Opinion ID: 2515839
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Failure to give limiting instruction on proper use of defendant's statements to defense experts.

Text: Defendant urges the trial court erred in failing to instruct the jury, such as by CALJIC No. 2.10, [36] that his statements to the defense experts, as disclosed by the testimony of Dr. Klatte, could not be considered for their truth, but only to evaluate the basis of Dr. Klatte's expert opinion. The error, he asserts, resulted in lowering the prosecution's burden of proof in violation of the Fifth Amendment, denied him his Sixth Amendment rights to confront the nontestifying experts, and contravened the Eighth Amendment's concern for heightened reliability in capital cases. No instructional error occurred under California law. While the trial court should give such an instruction upon request (Evid.Code, § 355; People v. Dennis (1998) 17 Cal.4th 468, 532-534, 71 Cal. Rptr.2d 680, 950 P.2d 1035), it need not do so sua sponte. (E.g., Montiel, supra, 5 Cal.4th 877, 918, 21 Cal.Rptr.2d 705, 855 P.2d 1277; People v. Cantrell (1973) 8 Cal.3d 672, 683, 105 Cal.Rptr. 792, 504 P.2d 1256.) Hence, failure to request such an instruction in the trial court forfeits a direct appellate claim that it should have been given. ( Ibid. ) Defendant concedes he did not request a limiting instruction as such, but he asserts that, for two reasons, he may nonetheless complain of the instructional omission. First, he notes he did propose an instruction that evidence of the statements defendant made to Dr. Kaufman and Dr. Siegal should be entirely disregarded. (See text discussion, ante, 42 Cal.Rptr.3d at pp. 718-719, 133 P.3d at pp. 615-616.) Even if this proposed instruction was too broad, he insists, it generated a duty in the trial court to fashion a correct, more limited substitute. (Cf., e.g., People v. Fudge (1994) 7 Cal.4th 1075, 1110, 31 Cal.Rptr.2d 321, 875 P.2d 36; People v. Hall (1980) 28 Cal.3d 143, 159, 167 Cal.Rptr. 844, 616 P.2d 826.) However, the instruction defendant requested was premised on the theory that his statements to particular experts, Dr. Kaufman and Dr. Siegal, were the tainted fruit of defendant's illegal confession, and were thus inadmissible for any purpose. Neither defendant's proposed instruction, nor his argument that it be given, offered any hint of the completely different premise that all his statements to experts, including Dr. Klatte, should be limited to their proper nonhearsay uses. [37] Defendant urges that such a request would have been futile, because the prosecutor, in opposing the proposed defense instruction, persuaded the trial court that defendant's statements to defense experts were admissible for all purposes, including as substantive evidence of his mental state. We disagree with defendant's complaint. While the prosecutor did make such an argument, and the trial court appeared at length to accept it, defendant was not prevented from contradicting the prosecutor's view and proposing a more limited instruction. He simply failed to do so. In any event, we discern no prejudice under any applicable standard. Defendant's strategy, in essence, was to tell his story through his expert witness  i.e., to persuade the jury he might have killed the Harbitzes while mentally impaired by drug ingestion, but to make that point without subjecting himself to cross-examination by taking the stand personally to describe his symptoms and reactions. Hence, insofar as they supported his claim, defendant wanted the jury to believe his hearsay statements, at least those he made to Dr. Klatte. Had defendant testified, he presumably could have been impeached with inconsistent statements he gave to various doctors. By the same token, even if defendant's jury had been specifically instructed about the limited use it should make of defendant's hearsay statements to experts, the jury would nonetheless understand that it must evaluate the credibility of those statements in order to determine whether the experts' resulting opinions were soundly based. Under these circumstances, the line between use of defendant's statements for their substantive truth, on the one hand, and simply as the basis for doctors' diagnoses on the other, is subtle indeed. There is no reasonable basis to conclude the jury's guilt verdict would have been altered had the limiting instruction defendant now proposes been given. No ground for reversal appears.