Opinion ID: 2633370
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Evidence of the Prosecution's Failure to Subpoena Defendant's Mother

Text: During the sanity phase, the prosecutor and defense counsel argued outside the jury's presence about whether the prosecutor could present testimony from his investigator, Carol Bender, that she had made several attempts to serve a subpoena on defendant's mother, Dorothy Weaver, and that Mrs. Weaver seemed to be avoiding service. The prosecutor argued that such evidence was relevant because it would rebut an anticipated defense argument that the state should have called Mrs. Weaver as a logical witness to rebut defendant's evidence that an abusive childhood contributed to his present (alleged) insanity. The trial court ruled Bender could so testify. When she did, however, she revealed that although she had some initial difficulty serving Mrs. Weaver, a private subpoena service hired by the district attorney's office was ultimately successful in serving Mrs. Weaver, having located her in Chico. The prosecution immediately ceased this line of questioning. Defendant contends the trial court erred in admitting evidence of the difficulty in serving Mrs. Weaver. Although he expounds at length on this issue, speculating the jury may have inferred Mrs. Weaver was evading service at his request or because what she had to say would not corroborate his testimony, we need not resolve whether admitting Bender's testimony was error, for if it was error it was manifestly harmless. Bender's testimony was brief, factual, and gave no hint that Mrs. Weaver's expected testimony would be damaging to defendant. We thus reject the claim in its entirety.