat of prosecution and thereafter repudiated under oath on the witness stand. In the In re Eugene M. case, there was police interrogation of the witness which did not involve physical or psychological coercion of the magnitude to make the witness' statements involuntary and inadmissible against the minor under the rule of People v. Underwood (1964) 61 Cal.2d 113 [37 Cal. Rptr. 313, 389 P.2d 937]. Nevertheless, the police interrogation produced an inherent indicia of untrustworthiness that precluded the prior statements from being held sufficient by the Eugene M. court to constitute substantial evidence to support a finding that the minor had committed the charged offenses, there being no other evidence pointing to his commission of the charged offenses. Similarly, in the case at bench, evidence of Fouse's prior unsworn statements incriminating defendant as a participant in the charged offense lacks the indicia of trustworthiness to sustain defendant's conviction. The fundamental basis of the requirement imposed in Penal Code section 1111 that an accomplice's testimony, in and of itself, is insufficient to sustain a defendant's conviction is predicated on the premise, validated by experience, that such testimony is inherently unreliable and untrustworthy. Accomplice testimony is suspect because, like hearsay, it too may be unreliable. `[E]xperience has shown that the evidence of an accomplice should be viewed with care, caution and suspicion because it comes from a tainted source and is often given in the hope or expectation of leniency or immunity.' [Citations.] In addition to being derived from a suspect source accomplice testimony is frequently cloaked with a plausibility which may interfere with the jury's ability to evaluate its credibility. `[A]n accomplice is not merely a witness with a possible motive to tell lies about an innocent accused but is such a witness peculiarly equipped, by reason of his inside knowledge of the crime, to convince the unwary that his lies are the truth.' ( People v. Tewksbury (1976) 15 Cal.3d 953, 967 [127 Cal. Rptr. 135, 544 P.2d 1335].) If an accomplice's testimony under oath is suspect, unreliable and untrustworthy, evidence of his prior inconsistent statements, not made under oath, must be deemed even more suspect, untrustworthy and unreliable. It is my view, therefore, that in addition to the requirements of Penal Code section 1111, the principles enunciated in Gould and In re Eugene M. mandate that evidence of Fouse's prior statements to Lugos that implicated defendant as a participant in the charged offense be held insufficient as a matter of law to sustain defendant's conviction.