Opinion ID: 1359265
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Exclusion of Defendant Champion's Reputation in the Raymond Crips Gang

Text: (26) At the penalty phase of the trial, defendant Champion called as a witness Thomas Crawford, who had been his California Youth Authority parole officer when Champion was arrested. The trial court sustained objections to three questions defense counsel asked Crawford, each of which was designed to elicit testimony that gang members and parolees had told Crawford they did not believe defendant Champion had committed the murders in this case. [26] Defendant Champion contends that the belief by gang members that he was innocent showed that he had been making good faith efforts to `turn his life around' before his arrest for the murders, and that the trial court therefore erred in sustaining the prosecutor's objections to Champion's questions. The questions, however, were not intended to show that defendant Champion had turned his life around. Rather, they were an effort by Champion to introduce hearsay evidence that he was not guilty of the murders. Hearsay testimony is inadmissible at the penalty phase ( People v. Edwards (1991) 54 Cal.3d 787, 837-838 [1 Cal. Rptr.2d 696, 819 P.2d 436]) and the trial court properly sustained the prosecutor's objections. Defendant Champion maintains that the evidence of what gang members told his parole officer was admissible notwithstanding its hearsay nature. He points out that the United States Supreme Court has held that due process requires the admission of hearsay evidence at the penalty phase of a capital trial, even though a state's evidentiary rules are to the contrary, if both of the following conditions are present: (1) the excluded testimony is `highly relevant to a critical issue in the punishment phase of trial,' and (2) there are substantial reasons to assume the reliability of the evidence. ( People v. Kaurish (1990) 52 Cal.3d 648, 704 [276 Cal. Rptr. 788, 802 P.2d 278], quoting Green v. Georgia (1979) 442 U.S. 95, 97 [60 L.Ed.2d 738, 741, 99 S.Ct. 2150].) According to Champion, the evidence was highly relevant because it tended to create a lingering doubt regarding his guilt, and he is entitled, under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States, to present such evidence as a reason for the jury to spare his life. (See People v. Cox, supra, 53 Cal.3d at pp. 676-677; Skipper v. South Carolina (1986) 476 U.S. 1 [90 L.Ed.2d 1, 106 S.Ct. 1669].) But the fact that unidentified gang members, presumably friends of defendant Champion, told a parole officer that they believed in Champion's innocence had little bearing on whether he actually committed the murders and hence was not highly relevant, nor was there reason to believe that these claims were in any way reliable. Thus, the trial court properly excluded the testimony.