Opinion ID: 2815883
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Admission of telephoned threats

Text: Defendant contends the trial court erred by admitting evidence of his telephoned threats to his wife and her boyfriend as evidence in aggravation. Defendant claims the asserted error violated his rights to due process and a reliable verdict and requires reversal of the penalty verdict. We disagree. While in custody for the present matter, defendant learned his wife was having an extramarital affair, and he made several telephone calls in an effort to stop the relationship. Using the assistance of his friend, Chaka Coleman, defendant called his wife and told her he could blow up the school where she worked if she did not end the affair. He also repeatedly called her boyfriend and, on one occasion, said he could “have something done” to him. Over defendant‟s objection, the trial court concluded that 47 defendant‟s conduct constituted threatening telephone calls under section 653m and admitted the testimony. A violation of section 653m qualifies as a threat of force or violence under section 190.3, factor (b). (People v. Kirkpatrick (1994) 7 Cal.4th 988, 1014.) Defendant argues that his conduct did not amount to a violation of section 653m because he was merely expressing frustration over his wife‟s affair. At the time of defendant‟s telephone calls, section 653m stated: “Every person who, with intent to annoy, telephones . . . any threat to inflict injury to the person or property of the person addressed or any member of his or her family, is guilty of a misdemeanor.” The statute does not “apply to telephone calls made in good faith.”14 (§ 653m, former subds. (a), (b), amended by Stats. 1993, ch. 589, § 116, p. 3028; see J.J. v. M.F. (2014) 223 Cal.App.4th 968, 976 [a mother‟s repeated telephone calls to the child‟s father were made in good faith because they concerned the child‟s health].) By stating that he could blow up his wife‟s workplace and that he could “have something done” to her boyfriend, defendant was not acting in good faith by merely discussing his concern about the extramarital affair. Instead, those pronouncements were 14 Because of this good faith exception to the statute, the trial court, in deciding that the telephone threats were admissible aggravating evidence, necessarily concluded that defendant did not act in good faith and had a subjective intent to threaten. (People v. Boyer (2006) 38 Cal.4th 412, 477, fn. 51 [a trial court‟s decision to admit aggravating penalty phase evidence “is reviewed for abuse of discretion, and no abuse of discretion will be found where, in fact, the evidence in question was legally sufficient”].) Moreover, there was no instructional error on this issue because, absent a request by counsel, “a trial court has no sua sponte duty to instruct the jury as to the elements of all of the other crimes that have been introduced at the penalty phase” and “a defendant who has not requested an instruction on the elements of the alleged other crimes may not complain on appeal.” (People v. Phillips (1985) 41 Cal.3d 29, 72-73, fn. 25.) Here, defense counsel made no request to instruct the jury on any of the elements of section 653m. 48 obviously intended to annoy and threaten the recipients in order to generate fear that would force an end to the affair. That both his wife and her boyfriend testified that they did not take defendant‟s threats seriously does not foreclose application of section 653m because a victim‟s subjective fear is not a required element of the crime. Moreover, contrary to defendant‟s assertion, the admission of defendant‟s telephone statements did not violate his First Amendment right to free speech because section 653m does not prohibit lawful speech in violation of the state and federal Constitutions. (People v. Hernandez (1991) 231 Cal.App.3d 1376, 1380 [upholding conviction under section 653m for telephone calls in which the defendant told the victim she would “ „pay‟ ” and was “ „in deep trouble‟ ”].) Consequently, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the evidence of defendant‟s threatening telephone calls because the evidence in question was legally sufficient to constitute violations of section 653m. (People v. Whisenhunt (2008) 44 Cal.4th 174, 225 [no abuse of discretion where the trial court admitted other crimes evidence at the penalty phase without a preliminary inquiry because the evidence actually presented at trial established the elements of the prior offense].)