Opinion ID: 2590211
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Admission of Death List

Text: Defendant contends the trial court erred in admitting into evidence a hand-written document the prosecution characterized as a coded list of defendant's victims. The list, he argues, lacked probative value because any connection between the entries on the list and particular victims was speculative. Defendant also contends any relevancy the list possessed was outweighed by its prejudicial impact. Additionally, he asserts the list constituted inadmissible hearsay. He further argues that admission of the list violated the heightened evidentiary reliability requirements in capital cases, established by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the federal Constitution. We find no abuse of discretion in the admission of the list. After defendant was arrested on May 14, 1983, Orange County Sheriffs deputies searched defendant's car pursuant to a warrant. Among the items recovered in the search was a notebook containing a sheet of paper bearing 61 cryptic entries in defendant's handwriting. The prosecution contended the list memorialized defendant's various murder victims and that 13 of the entries corresponded to murder counts tried in the guilt phase of this case. The prosecution further contended eight additional entries referred to murders defendant committed in Oregon and Michigan, evidence of which was presented in the penalty phase. The prosecution also asserted 21 additional uncharged victims were represented on the list, while acknowledging the remaining entries could not be linked to a specific victim. Four of the entries included the numeral 2, which, according to the prosecution, referred to two victims. The defense moved in limine to exclude the list from evidence, citing as grounds the hearsay rule, lack of relevancy, absence of a corpus delicti for some of the entries, and the unduly prejudicial effect of references to uncharged crimes. In response, the prosecution stated it would not seek to introduce the entire list into evidence unless the defense so requested. Instead, the prosecution sought to introduce only the 13 entries corresponding to 14 of the murder charges. (The prosecution believed Gambrel was not represented on the list, as defendant would not have had time to add an entry for him, and it was unable to determine which, if any, entry corresponded to victim Eric Herbert Church. The prosecution believed one entry, 2 IN 1 BEACH, referred to both Rodger James DeVaul, Jr., and Geoffrey Alan Nelson.) In the course of the hearing on the in limine motions, the trial court rejected the prosecution's argument that the nature of the list should be determined based on an examination of all the entries; the court concluded instead that the focus properly lay only on those assertedly relating to the charged counts. At the conclusion of the hearing, the trial court ruled the 13 entries admissible. In the abstract, the court acknowledged, the entries mean[t] nothing, but in the context of the evidence on the corresponding counts, the prosecution's interpretation of the list as a death list was reasonable. The court declared it would leave it to the jury to give the list whatever weight it thought appropriate. The trial court further concluded, pursuant to Evidence Code section 1220, that the entries were not subject to exclusion as hearsay. Finally, the court ruled that the probative value of the list outweighed any prejudice flowing from its admission. We conclude the trial court properly overruled each of the defense objections to the list. First, the trial court could, in the exercise of sound discretion, conclude the list was relevant. It had a tendency in reason to prove a disputed fact of consequence to the case (Evid.Code, ї 210), namely defendant's awareness of certain characteristics of the charged murders. For example, the prosecution argued the entry MC HB TATTOO referred to victim Loggins, who was last seen by his fellow Marines at the pier in Huntington Beach, and who had a large tattoo; MARINE CARSON, the prosecution contended, referred to victim Keith, a Marine who was last seen alive by his girlfriend in Carson. Indeed, the conclusion is strengthened by examination of certain entries strongly suggesting some of the uncharged murders, evidence of which was later presented in the penalty phase. PORTLAND HAWAII, the prosecution asserted, meant Lance Taggs, a resident of Tigard, Oregon, who previously had lived in Hawaii. Taggs carried a bag with Kaneohe, Hawaii printed on it. His body, clad in a shirt bearing the words Local Motion and Hawaii, was found on December 9, 1982, beside a road a half-mile west of Interstate 5 between Wilsonville and Canby in Oregon. Defendant claimed reimbursement from his employer for travel expenses incurred in Portland, Oregon, on December 8 and 9, 1982; Taggs's distinctive nunchakus were recovered from defendant's garage after his arrest. PORTLAND RESERVE referred to Anthony Silveira, a member of the National Guard Reserve, whose decomposed body was found off Boone's Ferry Road near Interstate 5 just west of Hubbard, Oregon. The method by which Silveira was killed closely fit the pattern of defendant's California offenses. Silveira had owned an army jacket with his name tag sewn on it, similar to one acquaintances of defendant testified he possessed around the time Silveira disappeared on December 4, 1982. Silveira's jacket was found in a lobby of the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on December 8, 1982, some 12 to 15 feet from the room in which defendant was then staying. Contrary to the trial court, we see no impropriety in gleaning the significance of the document as a whole, or of certain entries, partly in light of other entries not admitted in the guilt phase. As the Attorney General argues, the fundamental issue in determining admissibility was whether the document constituted a list of murder victims, and in answering that question the trial court properly could consider all available information pertaining to the list. If no other entry, besides the 13 assertedly relating to the charged victims, could be associated with a homicide victim, the trial court could have considered that fact as suggesting the document was not, in fact, a list of defendant's victims. By the same token, however, the fact the prosecution could link numerous entries on the list to uncharged victims suggests the list was what the prosecution contended it to be. In any event, the trial court's conclusion the document was admissible as a list of victims finds support in the record. Defendant correctly observes that evidence leading only to speculative inferences is irrelevant. ( People v. De La Plane (1979) 88 Cal.App.3d 223, 244, 151 Cal.Rptr. 843.) We do not agree, however, that because the entries were idiosyncratically coded and required interpretation to be understood by a reader, to ascribe a particular meaning to a given entry necessarily was speculative. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in concluding each of the 13 entries reflected a sufficient nexus with some aspect or aspects of the particular case to be relevant and admissible. Second, although the list constitutes hearsay, the trial court correctly ruled it admissible under the exception for statements by a party. (Evid.Code, ї 1220.) Contrary to what defendant suggests, People v. Allen (1976) 65 Cal.App.3d 426, 135 Cal.Rptr. 276 did not hold that to qualify under this exception to the hearsay rule a statement must be clear and unambiguous. That case, rather, involved a statement, clear on its face, to which the prosecution sought to ascribe a different, inculpatory meaning not directly inferable therefrom; the Court of Appeal rejected the effort as speculative. Third, we find no abuse of discretion in the trial court's conclusion that the list was more probative than prejudicial, over defendant's objection pursuant to Evidence Code section 352. The list itself was not inflammatory; as redacted, it did not suggest defendant was guilty of other offenses. Despite the prosecutor's argument the entries on the list referred to specific victims, and thus corroborated the other incriminating evidence in the case, the defense could and did urge the jury to reject any correlations it found unreasonable. Presumably the jury accorded no weight to any entry it found did not relate to a charged victim. Admission of the list, therefore, would not have prejudiced defendant within the meaning of Evidence Code section 352. For this reason, too, even had the trial court abused its discretion in admitting the list, reversal of defendant's convictions would be unwarranted. ( People v. Watson (1956) 46 Cal.2d 818, 835-836, 299 P.2d 243.) Finally, we reject defendant's contention that the admission of the list violated what he terms the heightened reliability requirements of the federal Constitution in capital cases. Application of the ordinary rules of evidence generally does not impermissibly infringe on a capital defendant's constitutional rights. (See People v. Cudjo (1993) 6 Cal.4th 585, 611, 25 Cal.Rptr.2d 390, 863 P.2d 635.) Defendant fails to persuade us this case constitutes an exception to that general rule.