Opinion ID: 2594480
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 17

Heading: Testimony of Sergeant Charles Rosales

Text: Defendant asserts several instances of prosecutorial misconduct based on the testimony of Sergeant Charles Rosales, which defendant characterizes as emotional, graphic and highly inflammatory. Among other things, defendant reasserts his objection to Sergeant Rosales's statement that in 22 years of police work he had never seen anybody stabbed this many times. As already noted, the court struck this statement from the record and admonished the jury to disregard it. As to defendant's other claims of misconduct in connection with Sergeant Rosales's testimony, defendant did not raise his objections in the trial court, and therefore he forfeited the issue. ( People v. Williams, supra, 16 Cal.4th at pp. 208-209, 66 Cal. Rptr.2d 123, 940 P.2d 710.) Moreover, we find no prosecutorial misconduct. Specifically, defendant asserts misconduct based on Sergeant Rosales's testimony that the knife wounds on Hickman's body were too many to count. Defendant suggests that the prosecutor was eliciting inflammatory responses to his questions. The evidence, however, indicates that Hickman was stabbed nearly 50 times. Under those circumstances, defendant cannot complain that a police witness describes the wounds as being too many to count. Defendant also complains that the prosecutor elicited testimony from Sergeant Rosales about the amount of blood at the crime scene and also about indications of a struggle. The circumstances of the murder were relevant to the issue of intent. The spatters of blood all over the room and other signs of a prolonged struggle suggested a violent attack that was consistent with the prosecution's theory of the case. We see no misconduct. Defendant next complains that Sergeant Rosales's testimony referring to various parts of Hickman's body suggested defendant had dismembered Hickman. Sergeant Rosales merely identified what parts of Hickman's body appeared in various photographs. The jury could easily see from the photographs that Hickman was not dismembered. Defendant also argues that Sergeant Rosales was not an expert qualified to testify that certain wounds were inflicted after the victim was either dead or had lost a tremendous amount of blood. We believe the prosecution laid sufficient foundation for this testimony by eliciting from Sergeant Rosales that he had observed knife wounds on other occasions and was familiar with the amount of blood loss one would expect from a knife wound. In any case, as noted, defendant did not raise this objection at trial and therefore forfeited the issue. ( People v. Williams, supra, 16 Cal.4th at pp. 208-209, 66 Cal.Rptr.2d 123, 940 P.2d 710.) Finally, defendant reasserts misconduct based on Sergeant Rosales's testimony that Hickman had stab wounds to the legs[,] to the rectum area. For the reasons already discussed, we find no misconduct in connection with this testimony.