Opinion ID: 2570148
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Limitation of Mitigating Evidence

Text: (7) Defendant contends the trial court prevented him from presenting mitigating evidence regarding the consequences of his upbringing and family life. [15] The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution requires that a capital jury be permitted to consider `as a mitigating factor, any aspect of a defendant's character or record and any of the circumstances of the offense that the defendant proffers as a basis for a sentence less than death.' ( Lockett v. Ohio (1978) 438 U.S. 586, 604 [57 L.Ed.2d 973, 98 S.Ct. 2954], fn. & italics omitted.) Nonetheless, the trial court still `determines relevancy in the first instance and retains discretion to exclude evidence whose probative value is substantially outweighed by the probability that its admission will create substantial danger of confusing the issues or misleading the jury.' ( People v. Williams (2006) 40 Cal.4th 287, 320 [52 Cal.Rptr.3d 268, 148 P.3d 47].) Defendant claims the court erred in excluding testimony by a number of witnesses that would have shown his problems were directly related to his upbringing in a religious cult.
Deborah Chiba, defendant's aunt, was an emergency room nurse. She was allowed to testify extensively about her own and others' experiences growing up in the trailer park. When Chiba was six, she was called to the front of a prayer meeting, and asked to sit in Mercer's lap to tell him her sins. After she reported minor infractions, Mercer asked Chiba if she had ever improperly touched her private parts or those of her brothers. In particular, he inquired whether she had ever put her mouth on her brothers' genitalia or they on hers. She repeatedly denied this had happened. Thereafter, Chiba was singled out for mistreatment, removed from her family, and placed in a different home. One day she was told she needed to be examined for worms. A nurse thoroughly examined her while Mercer watched. Her parents were not present. A few days later Chiba was brought to the dining hall, where Mercer announced to everyone that the nurse's examination had indicated Chiba was a dirty little girl who liked to play with herself. He called Chiba a whore and a lesbian. In second grade, Chiba suddenly and falsely accused the school janitor of pulling her panties down when she was on the playground. She maintained that story, and it solidified in everyone's mind the idea that she really was a nasty little girl. She made the accusation because she felt violated by the nurse's examination, and could not accuse the people she looked up to. Chiba was sometimes whipped for minor infractions. Once her brother Johnny was beaten until he bled. In 1971, the year defendant was born, Chiba was about 10 years old. Mercer ordered that her hair be cut off to punish her because he had had a vision from God that she was being sexually inappropriate with young children. Chiba was beaten and forced to wear masculine clothes that covered much of her body, hiding her bruises. Her fingertips were burned so she would know what hell felt like. In 1973, Mercer moved Chiba to defendant's family. She stayed there until the park dissolved in 1975. Chiba also testified about the animosity between the Daultons and Lokers, and the cult's emphasis on early marriage, derogation of education, and disdain for persons outside the church. Defendant contends the trial court erroneously sustained two objections. First, defense counsel asked Chiba whether as she was growing up she noticed the effect of their religion, as her father taught it, on her sister Marietta. The trial court sustained the prosecutor's objection on Evidence Code section 352 and relevance grounds, and because it called for speculation. Chiba also testified that years later she had cared for Mercer as a student nurse when he was dying. Defense counsel asked, Had he been, to your knowledge, abusing drugs? The trial court sustained a relevance objection. Both rulings were proper. They did not prevent defendant from presenting evidence regarding life in the park and its effect on extended family members. To the contrary, Chiba's expansive testimony developed this aspect of defendant's case in great detail.
Danny Johnson, defendant's half brother, related that he was physically abused by their mother while living in the park. He left the park before defendant was born. Danny did not really know defendant until defendant was about 16 or 17 years old, when they began working together. Danny had a real problem with the park ever since [he] left, and had spent about twenty-six years trying to forget as much as [he] could. He speculated that some family members opposed defense efforts to describe life in the park because it brought up events they had also been trying to forget, or for which they might face incarceration. Defendant contends the court erred by not allowing Danny to testify about how he was affected by his experiences in the trailer park. He did in fact testify to this effect. The court excluded as irrelevant only testimony about Danny's experiences with persons other than his mother at the park before defendant was born. This limitation was well within its discretion. Defendant also argues that the court improperly sustained a hearsay objection to Danny's testimony that one of defendant's cousins, David Daulton, had drawn a gun on a police officer and if the police officer hadn't have known him and had to repeatedly tell him, `Put the gun down,' he would have shot him. Danny learned of the incident from David Daulton. Defense counsel asserted without elaboration that the statement was against penal interest, and that even if it was hearsay, he was simply offering it for the effect, the state of mind of my client and the effect of all of the family members on my client and what has happened to them. The court properly ruled that the testimony was hearsay, as an out-of-court statement offered to prove the incident occurred. (Evid. Code, § 1200, subd. (a).) The court noted that if there was evidence that the defendant was told of a particular incident, then of course that can come in, not for the truth of the matter asserted, but simply to show what he was told . . . for the purpose of showing what effect that information might have had on him. The court allowed Danny to testify that siblings of David Daulton had been in jail. (8) We need not decide whether the court should have admitted the testimony about the gun incident as a statement against David's penal interest. Hearsay testimony must meet an exception, but it must also be relevant. Counsel below claimed the purpose of the testimony was to show the effect of the incident on defendant's state of mind, but did not demonstrate that defendant knew of the incident. It was, therefore, irrelevant. (9) Defendant further contends the statement was admissible under Green v. Georgia (1979) 442 U.S. 95 [60 L.Ed.2d 738, 99 S.Ct. 2150], to show the effect of a common upbringing on defendant and his family. Green holds that a defendant's due process rights are violated when hearsay testimony at the penalty phase of a capital trial is excluded, if both of the following conditions are present: (1) the excluded testimony is `highly relevant to a critical issue in the punishment phase of the 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, at p. 97.) Defendant did not rely on this theory of admissibility below, and the claim is therefore forfeited. ( People v. Smithey, supra, 20 Cal.4th at p. 995.) It is also meritless. Even assuming reliability, evidence that defendant's cousin had drawn a gun on a police officer was not highly relevant to a critical issue in the penalty phase. In Green, the evidence was highly probative of the defendant's innocence. ( People v. Smithey, supra, 20 Cal.4th at p. 996; see Green v. Georgia, supra, 442 U.S. at p. 97.) Here, by contrast, the evidence was cumulative to other evidence that children from the park had committed crimes, and tangential because it had no bearing on defendant's character. Exclusion of such evidence does not deny a defendant due process of law. ( Smithey, at p. 996.)
Defendant's other half brother Mark Johnson lived in the park until he was eight years old. Like Danny, he left before defendant was born. Having been severely beaten several times by his uncle Jerry Daulton, he lived in constant fear of being brutalized. He did not meet defendant until defendant was 10 or 12 years old. He never saw defendant being abused. Defendant contends the court erroneously sustained an objection to defense counsel's question whether Mark was negatively affected by his experience in the park. Counsel argued that the effect of the park on others was important because these people remained close to defendant, and since the effects of the park affected them, they therefore affected defendant. The trial court properly ruled that no foundation had been laid that Mark was in the park at the same time as defendant, or that he had a relationship with defendant as they were growing up. The court stated it would allow testimony regarding the specifics of how he related with [defendant] over . . . their experiences in the park. Defendant claims this ruling prevented him from demonstrating that the park caused serious problems for his family members. However, that showing was made by the testimony of numerous other witnesses whose experiences were closer to defendant's than Mark's were. Moreover, the jury would reasonably infer that a child who was physically abused and lived in constant fear of being brutalized would have suffered from this experience.
Defendant's cousin Hugh Scott testified that the Daulton men were very outgoing, financially successful, and sexually active. He heard many legends about Daulton men as he grew up. Defendant gave Hugh the impression he was influenced by these stories. Defendant contends the court improperly barred Hugh's testimony about the effect of the Daulton legends on Hugh. The claim is meritless; the court correctly deemed this testimony irrelevant. Hugh testified that he and defendant knew the stories and discussed them, and that defendant seemed to be affected by them. Contrary to defendant's assertion, the importance of the family legends was demonstrated by this testimony.
Doris Scott, defendant's aunt, moved to the park in 1962 when she was 18, and left in 1975. At the time of her testimony, she had recently learned that Mercer had molested one of her sons. Hugh, her youngest son, was raised in the park and had trouble with violence as an adult. Doris turned her own anger inward, and tried to commit suicide twice. Unlike defendant's father, her husband loved her sons dearly and openly. She and her husband felt guilty for not protecting their children, and had spent the rest of their lives trying to make up for what they suffered at the park. Doris testified that her own children had problems with violence, and at least one of her sons had problems with the law. Defense counsel pursued the matter, asking, a lot of the kids coming out of that have had problems and continue to have problems? Doris answered, Yes, sir. My younger brothers and my younger sisters have all had problems. In response to a prosecution objection, the trial court ruled that generalities that other people have had problems is fine, and that answer will remain. But going into the details of problems of others would be irrelevant. The ruling was proper. Moreover, as discussed above, the jury heard extensive testimony about the negative impacts of park life. (10) As to all these witnesses, defendant complains that the court's limitation of defense counsel's questioning prevented him from fully rebutting the prosecutor's assertions that he was the only member of his church or extended family who had problems or committed criminal acts as a result of his upbringing. [16] We disagree. Although the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments confer a right upon capital defendants to present all relevant mitigating evidence to the jury [citation], the United States Supreme Court never has suggested that this right precludes the state from applying ordinary rules of evidence to determine whether such evidence is admissible. ( People v. Smithey, supra, 20 Cal.4th at p. 995.) We note that Danny Johnson, and Hugh and Doris Scott, all testified that children from the park later had trouble with the law. The court did not deprive defendant of his right to present relevant mitigating evidence.