Opinion ID: 1801948
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Alleged error in admitting Gerry Tags's preliminary examination testimony and related instructional error

Text: Defendant's former girlfriend, Gerry Tags, testified for the prosecution at defendant's preliminary examination. On cross-examination, Tags admitted that she hated defendant. When defendant's counsel asked why, Tags explained she hated defendant because, among other things, he beat her and forced her to prostitute herself. On redirect examination the prosecutor asked Tags to elaborate on the other reasons she hated defendant, and the following colloquy occurred: A. Why is because me havin' it in my own mind thatwhat I think he has done, you know; and other things too. [¶] And I can't say that he done it because I wasn't there or nothing; but in my own mind, I wouldI would always hate him, you know, becauseheman, I tell you, I always hate him. Q. What do you think that he did? A. Well, he hurt people that shouldn't have been hurted [ sic ]. Q. Are you talking about the people in this case? A. Yes. Q. Does that bother you? A. Both of the cases. At that point defense counsel objected. The magistrate accepted the prosecutor's explanation that the testimony was relevant to Tags's state of mind, but stated it would not be admitted for its truth. Tags died before trial. Over defendant's objection, the trial court granted the prosecutor's motion to admit, under Evidence Code section 1291, Tags's preliminary examination testimony that she believed defendant had hurt the people in both of the cases. [27] The prosecutor and defendant's counsel shared the task of reading Tags's preliminary examination testimony to the jury, with defendant's counsel reading the portion regarding Tags's belief in defendant's guilt. No limiting instruction was given except CALJIC No. 2.09, which instructs the jury generally that evidence admitted for a limited purpose should be restricted to that purpose. Defendant now argues the trial court abused its discretion in admitting Tags's testimony about her belief in defendant's guilt because the evidence was more prejudicial than probative. (See Evid. Code, § 352.) We disagree. The evidence was relevant to show the reasons Tags hated defendant and therefore was probative of her bias against defendant. Defendant argues it was the fact of Tags's hatred that was relevant; the reasons for her hatred were not. But defendant's counsel opened up this line of inquiry by questioning Tags about her reasons. The prosecutor therefore was entitled to explore the issue fully. (See Evid. Code, § 356.) Nor was the evidence particularly prejudicial. Evidence is prejudicial within the meaning of Evidence Code section 352 if it encourages the jury to prejudge defendant's case based upon extraneous or irrelevant considerations. ( People v. Rogers (2006) 39 Cal.4th 826, 863 [48 Cal.Rptr.3d 1, 141 P.3d 135].) Here, the evidence did not encourage the jury to prejudge defendant's case; rather, it merely invited the jury to infer that Tags hated defendant, and therefore might be biased against him, because she believed he was guilty. Defendant argues the evidence was prejudicial because Tags was the person closest to defendant in 1984; therefore the jury would have assumed she based her belief on facts unknown to the jury. But Tags herself admitted that she couldn't say that he done it because she wasn't there or nothing. Accordingly, the jury may well have concluded that she was expressing no more than an unfounded belief. (25) Defendant claims the trial court erred by failing to instruct the jury regarding the limited purpose for which Tags's testimony about her belief in defendant's guilt was admitted. Absent a request, a trial court generally has no duty to instruct as to the limited purpose for which evidence has been admitted. ( People v. Smith (2007) 40 Cal.4th 483, 516 [54 Cal.Rptr.3d 245, 150 P.3d 1224]; People v. Hernandez (2004) 33 Cal.4th 1040, 1051 [16 Cal.Rptr.3d 880, 94 P.3d 1080]; see Evid. Code, § 355 [When evidence is admissible . . . for one purpose and is inadmissible . . . for another purpose, the court upon request shall restrict the evidence to its proper scope and instruct the jury accordingly. (italics added)].) We have recognized a narrow exception to this rule in the `occasional extraordinary case' in which the evidence at issue `is a dominant part of the evidence against the accused, and is both highly prejudicial and minimally relevant to any legitimate purpose.' ( People v. Hernandez, supra, 33 Cal.4th at pp. 1051-1052, quoting People v. Collie (1981) 30 Cal.3d 43, 63-64 [177 Cal.Rptr. 458, 634 P.2d 534]; see also People v. Rogers, supra, 39 Cal.4th at p. 864.) The exception is inapplicable here because Tags's brief testimony about her belief in defendant's guilt was not a dominant part of the prosecution's case and, as discussed above, was neither highly prejudicial nor minimally relevant. The trial court therefore had no duty to instruct absent a timely request. Here, defendant requested a limiting instruction at the hearing on the admissibility of Tags's testimony. The trial court agreed, directing that the preliminary examination magistrate's statement limiting the purpose of Tags's testimony about her belief be read to the jury, and stating that it would give any other limiting instruction at the appropriate time. But when defendant's counsel read the challenged portion of Tags's preliminary examination testimony to the jury three days later, he inexplicably failed to include the magistrate's statement limiting the purpose of the evidence. Any error in failing to include the magistrate's statement in the reading therefore must be ascribed to defendant. Moreover, defense counsel did not remind the court that it had agreed to give a limiting instruction either at the time the testimony was read, or when discussing jury instructions before the case was submitted to the jury. Nor did defense counsel submit any proposed written limiting instruction. Because defendant[] did not specifically request a limiting instruction at the appropriate time, the court had no sua sponte duty to give one. ( People v. Hernandez, supra, 33 Cal.4th at p. 1052.) Finally, even assuming evidentiary or instructional error, defendant was not prejudiced at the guilt phase. As noted, Tags admitted that her belief in defendant's guilt had no factual basis. She also admitted that defendant had told her, contrary to her belief, that he did not kill the Mercks. Under these circumstances, it is unlikely the jury assigned much weight to her testimony about her belief. Moreover, there was strong evidence of defendant's guilt of the Merck murders, including his fingerprints found at the crime scene and his connection to the murder weapon. For these reasons, admission of Tags's testimony about her belief that defendant had hurt the Mercks was harmless under any standard. Defendant argues the error prejudiced him at the penalty phase because the jury had deadlocked nine to three as to his guilt of the Russell murder. Therefore, he reasons, at least three jurors must have believed he was guilty of Russell's murder, and the penalty phase jury instructions permitted those jurors to consider that murder as an aggravating circumstance. Had Tags's testimony about her belief not been admitted, he asserts, those jurors may well have concluded that his guilt of Russell's murder had not been proved beyond a reasonable doubt. But Tags gave much more damaging testimony about the Russell murder, including that the night before she learned that Russell had been killed, defendant left Gerald and Mitzi's apartment in the early evening and returned in the early morning wearing different clothes; that a week or two later Tags saw the clothes defendant had been wearing when he left the apartment in the trunk of her car, bloodied and wrapped around a knife; and that after Russell's murder Tags, Gerald and defendant took a two-week trip to Oklahoma and Florida, during which defendant admitted killing Russell. Furthermore, Tags was extensively cross-examined about her drug use, lack of recall, and the inconsistencies between her various accounts of the events of September 1984. In light of the whole of Tags's testimony, admission of her statements about her admittedly unfounded belief in defendant's guilt could not have prejudiced defendant under any standard.