Opinion ID: 2508322
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Joinder of Counts

Text: Defendant argues the trial court effectively vacated its severance ruling and de facto tried him on two counts of murder and one count of attempted murder, in violation of his right to a fair trial. We disagree. Section 954, which governs joinder of counts in a single trial, provides: An accusatory pleading may charge ... two or more different offenses of the same class of crimes or offenses, under separate counts.... But section 954 also provides that `the court in which a case is triable, in the interests of justice and for good cause shown, may in its discretion order that the different offenses ... be tried separately.' ( People v. Sapp (2003) 31 Cal.4th 240, 257-258, 2 Cal.Rptr.3d 554, 73 P.3d 433.) Here, the trial court granted defendant's motion to sever the attempted murder count from the two murder counts. The trial of the attempted murder count trailed that of the Thompson/Robinson murder counts, and the court granted the prosecution's motion to dismiss the attempted murder charge after the penalty phase retrial. Defendant, however, argues that the court effectively vacated and de facto denied the severance motion because it admitted evidence of the attempted murder at the trial on the double murders. Defendant provides no authority for such a proposition, and no California court has so held. We decline to do so here. Defendant's claim is, in substance, a reformulation of his contention that the trial court erroneously admitted evidence of the attempted murder. For the reasons stated, the court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the evidence.