Opinion ID: 2589798
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Alleged Error Regarding Inchambers Conferences

Text: The trial court refused to allow defendant to attend in-chambers conferences regarding jury selection unless he wore shackles, because he was alleged to be an escape risk. Defendant apparently chose not to attend any conferences throughout the trial, and now contends his absence from three of them violated his rights to due process and a reliable death verdict under the Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments, the California Constitution, article I, section 15, and state statutory provisions. [8] We disagree. (See generally People v. Waidla, supra, 22 Cal.4th at pp. 741-743, 94 Cal.Rptr.2d 396, 996 P.2d 46.) [E]ven in a capital case, defendants may generally waive their right to be present at trial when evidence is not taken. ( People v. Kiel ( 2000) 22 Cal.4th 1153, 1196, 96 Cal.Rptr.2d 1, 998 P.2d 969.) This general rule applies to discussions of legal matters. ( Ibid. ) While defendant contends his waiver was coerced by the trial court's allegedly improper shackling condition, for the reasons that follow there would have been no error even without the waiver. Defendant first challenges a conference regarding witness Danny Chouinard. Prior to Chouinard's testimony, and in defendant's presence, the court and counsel discussed at length the scope of questioning allowed for this witness. In particular, the court refused to allow defendant's counsel to inquire whether the witness and Flores stopped being friends, and if so, why. Counsel anticipated the witness would say he stopped associating with Flores because Flores was so crazy and liked to get into trouble. Chouinard in fact testified Flores was violent. On cross-examination, he testified he had told Dr. Zigelbaum that Flores got in fights slightly more than [he] did. At the challenged conference, defendant's counsel argued Flores's counsel's cross-examination had opened the door to the issue of why the witness stopped associating with Flores. The trial court disagreed, and stated that even if it had been opened, the line of questioning involved too many additional side issues. Defendant claims his presence was indispensable at the in-chambers conference because his intimate knowledge of the relationship between Chouinard and Flores would have assisted counsel in arguing to the court that the area of questioning should be allowed. However, defendant was present when this issue was explored at length in open court. Had he anything to contribute to counsel's argument, he was free to do so at that time. The later in-chambers conference involved nothing more than an evidentiary question of whether cocounsel had opened the door to the excluded testimony. Defendant does not assert how his presence would have assisted counsel in addressing this issue. Defendant next challenges an inchambers conference regarding the admissibility of statements he made to his girlfriend, Harkleroad. The discussion focused on whether Flores would be waiving his right to cross-examine defendant under People v. Aranda (1965) 63 Cal.2d 518, 47 Cal.Rptr. 353, 407 P.2d 265, if Flores's counsel elicited defendant's statements from Harkleroad. While defendant is undoubtedly correct that he was familiar with both his statements and Harkleroad's, it is not apparent how this knowledge would have assisted counsel in this purely legal discussion. Finally, defendant challenges a conference in which the trial court considered whether the defense had opened the door to certain evidence bolstering the prosecution's uncharged theory that defendant had tried to escape from jail. Defendant again fails to demonstrate how his presence would have had any bearing on these proceedings. In sum, we cannot conclude, with respect to any of these three conferences, that defendant's personal presence was necessary for an opportunity for effective cross-examination under the Sixth Amendment's confrontation clause, would have contributed to the trial's fairness in any marginal way for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause, or bore a reasonably substantial relation to the fullness of his opportunity to defend for purposes of article I, section 15 of the California Constitution or Penal Code sections 977 and 1043. ( People v. Waidla, supra, 22 Cal.4th at p. 742, 94 Cal.Rptr.2d 396, 996 P.2d 46.) Given that defendant had no right to attend these three in-chambers conferences, it is not relevant that he did not attend because of the condition imposed for jury selection conferences that he be shackled. We therefore need not address the propriety of this aspect of the trial court's order.