Opinion ID: 2637824
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Testimony of Sophia's Sister and Brother

Text: At the penalty phase, the prosecutor asked Sophia's sister, Victoria Francisco, about the impact of Sophia's murder on her. During the course of her answer, Sophia's sister said that what hurt her most was thinking of all that she went through and how Sophia suffered that night before her death. After her testimony and outside the jury's presence, defense counsel objected to these statements, claiming that they were improper characterizations by a victim's family member of the nature of the crime in violation of Booth v. Maryland (1987) 482 U.S. 496 [96 L.Ed.2d 440, 107 S.Ct. 2529] and Payne v. Tennessee, supra, 501 U.S. 808, and in violation of the trial court's pretrial rulings on victim impact testimony. Defense counsel argued that the contested statements were inflammatory and an improper appeal to emotion, and asked the trial court to instruct the prosecution not to present this kind of evidence. The trial court overruled the objection, concluding the testimony was permissible and not prejudicial. The trial court made clear that a description of Sophia's injuries by the family members would not be allowed, but stated that the witnesses should be allowed to say that one of the impacts is their reliving what [Sophia] might have gone through. The trial court also allowed defense counsel to lodge a continuing objection to this kind of testimony. Later, Sophia's brother, Gilberto Torres, testified that he thought about Sophia every day, especially for the brutal way she died. We have previously held evidence of this kind admissible at the penalty phase of a capital case. In People v. Pollock (2004) 32 Cal.4th 1153 [13 Cal.Rptr.3d 34, 89 P.3d 353], the victims, an elderly married couple, died of multiple stab wounds inflicted by a butcher knife. We examined victim impact testimony from the deceased victims' loved ones describing how their grief was exacerbated by knowledge of the `savage' manner in which the victims were killed and the pain they must have experienced during their final minutes. ( Id. at p. 1166.) A friend of the deceased described her shock at the couple's death and the brutal manner in which they died, and the couple's surviving son testified about how the circumstances of his parents' deaths made it impossible for him to remember his parents, or his own childhood, without in some manner imagining the suffering of their final minutes. ( Id. at p. 1182.) We found no Eighth Amendment violation and concluded the testimony was proper and admissible victim impact evidence because their testimony was limited to how the crimes had directly affected them and they did not testify merely to their personal opinions about the murders. ( Pollock, at p. 1182.) The testimony in the present case is no different.