Opinion ID: 2570148
Heading Depth: 6
Heading Rank: 11

Heading: Gershom Salisbury

Text: Salisbury was defendant's second cousin, and a good friend. He had grown up with defendant in the trailer park and later in Indiana. Salisbury testified about the difficulties defendant had with the Indiana church community. On a number of occasions defendant had discussed suicide, feeling worthless and disliked. Salisbury said defendant was the last one . . . that I would have ever imagined I'd be sitting right here now testifying for. Defendant was just such a happy-go-lucky guy, although he was kind of hyper. Salisbury said that looking back, he could see signs that he did not notice at the time, and now realized that defendant kept a lot of things bottled up inside. But if you knew [defendant] very well, you just never would have dreamed there was ever anything like this. His whole life was about . . . trying to please everybody and be accepted. The prosecutor asked Salisbury, if I were to show you a report from a psychiatrist to whom Keith said a bunch of things which may be inconsistent with your image of him, that would surprise you? Salisbury said, at this point, no. He explained that everyone has things they do not reveal, and that he knew defendant as well as anyone and that defendant talked to me about everything. Defendant had told him about stealing tires from a car dealer not long before the charged offenses, and they had a long conversation about that. However, that was the first time Salisbury learned about criminal behavior by defendant. The prosecutor asked the court if he could show Salisbury the Gaughan report. Defense counsel requested that Salisbury be allowed to decline. The court ruled that he could be asked to read the report during the testimony of the next witness to see if he's aware of any of the matters in there. Salisbury said his sister, who testified earlier, had told him some of what was in the report. He did not want to read the report unless defendant wanted him to. The prosecutor said he was certain defendant did not want it to be read, but I want you to have the opportunity, since you've told us that his whole purpose in life was to please everyone and that he was just a happy-go-lucky good guy, I'd like you to see this other side of him and tell us whether or not you were aware of that other side of him. Salisbury responded that he was not aware of it. The prosecutor said he would still like Salisbury to read the report. At this point, the court gave the following advisement to the jury: Ladies and gentlemen, let me explain. There's been a couple of references to this report. And I don't know if you're going to hear any information about what waswhat's actually in the report or not. If you don't, then obviously you cannot speculate as to the contents of the report or whether anything in the report is true or not true. Again, you're reminded that you must base your decision solely on the evidence that you do hear. And anything thatthere has been a few things that have been mentioned during . . . cross-examination of some of the defense witnesses as to some specific instances of the defendant's background, whether it's an incident with an ex-girlfriend or taking tires from someplace or anything of that nature, all of that kind of evidence is being admitted for a very limited purpose. It is not to show that the defendant has committed other bad acts and, therefore, he's a bad person. Or the death penalty is more appropriate because ifhe stole some tires or he got mad at someone or anything of that nature. The only purpose of all of that testimony regarding any prior acts of the defendant is that many of the witnesses have testified to various aspects of the defendant's personality or his character or his state of mind at various times. And when a witness does that, that, so to speak, opens up the door for the other side to then say, well, there are other aspects of his personality or his character or his state of mind that we would also like you to be aware of. And the only purpose of it is so you can get as complete a picture as possible as to the personality and the character and the state of mind of the individual. And all of that evidence is limited to that purpose, and you cannot consider it for any other purpose. For example, there was mention at the beginning of this phase of the trial and at the beginning of the trial, and you'll be instructed again at the end of the trial that one of the things you're going to be asked to do in this phase of the trial when you go out to deliberate is to weigh what we call aggravating circumstances against mitigating circumstances. And we'll be defining what those are for you. And we'll be giving you a list of . . . all the things that constitute aggravating factors, and we'll give you a list of some of the things that constitute mitigating factors. This kind of evidence about other things that the defendant may have done is not and cannot be considered by you as aggravating evidence. . . . [¶] . . . [N]one of that is a circumstance in aggravation and cannot be considered in that regard. [It] can only be considered as giving some light or balance to issues of personality, issues of character and issues of state of mind. And of course, if someone testifies to knowing a person and you say, well, there were other things I didn't know about, you can also consider that as far as the extent of their knowledge in giving you evidence about the person's character or personality or state of mind. All of that evidence is limited to that area and cannot be considered for any other purpose. Salisbury asked if he had to read the report; the court said that he did. Defense counsel objected to having him read the portions the court had ruled inadmissible. The court overruled the objection. Subsequently, the parties stipulated that if called to testify, Salisbury would say that his opinions of defendant were based on his knowledge before the California crimes, and that he had not been aware of anything in the Gaughan report. Salisbury's broad statements about defendant's good character could properly have been rebutted with similarly broad aspects of his bad character, based on specific incidents drawn from the Gaughan report. However, simply establishing that Salisbury did not know about the unspecified incidents that showed this other side of defendant's character did not provide the jury with any useful means of evaluating his testimony. Although the court's lengthy admonition was a valuable corrective measure, the problems it addressed could have been avoided by barring the prosecutor from making general statements about the nature and contents of the report, and requiring his cross-examination to focus on specific incidents relevant to Salisbury's testimony.