Opinion ID: 1351466
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Admission of Documents

Text: (40) Defendant argues that documents were introduced into evidence showing that he was charged, for each of the Florida breaking and entering offenses, with breaking and entering with intent to commit a felony, whereas he pleaded guilty only to breaking and entering with intent to commit a misdemeanor. He contends the introduction of the original charges against him, over his counsel's objection, was irrelevant to establishing his prior convictions and was therefore erroneous. The point is well taken. Because the Florida burglaries were nonviolent crimes, only evidence authenticating defendant's conviction for these crimes was relevant and admissible under section 190.3, factor (c). Unlike violent criminal activity admissible under factor (b), the charges leading to a conviction of a nonviolent crime are inadmissible. State-law error at the penalty phase of a capital trial is prejudicial if there is a reasonable possibility that the error affected the verdict. ( People v. Brown (1988) 46 Cal.3d 432, 448 [250 Cal. Rptr. 604, 758 P.2d 1135].) Here, there was no possibility of prejudice from the erroneous admission of these documents. The charging papers included the names of the victims and a list of personal objects, which in each case appeared to add up to several hundred dollars. In each case, defendant pleaded guilty to breaking and entering with intent to commit petit larceny, that is, of taking less than $100 in property. We cannot conceive, given the small discrepancy between the amount of the theft charged and the amount of the theft of which defendant was convicted, that excluding the charging documents would have influenced the jury to choose a different penalty.