Opinion ID: 1351466
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Prosecutorial Misconduct Combined With Ineffective Assistance of Counsel and the Court's Failure to Give Sua Sponte Admonitions

Text: Defendant cites several instances of prosecutorial misconduct to which his counsel failed to object, thereby assertedly constituting ineffective assistance of counsel. Defendant would also have us find, in each instance of prosecutorial misconduct, that the court failed to fulfill a sua sponte duty to admonish the jury. (4) (See fn. 3.) He contends these three elements combine to render the trial unfair. [3]
Defendant raises a number of instances of misconduct, primarily remarks by the prosecutor during examination of witnesses and at closing argument that were assertedly both irrelevant and prejudicial. These included references to defendant's involvement in drug dealing, his use of an alias, his threatening an apartment manager with violence, and his possession of a false driver's license. The prosecutor also argued that defendant was carrying the keys to the victim's apartment. (5) We find that the prosecutor's comments during closing argument on defendant's drug dealing were not misconduct. The remarks were based on evidence properly admitted and were for the legitimate purpose of discrediting the testimony of Gary Eisenhauer, testimony that could have undermined the People's case. Among other things, Eisenhauer testified that he saw defendant leave the apartment building where the murder took place before the murder occurred, and that the shirt that Monique had been wearing when Eisenhauer discovered her was different from the one she was wearing when the police arrived  a fact which, if true, could undermine the prosecution's serological evidence. The prosecution was attempting to show that Eisenhauer, defendant, and their mutual friend, David Pelletier, had been involved in a drug-dealing operation, and that this involvement gave Eisenhauer a motive to lie. Such comments did not exceed the wide latitude given prosecutors to discuss and draw inferences from evidence presented at trial. ( People v. Beivelman (1968) 70 Cal.2d 60, 76-77 [73 Cal. Rptr. 521, 447 P.2d 913].) In other instances, particularly the prosecutor's reference during closing argument to defendant's possession of the keys to Monique's apartment, a fact not in evidence, the case for finding prosecutorial misconduct is stronger. However, prosecutorial misconduct not subjected to timely objection by defense counsel is waived on appeal, unless the reviewing court concludes that an admonition could not have cured the harm resulting from the misconduct. ( People v. Green (1980) 27 Cal.3d 1, 34 [164 Cal. Rptr. 1, 609 P.2d 468].) We find here that all the instances of arguable misconduct involved matters tangential to the People's case, and any resulting harm could have easily been cured by admonition.
The claims of ineffective assistance of counsel arising from failure to object to the foregoing instances of prosecutorial misconduct are equally unmeritorious. (6) To find ineffective assistance of counsel a court must determine that counsel's performance was deficient, falling `below an objective standard of reasonableness ... under prevailing professional norms' ( People v. Ledesma (1987) 43 Cal.3d 171, 216 [233 Cal. Rptr. 404, 729 P.2d 839], quoting Strickland v. Washington (1984) 466 U.S. 668, 688 [80 L.Ed.2d 674, 693, 104 S.Ct. 2052]), and that there is a reasonable probability that `but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different.' ( Ledesma, supra, at p. 218, quoting Strickland, supra, at p. 694 [80 L.Ed.2d at p. 698].) (7) Defendant fails to meet the first prong of this test. With regard to the prosecutorial remarks on defendant's past misconduct, defense counsel could have reasonably concluded that such evidence was tangential to the case and that objections would serve only to accentuate defendant's negative qualities in the minds of the jurors. (See People v. Gordon (1990) 50 Cal.3d 1223, 1256, fn. 7 [270 Cal. Rptr. 451, 792 P.2d 251].) Counsel's failure to object to the prosecutor's reference to defendant's possession of keys to the victim's apartment on the night of the murder is not ineffective assistance for a slightly different reason. The People's case did not, in fact, turn on defendant's possession of the keys to the apartment. Instead, the prosecution contended that the victim had deadbolted the door, and that the murderer must have been someone who was known to the victim because she had released the deadbolt. Moreover, it is clear from other testimony that the door was self-locking, so that defendant would not have needed a key to lock the door when he left the apartment. Failure to object to this instance of prosecutorial misconduct was therefore harmless.
(8) Finally, defendant contends that even if we do not find ineffective assistance, we must conclude that the trial court should have given sua sponte a limiting instruction with respect to evidence of defendant's prior drug dealing and violent coercive behavior unrelated to the crime, particularly in light of the prosecutor's comments on this evidence during closing argument. We do not agree. In People v. Collie (1981) 30 Cal.3d 43, 63-64 [177 Cal. Rptr. 458, 634 P.2d 534, 23 A.L.R.4th 776], we held that the trial court had no sua sponte duty to instruct on the limited admissibility of evidence of past criminal misconduct. In People v. Milner (1988) 45 Cal.3d 227, 251-252 [246 Cal. Rptr. 713, 753 P.2d 669], we extended this rule to apply to evidence of defendant's past misconduct whether or not criminal. As we explained, `Neither precedent nor policy favors a rule that would saddle the trial court with the duty either to interrupt the testimony sua sponte to admonish the jury whenever a witness implicates the defendant in another offense, or to review the entire record at trial's end in search of such testimony.' ( Id. at p. 251, quoting People v. Collie, supra, at p. 64.) These decisions control the case before us. It is true that both cases recognize an exception to the foregoing no-duty rule when the prior crime or misconduct introduced by the prosecutor is a dominant part of the evidence against the accused, and is both highly prejudicial and minimally relevant to any legitimate purpose. ( Collie, supra, at p. 64; Milner, supra, at pp. 251-252.) None of the arguable instances of defendant's misconduct in this case was in any sense a dominant part of the evidence.

The prosecution sought to discredit an expert defense witness, Dr. Benjamin Grunbaum, who disputed the methods used by prosecution witnesses in obtaining electrophoretic evidence from blood, saliva and semen stains found on the victim and defendant. Toward the beginning of the cross-examination, the prosecutor asked Dr. Grunbaum if he had testified on the losing side in the trial of Angelo Buono, the so-called Hillside Strangler. Defendant's objection was sustained, although he did not request a curative admonition. The prosecutor then ended that line of inquiry. (9) Defendant now argues that the prosecutor's question was improper and, by undermining a defense expert's credibility, deprived him of a fair trial. He cites People v. McGreen (1980) 107 Cal. App.3d 504, 514-519 [166 Cal. Rptr. 360], in support of this contention. The claim is without merit. The present case is far removed from McGreen, in which the prosecutor persisted in making unfounded attacks on an expert witness's honesty and ethical reliability, despite the court's repeated sustaining of defense objections to that line of questioning. The McGreen court held that continued references to the witness's commission of perjury constituted prejudicial error, in spite of the fact that the trial court admonished the jury to disregard such insinuations. (107 Cal. App.3d at pp. 517-518.) In the present case, the harm to Dr. Grunbaum's reputation from the prosecutor's question, if any, was slight. A reasonable juror would not be likely to interpret the fact that Dr. Grunbaum testified on the highly technical subject of the validity of electrophoretic testing, even on the losing side of a controversial case, as impugning his honesty or competence. Because an admonition would have cured whatever harm resulted from the improper question, failure to request such an admonition waives the issue on appeal. ( People v. Green, supra, 27 Cal.3d at p. 34.)
(10) Defendant contends the court erred in failing to rule on whether his own serologist could be called by the prosecution as a rebuttal witness. He then contends the prosecutor compounded the error by commenting on the absence of the defense serologist in closing argument. Neither contention identifies prejudicial error. Defendant intended to call Carol Rhodes, a serologist whom he had used as a consulting expert. The prosecutor argued that once Rhodes took the stand she would be subject to cross-examination about any and all confidential communications between her and defense counsel. Defense counsel countered that the prosecution could inquire only into communications that had assisted her in forming her expert opinion. The court agreed with defendant. The prosecutor then asked whether he could call Rhodes on rebuttal, to obtain the same information the court was denying him on cross-examination. The court declined to rule on that issue. Defense counsel did not press the matter, but rested his case. On appeal, defendant contends the failure to rule on the scope of cross-examination deterred his counsel from calling Rhodes, thereby prejudicing his defense. Defendant's lack of objection to the court's omission to rule, however, precludes him from now raising the issue. (See People v. Rogers (1978) 21 Cal.3d 542, 547-548 [146 Cal. Rptr. 732, 579 P.2d 1048].) Prior to making his closing argument, defendant asked that the prosecutor be barred from commenting on Rhodes's failure to appear at trial. He contended, as he does on appeal, that prosecutorial comment would impermissibly burden his exercise of the attorney-client privilege ( People v. Bittaker, supra, 48 Cal.3d 1046, 1104), just as comment on a defendant's failure to take the stand impermissibly burdens the privilege against self-incrimination ( Griffin v. California (1965) 380 U.S. 609 [14 L.Ed.2d 106, 85 S.Ct. 1229]). The court ruled in defendant's favor. Nevertheless the prosecutor, while not mentioning Carol Rhodes by name, referred to the absence of a defense serologist and used the pronoun her. Defendant maintains this is prejudicial error. We disagree. The prosecution is entitled to comment on the state of the evidence, including the lack of conflicting serological evidence. (See People v. Vargas (1973) 9 Cal.3d 470, 475-476 [108 Cal. Rptr. 15, 509 P.2d 959].) Since it is clear from the record that the jury was already aware that Carol Rhodes was the defense serologist, no prejudice resulted from the prosecutor's use of the feminine pronoun when calling attention to the lack of conflicting testimony on the serological evidence.