Opinion ID: 2595083
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Offers of leniency to Ybarra

Text: The defense theory was that prosecution witness Ybarra had falsely implicated defendant in the murder of Esther Alvarado so he would not be prosecuted for the theft of Johnny Alvarado's lawn mower. Both Ybarra and Holly Berrett, Chief Deputy in the Stanislaus County District Attorney's Office, testified that no such agreement had been made. Berrett explained that Ybarra had not been charged with the theft because, although Ybarra was initially a suspect, Detective Nirschl had concluded after further investigation that Ybarra's brother Gilbert had stolen the lawn mower without Ybarra's help. During defendant's cross-examination of Ybarra, this exchange occurred: Q: So now when you had been talking with Detective Nirschl were you worried at all about being charged with receiving stolen property, helping to sell stolen property? A: No sir. Q: You hadn't thought about that one? A: I wasn't worried. Q: You weren't worried because your brother was going to say it was all his doing, right? The trial court sustained the prosecutor's objection to this question as argumentative. Defendant argues the trial court should have overruled the objection, claiming it unfairly restricted his attempt to show that Ybarra's lack of concern was based on an undisclosed deal with the prosecution. We disagree. Ybarra had already testified that he did not steal the lawn mower, and that he had told his brother not to blame him for the theft. Defendant merely asked whether Ybarra believed his brother would admit that he stole the lawn mower without Ybarra's help, a question which had little or no bearing on whether the prosecution had made a deal with Ybarra. Later, when defendant tried to ask Detective Nirschl whether he considered Ybarra's apology to Johnny Alvarado for the theft of his lawn mower to be evidence that Ybarra had participated in the crime, the trial court sustained the prosecutor's objection that the question called for a conclusion. The court also sustained the prosecutor's relevancy objection when defendant asked Detective Nirschl whether Detective DeLeon, who had also talked to Ybarra, was excited when he commented to Nirschl that Ybarra's statement provided grounds for charging defendant with a financial gain special circumstance. Defendant argues these questions were proper because they were likely to elicit evidence tending to show that the two detectives believed that Ybarra had participated in the theft of the lawn mower and that they had an incentive to make a bargain with him. The questions, however, were only marginally relevant to the underlying issue of whether the prosecution actually had such an agreement with Ybarra. Thus, assuming for the sake of argument that the trial court should have overruled the prosecutor's objections, the error was harmless under any standard of prejudice.