Opinion ID: 2518586
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Other Asserted Evidentiary Errors

Text: After the prosecutor, in cross-examination of forensic psychiatrist Dr. Vicary, elicited the witness's opinion that the evidence in defendant's case did not support any psychiatric defenses, including a defense of insanity (see pt. II.B.1., ante ), defense counsel in redirect examination sought to explore Dr. Vicary's understanding of the legal standard for insanity. The trial court sustained the prosecutor's objection to the line of questioning. Defendant contends the trial court violated state evidentiary law (by allowing the introduction of irrelevant and prejudicial evidence during the prosecutor's cross-examination), as well as defendant's federal constitutional rights (by inconsistently and arbitrarily restricting his counsel's redirect examination of Dr. Vicary when it had just permitted the prosecutor to cross-examine him on the same subject). The Attorney General contends the cross-examination was relevant and that, by failing to object on constitutional grounds to the court's ruling concerning the scope of redirect examination, defendant has forfeited any constitutional claim for purposes of this appeal. Citing People v. Yeoman, supra, 31 Cal.4th at pages 117-118, 132-133, 2 Cal.Rptr.3d 186, 72 P.3d 1166, defendant contends that by calling the trial court's attention to the irrelevancy of the prosecutor's line of questioning, he preserved the constitutional claim he now makes. Assuming for argument's sake defendant preserved the issue, we conclude the trial court did not err under state or federal law. The issue arose in the following context: During cross-examination, the prosecutor asked Dr. Vicary whether the report he had prepared for defendant's trial counsel addressed issues other than those relevant to the guilt phase. Eventually the prosecutor elicited the fact Dr. Vicary had considered and rejected a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. At sidebar, defense counsel asserted that whether Dr. Vicary thought defendant was insane was irrelevant and inadmissible, and asked what parameters the court would set on such questioning. The court stated the prosecutor had already covered insanity and inquired whether he intended to do more than that. The prosecutor responded he did not. Cross-examination of Dr. Vicary resumed. Defendant complains that despite the colloquy between court and counsel, the prosecutor continued to question Dr. Vicary about the defense of insanity, again eliciting that this case involved no insanity plea. Defendant contends the prosecutor's questioning was irrelevant because he never entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, and the issue of a defendant's legal insanity is bifurcated and tried separately from that of guilt in any event. But as the Attorney General reasons, the prosecutor engaged in the line of questioning that defendant now challenges not in order to demonstrate that Dr. Vicary did not believe defendant was legally insane, but to impeach Dr. Vicary's testimony on cross-examination that defense counsel would be incompetent if he did not present a psychiatric defense in the guilt phase, even though Dr. Vicary believed the facts did not support a psychiatric defense to the charges, and to put in perspective the fact Dr. Vicary similarly felt the facts did not support a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. In other words, the prosecutor explored the inconsistency between the defense's presentation of a psychiatric defense and its nonpresentation of an insanity defense, despite Dr. Vicary's disavowal of the validity of both defenses on the facts of this case. The trial court acted within its discretion in precluding defense counsel from questioning Dr. Vicary on redirect examination concerning his understanding of the legal definition of insanity, due to the risk of undue consumption of time and confusion of the issues. (Evid.Code, § 352.) Nevertheless, we note the court permitted defense counsel to suggest to the jury a possible distinction between the psychiatric defense actually presented and the insanity defense not presented, by eliciting Dr. Vicary's acknowledgment, on redirect examination, that when a defendant proffers an insanity defense, he bears the burden of persuading the jury he is insane. Defense counsel also elicited from Dr. Vicary testimony reinforcing the principle that the determination whether defendant had the mental state required for the charged offenses was to be made by the jury, not the forensic psychiatrist. We see no possibility that the decision not to allow defense counsel to explore Dr. Vicary's understanding of the legal definition of insanity, coupled with the admission of Dr. Vicary's opinion regarding the viability of an insanity defense, would have misled the jury to conclude Dr. Vicary was asserting defendant suffered from no mental disease or disorder, or otherwise prejudiced defendant. We conclude the trial court did not violate defendant's constitutional rights by imposing asymmetrical evidentiary standards on the parties.
Defendant argues the trial court erred under state evidentiary law by arbitrarily preventing his trial counsel from asking a defense expert witness, Toxicologist Ernest Lykissa, Ph.D., a hypothetical question that assertedly was not supported by the evidence, while permitting the prosecutor (over defense objection) to ask the same witness a different hypothetical question that was similarly unsupported by the evidence. The Attorney General argues this contention was not preserved by a sufficiently specific objection below. Although defendant did not cite any specific ground for his objection to the prosecutor's hypothetical, his objection clearly related back to the earlier discussion the parties had about the propriety of the hypothetical questions the defense had tried to ask Dr. Lykissa, and we are satisfied defendant has preserved the state evidentiary claim for appeal. Defendant's argument, however, lacks merit, for the prosecutor's question, unlike defense counsel's, did not assume a fact not in evidence. The defense called Dr. Lykissa, chief toxicologist at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center, to testify about the effect of alcohol consumption on blood-alcohol levels and behavior, in order to suggest that defendant had committed the charged offenses with a diminished mental state. Dr. Lykissa testified that at 7:40 p.m. the night of the shootings, defendant gave a blood sample that contained .154 percent alcohol. Based on a theoretical model male weighing 150 pounds, Lykissa testified it would take in excess of seven drinks consumed over a two-hour period before testing for the model male to register .154 percent. Defense counsel asked Dr. Lykissa: Let's say we are talking about a male in his mid-forties who weighs approximatelybetween 180 and 190 pounds in weight, do you have any opinion asin assuming that he hadhe had his last drink approximately an hour and a half to two hours before a test was run on him, would you have any opinion as to the blood level at that point? The prosecutor then objected on the ground that no evidence supported the hypothetical. At a sidebar conference, the court said: The part that bothers me is unless [defendant] testifiesI don't know how you are going to get into the record when he had his last drink. [¶] That's a part of your hypothetical. Defense counsel responded that he would be presenting circumstantial evidence of when defendant had his last drink and that defendant had had nothing to drink from about 10 minutes to 7:00 p.m. until the time his blood was tested at 7:40 p.m. The prosecutor objected that no such evidence had yet been presented, adding: In fact, there is not necessarily any reason to believe there was any drinking until after the first two killings. [¶] ... He could have had everything after the killings, but before he shot Layton, and ... unless we get some evidence in this record, this hypothetical is unwarranted. The court ruled: You [defense counsel] can always bring him [Lykissa] back, if necessary, but I'll sustain the objection at this time to the hypothetical. Defendant acknowledges he failed to recall Dr. Lykissa to the stand. This circumstance suffices to defeat his claim of evidentiary error. Defendant argues, to the contrary, that recalling Dr. Lykissa would not have alleviated the harm the trial court had already caused by allowing the prosecutor to pose to the expert a hypothetical question that was not supported by the evidence, even after all the evidence had been presented. As will appear, the premise underlying this argument is flawed, as the prosecutor's hypothetical question, unlike defense counsel's, was based on facts shown by the evidence. (See People v. Ward (2005) 36 Cal.4th 186, 209, 30 Cal.Rptr.3d 464, 114 P.3d 717 [expert may render opinion testimony based on facts given in hypothetical questions, but such questions must be rooted in facts shown by the evidence].) To return to the examination of Dr. Lykissa: After the expert testified that defendant's blood-alcohol level was .154 percent at 7:40 p.m., the prosecutor asked: What, if anything, can you think of [that] is inconsistent with the following hypothesis? [¶] That the individual whose blood alcohol reading was .154 at 7:40 did not have anything to drink until after 6:15 or 18:15? The court overruled a defense objection, and Dr. Lykissa, after making some calculations on paper, responded: Nothing. As the Attorney General reasons, the prosecutor's question embraced facts already in evidence (the time of defendant's blood test and his blood-alcohol level) and simply asked Dr. Lykissa if those known facts were inconsistent with the possibility (or hypothesis) that the individual in question had nothing to drink until after 6:15 p.m. In contrast, the defense question to which the court sustained the prosecutor's objection asked Dr. Lykissa to assume a fact not yet in evidence, i.e., that defendant had nothing to drink after 10 minutes to 7:00 p.m. Therefore, the trial court properly excluded defendant's hypothetical and allowed the prosecutor's; hence, no differential treatment appears. Defendant further argues the restriction on his counsel's direct examination of Dr. Lykissa violated his Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights to present a defense and to due process, as well as the Eighth Amendment's requirement of a reliable determination of penalty. The Attorney General contends defendant forfeited these constitutional issues for purposes of this appeal by failing to articulate these grounds at trial. We concluded above that defendant preserved his related claim of state evidentiary error, but because the constitutional claims defendant now asserts do not simply restate his evidentiary claim on alternative legal principles, but instead require consideration of different circumstancesnamely, the court's assertedly asymmetrical treatment of the parties' use of hypothetical questionshe has forfeited the constitutional arguments for appeal. (See ante, fn. 7.) In any event, for the reasons discussed above, the trial court did not err in its rulings concerning the scope of the parties' examination of Dr. Lykissa.