Opinion ID: 1358008
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Exclusion of Evidence of Experiment

Text: [14] According to Duarte's testimony, the sale of heroin on April 3d, when defendant Roberts drove Syas to the place where the transaction was consummated, took place at about 9 o'clock in the evening, at Laguna and Ellis Streets. In an effort to impeach Duarte, Roberts sought to introduce the testimony of an investigator concerning an experiment that was conducted at 9:00 in the evening [in the month of October, 1951] on the corner of Laguna and Ellis Streets with three automobiles involved, traveling at the speed of 20 miles an hour, persons in the cars, and the ability or the inability of a person to identify them, and at what distances they could identify them ... I believe his testimony would be this was impossible for him to do. The last quoted language is from defendants' offer of proof. After colloquy among court and counsel as to whether it could be shown that the conditions under which the experiment was conducted were substantially similar to those at the time to which Duarte's testimony referred, the trial court refused to admit evidence of the experiment. Defendant urges that this ruling was prejudicially erroneous. A principal ground of the People's objection to the proffered evidence was that there was no showing that the light was similar on the evening of April 3d and on the evening of the experiment in October. Also, according to the offer of proof, the car which took the role of Roberts' car during the experiment was not the same model as the one which Roberts had driven on April 3d. It was within the discretion of the trial judge to determine whether the conditions of the experiment and the conditions of April 3d to which Duarte testified were sufficiently similar that the evidence of the experiment would aid rather than confuse the jury. ( People v. Parker (1935), 4 Cal. App.2d 421, 424 [40 P.2d 836]. Cf. People v. Dyer (1938), 11 Cal.2d 317, 321 [79 P.2d 1071], with People v. Hadley (1917), 175 Cal. 118, 122 [165 P.2d 442].)