Opinion ID: 2624500
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Exclusion of Evidence Regarding Defendant's Teaching Art to Other Inmates

Text: Defendant testified that at certain times while on death row in San Quentin State Prison, he had time out on the tier during which he and a few other inmates would sometimes bring out our [art] materials and we would give each other pointers or he would just sit down with them and start giving them some of the techniques ... [he] had learned [him]self. Other times, used to be where we could take our materials up to the yard and work in the daylight. He testified that teaching art to other death row inmates came easily to him, and painting makes him feel better about himself. He told the jurors that if he were to be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole and be housed with other inmates who would someday get out of prison, he could help them by teaching them how to paint. Defendant sought to introduce the testimony of Aida De Arteaga, an art facilitator at San Quentin State Prison, who would have testified to defendant's capacity to teach art to other inmates. Defendant argued this evidence would corroborate his own testimony about teaching other inmates to paint, and rebut Robert Borg's opinion testimony that defendant would be a threat to other prisoners if allowed to be near them without physical restraints or the presence of armed guards. The court excluded the proffered evidence as cumulative and repetitive under Evidence Code section 352. Defendant now argues the court deprived him of a witness important to his efforts to convince the jurors to give him a sentence less than death, and thereby violated his federal and state constitutional rights to present a defense, to present evidence in mitigation, and to a reliable penalty verdict. We review for abuse of discretion a trial court's rulings on relevance and the exclusion of evidence under Evidence Code section 352 ( People v. Avila, supra, 38 Cal.4th at p. 578), and conclude the court did not abuse its discretion. Numerous witnesses testified to the intrinsic value of defendant's artwork, and defendant fails to show that the excluded testimony would have offered anything the jury had not already heard. In addition, the excluded testimony merely addressed defendant's willingness to teach art; it did not address whether or not defendant was under physical restraints or under the watch of armed guards while he interacted with other inmates and taught art on the tier or on the yard. Defendant fails to show, therefore, that the excluded evidence would have rebutted Borg's opinion testimony.