Opinion ID: 1179950
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Asserted Newly Discovered and Suppressed Evidence

Text: In pretrial proceedings on the substantive charges the court had ordered the prosecution to produce statements, recordings and notes of the defendants and recordings and signed statements of the material witnesses. Pursuant to the order the district attorney had made available to two defense counsel a number of files, tape recordings and transcripts of recordings. The files included hundreds of reports, and there were from 30 to 40 tape recordings. Mrs. Delores Smith, a secretary in the district attorney's office, was present during defense counsels' inspection of the documents and recordings. Although on a few occasions she gave a specific report or tape to counsel upon his request therefor, she would generally merely provide the next file in order when counsel was ready for it. When counsel finished his examination of a particular item he would either place it on a table or return it to Mrs. Smith. She made pencil notations on documents which she observed counsel read. No notations were made on documents which counsel may have superficially examined or looked at but did not appear to read. She operated the reproducing equipment and played several tapes for counsel. She made notations as to the particular tapes played. On one occasion counsel made copies of documents and Mrs. Smith made notations on the back of the documents so copied. The first item which is claimed to be newly discovered evidence is a letter from the Seattle Police Department to the Orange County authorities dated October 6, 1959. According to the letter, Michael had said that he understood that the triggerman was a man from New York, apparently a reference to a man named Suboter. One of the defense counsel testified at the hearing on the instant reference that he did not see the letter or a copy thereof until after trial had been completed and judgments affirmed. Although the other defense counsel had told attorneys on occasions prior to the reference that he had not seen the letter, he testified at the hearing that he believed he had seen the report by the time of trial because he remembered a reference to the man from New York. The letter was not notated by Mrs. Smith. The second, third and fourth items claimed to be newly discovered relate to an interview on November 29, 1959, of Michael by Seattle and Orange County officials. In this interview Michael said petitioners had referred to another triggerman other than Suboter. The first of the three items is a City of Anaheim police report summary of the interview, the second is a transcript of the interview, and the third is a tape recording of the interview. The tape recording no longer exists because, according to a police officer, the tape was erased in 1961 or 1962. The first defense counsel stated that he did not see the report or the transcript. The second defense counsel also said he had no independent recollection of seeing the report or the transcript, although he did have a vague recollection of a name of a person mentioned during the interview. A draft of the transcript contains a notation by Mrs. Smith that the second counsel had read the transcript and played the tape. The City of Anaheim police report also contained a notation by Mrs. Smith to the effect that it had been read by the second counsel. A fifth item of claimed newly discovered evidence refers to tape recordings of an interview of Michael on February 4, 1960, by Frank Oxandaboure, the chief investigator of the district attorney's office, and the prosecuting attorney. This transcript contains the asserted deal with Michael which forms the basis of the referee's perjury finding. (See fn. 5, infra. ) The first defense counsel denied ever having heard the tapes. When it was indicated that he had used some of the information on the tapes in cross-examining Michael at trial, he claimed that his questions were based on information obtained from tapes of other conversations. Although the second defense counsel had stated prior to the hearing on the instant reference that he had no recollection of previously having heard the tapes of the interview of Michael, he nevertheless testified at the hearing that he had heard them. Prior to the receipt of his testimony he and others adjourned to the referee's chambers and listened to the tapes in their entirety. He testified that this was the first occasion since the trial that he had heard the whole of the tapes, rather than excerpts, in connection with the fifth item of claimed newly discovered evidence. He testified that once he heard the tapes he recalled having heard them on some prior occasion and that he remembered certain specific matters, including references to Michael's answers as to why he had changed his story from what he had stated in the Seattle interview. Counsel also testified that he had elected not to use the tapes at trial to attempt to establish that Michael had been offered immunity because if such an offer had been made it was conditioned on Michael telling the truth and that such a disclosure might hurt his clients' case. Mrs. Smith testified that the tape recordings had been made available to defense counsel, and transcripts of the tapes contain notations by Mrs. Smith to the effect that they had been read by defense counsel. The sixth and final item of claimed newly discovered evidence is a ballistics transmittal letter from the Anaheim Police Department to the Federal Bureau of Investigation dated June 10, 1959. In the course of the letter, there is attributed to the decedent a statement made seconds before the killing indicating that he recognized his assassin. Petitioners point out that the prosecution's theory was that the triggerman had been brought in from San Francisco, and that such person was unknown to the decedent. Such evidence, it is now claimed, would defeat the prosecution's theory of what took place. [4] Both defense counsel testified that they had not seen the letter at or prior to trial. According to Mrs. Smith, the letter was of the type of information made available to the defense, but she could not recall specifically whether the content of the letter had been disclosed, and there was no notation on the letter. (1) When the findings of a referee are based in substantial part on the credibility of witnesses, such findings, although not binding on this court, are entitled to great weight in view of the referee's unique opportunity to observe the demeanor of the witnesses when they testified. ( People v. Rosoto, supra, 62 Cal.2d 684, 688-689; In re Allen (1956) 47 Cal.2d 55, 57 [301 P.2d 577].) The testimony as to whether defense counsel were permitted to inspect the first five items of claimed newly discovered and suppressed evidence was sharply conflicting. (2) We are persuaded that Mrs. Smith's testimony, her notations and the testimony of the second defense counsel provide a firm foundation for the findings of the referee as to these items. In light of the large number of documents and recordings made available to counsel, it is understandable that the first defense counsel would, many years after the inspection, be unable to recall some of such materials. Although neither counsel recalled the sixth item, the June 10 letter, it was merely a letter of transmittal and not the kind of document with which counsel would ordinarily be concerned. When considered in the light of the vast amount of materials made available to counsel their inability to recollect a particular letter does not establish that it was suppressed or that it now must be deemed as newly discovered. We adopt the findings of the referee that there is no newly discovered evidence and that the prosecutor suppressed no evidence.