Opinion ID: 2638116
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 14

Heading: Evidence of Lack of Remorse in Guilt Phase Trial

Text: During the prosecution case-in-chief, each of the two detectives who first interviewed defendant about the crimes testified, over defense objections, that during the interview (in which defendant admitted stealing from Mitchell's house but not killing Joey) defendant expressed no remorse for the crimes. Defendant contends this testimony was irrelevant and that its admission violated Evidence Code section 352 and his state and federal constitutional rights to a fair trial. [8] We disagree. The central factual issue litigated in the guilt phase trial was whether, as the prosecutor alleged, defendant killed the victim to facilitate his thefts or, as the defense maintained, the thefts and killing were separate in their origins and purposes, the lolling having occurred during a psychotic break in which defendant was motivated by displaced, long-repressed rage over his own treatment as a child. Defendant's apparent lack of remorse on the day after the crimes was relevant to this question because, if the defense version of events were true, one might reasonably expect defendant, upon recovering from the psychotic episode and realizing the senseless violence he had done, to feel tremendous remorse for his unprovoked killing of a child with whom he had felt empathy. As the trial prosecutor put it in response to the relevance objection, if there was something evil within him to cause him to do this, he would be expressing remorse from day one, and there, is no such expression. Defendant notes that when the prosecution introduced the challenged testimony, the defense had not yet put forward the expert testimony supporting the defense theory. Relying on our statement that unless a defendant opens the door to the matter in his or her own case-in-chief [citation], his or her remorse is irrelevant at the guilt phase ( People v. Jones (1998) 17 Cal.4th 279, 307, 70 Cal.Rptr.2d 793, 949 P.2d 890), defendant argues he had not yet opened a door to proof of his lack of remorse. But defendant had already introduced the issue of his motivation for killing Joey. In her opening statement (made before the prosecution case-in-chief), defense counsel had already outlined the defense theory that defendant, on encountering Joey, felt strange thoughts inside him ... something pushing him to stab Joey, something in him so evil he couldn't overcome it, which a psychologist would explain was pent up rage, based on things that happened to him in his past, that made him kill the victim, and that afterward he could not remember the details of what he had done and wanted to get caught. Because remorse would more clearly be expected under this defense theory than under the prosecution theory of coldblooded robbery murder, by positing the defense theory even before the prosecution evidence had been presented defendant himself placed the issue of his remorse into question. ( People v. Clark (1993) 5 Cal.4th 950, 1016, 22 Cal.Rptr.2d 689, 857 P.2d 1099.) The testimony was not irrelevant. Nor did the trial court abuse its discretion in declining to exclude the evidence under Evidence Code section 352 as more prejudicial than probative. Immediately surrounding the questions regarding remorse and regret, the prosecutor asked the detectives whether defendant ever indicated that he didn't know what he had been doing during the incident and whether defendant was able to supply details of his activities on the day of the crimes. Thus, the context of the prosecutor's questioning made clear the evidence was being introduced not, as defendant asserts, to punish [defendant] for his failure to express regret or remorse, but rather to rebut the defense theoryalready outlined in defense counsel's opening statementthat defendant killed Joey during an irrational, rage-filled break from reality. As the evidence was probative on the central factual issue of the case, and as its introduction was clearly targeted to that issue rather than to creation of prejudicial emotion, we cannot agree with defendant that the court's choice to admit it was arbitrary or capricious. ( People v. Rodrigues (1994) 8 Cal.4th 1060, 1124, 36 Cal. Rptr.2d 235, 885 P.2d 1.) For the same reason, we reject the associated contention that introduction of the evidence violated defendant's constitutional rights to a fair trial by jury under the Fifth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and article I, section 15 of the California Constitution.