Opinion ID: 844263
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 11

Heading: New Trial Motion Based on Gonzales's Testimony at the Penalty Retrial

Text: Although Gonzales did not testify at the guilt or penalty phase of the first trial, he did testify at the penalty retrial. After the jury returned its verdicts at the penalty retrial, Soliz unsuccessfully moved for a new guilt phase trial under section 1181, subdivision 8, arguing that Gonzales's testimony at the penalty retrial was newly discovered evidence. Soliz, joined by Gonzales, now contends the trial court erred in denying this motion. We conclude the contention lacks merit. In his taped conversation with Salvador Berber played for the jury at the guilt trial, Gonzales stated he shot Skyles and Price and that Soliz never got out of the car during the shooting. In the tape, Gonzales briefly described how he ran up to Skyles and Price and shot them: They were like, `No, no, no.' I let them motherfuckers have it. When he testified at the penalty retrial, Gonzales gave a more detailed account of the events: He testified he had not intended to kill Skyles and Price and had armed himself only for protection. The conversation with them turned heated when Gonzales responded to their question about where he was from and they replied, Fuck Puente. When Gonzales saw one of them make a move he interpreted as reaching for a gun, he shot them in reaction. In his motion for a new trial, Soliz argued that Gonzales's testimony at the penalty retrial was newly discovered evidence that would have rendered a different result probable on retrial because it corroborated Gonzales's taped conversation with Berber in which Gonzales stated he acted alone in shooting Skyles and Price. Soliz argued that the guilt phase jury never had a chance to hear Gonzales testify from the stand and corroborate his taped conversation and that, in a new trial, his live testimony could very well result in a different verdict for Soliz. On appeal, however, Soliz contends the trial court erred in denying the new trial motion because, as he characterizes it, Gonzales's testimony at the penalty retrial about the Skyles and Price shooting differed fundamentally from his statements about it in his taped conversation with Berber heard by the jury at the guilt phase. Whereas the taped conversation tended to support the prosecutor's theory that the shootings of Skyles and Price were unprovoked, Gonzales's penalty retrial testimony indicated that the shootings were provoked by an argument and by Gonzales's belief that Skyles and Price were reaching for weapons. This testimony, Soliz concludes, would have supported guilt phase instructions on voluntary manslaughter based on heat of passion, sudden quarrel, or imperfect self-defense. Because Soliz did not make this argument below, he has forfeited it on appeal. Even were we to consider this argument on the merits, we would reject it. Soliz's arguments about the differences between the two accounts of the Skyles and Price shootings go to the possibility that Gonzales might have obtained a different verdict at the guilt phase, specifically, that he might have received a verdict of involuntary manslaughter based on the account he gave in his testimony at the penalty retrial. [24] Soliz fails to show how the asserted differences between the two accounts would have made a different result probable for Soliz at the guilt phase. What mattered for Soliz's guilt phase defense was the evidence that he was not the shooter and did not even exit the car; Gonzales made both of these assertions on the tape. So far as Soliz's guilt phase defense went, therefore, the trial court was correct in observing that Gonzales's live testimony contained nothing new. Because the assertedly newly discovered evidence was cumulative and would not have rendered a different result on retrial probable for Soliz, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying his new trial motion. ( People v. Delgado (1993) 5 Cal.4th 312, 328-329 [19 Cal.Rptr.2d 529, 851 P.2d 811].)