Opinion ID: 1195356
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 15

Heading: Introduction of Bentley's testimony regarding Cooper's statement

Text: The prosecution introduced evidence intended to demonstrate that Bentley, a prosecution witness, and Cooper, who was jointly charged but tried separately from defendant and did not testify at defendant's trial, had been recruited by defendant to carry out the murder of Detective Williams, and that they and others made an abortive effort to carry out the murder shortly before that crime was committed. In the course of his testimony explaining the details of the arrangements made on the day of the abortive attempt, Bentley expressed some uncertainty whether Cooper had been in the vehicle Bentley saw depart en route to the planned shooting. Bentley later testified that he believed Cooper had been in the vehicle. Defendant sought, through cross-examination of Bentley, to establish that the reason Bentley had testified that Cooper had been present was only to make Bentley's testimony consistent with that of Hicks and to keep secure his own immunity arrangement. On redirect examination, the prosecutor sought to rehabilitate Bentley's credibility by showing how Bentley had become certain that Cooper had been in the vehicle. Over defendant's hearsay objection and objection based upon the confrontation clause of the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution, the court permitted Bentley to testify that he became certain that Cooper had been in the vehicle when Cooper told him, while the two men were incarcerated together: basically that he was there in the car and that he was at the house. That was basically it. When asked whether Cooper had said why he was there, Bentley testified: he said he was supposed to be the shooter ... [t]hat he was kind of scared. He was  you know, he really didn't want to do it. The court determined that these out-of-court statements were admissible as statements against penal interest. (See Evid.Code, § 1230.) Defendant contends the admission of this evidence violated state law with respect to the admission of hearsay evidence, and also that its admission constituted a violation of the confrontation clause of the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution. It is not necessary to examine the complex constitutional question in the present case, because whether or not Bentley's testimony recounting Cooper's statements properly was admitted, it is certain under even the exacting Chapman ( Chapman v. California (1967) 386 U.S. 18, 24, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705) standard of review that any error in admitting this testimony was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. (See Lilly v. Virginia (1999) 527 U.S. 116, 139-140, 119 S.Ct. 1887, 1901, 144 L.Ed.2d 117 [Chapman standard applicable when nontestifying accomplice's out-of-court confession erroneously is admitted at a defendant's trial].) The statements were admitted merely to rehabilitate the credibility of a witness on a tangential point. Nothing in the statements directly inculpated defendant or even mentioned him. To the extent the jury may have considered the statements as evidence of an abortive attempt to murder Detective Williams, the same evidence came before the jury in far greater detail through the testimony of Hicks and Bentley, and evidence from other witnesses also established defendant's other early efforts to arrange for the killing of Detective Williams. To the extent the evidence may have been used to bolster the credibility of Bentley, that evidence was of tangential importance as far as establishing the guilt of defendant is concerned  it was Bentley's confused recollection regarding the presence of Cooper in the automobile that defendant used to impeach Bentley's credibility. Hicks, however, already had testified that Cooper had been present on that occasion, and in any event the Cooper statement was not very effective in dispelling the impression that Bentley himself lacked a good independent recollection of the events of that day. In sum, the challenged evidence was cumulative, and any error in its admission was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.