Opinion ID: 1122547
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Defendant's admission

Text: (17a) Defendant contends the trial court erred in permitting Richard Lee to testify regarding his conversation with defendant at the Monterey County jail, during which (according to Lee's testimony) defendant said: They can only gas me once. They can only take my wheels one time.... I'm still breathing and there's a few people who ain't. Defendant argues that Lee's testimony was hearsay and, in the alternative, irrelevant. He further claims that the probative value of the testimony hinged upon unreasonable speculation that his comments to Lee evinced a consciousness of guilt, thereby abridging his right to due process of law under the federal and state Constitutions. (18) Defendant has waived any claim of error involving the admission of Lee's testimony, by reason of defense counsel's failure to object on the hearsay and relevancy grounds now raised on appeal (or on any other ground, for that matter). (Evid. Code, § 353, subd. (a); People v. Ghent, supra, 43 Cal.3d at p. 766.) (17b) Furthermore, even if defendant had raised a timely objection, his claim is substantively without merit, because the jury reasonably could have viewed defendant's statement to Lee  a nonhearsay statement not offered for the truth of the matter asserted  as an implied admission of guilt. (See People v. Miranda (1987) 44 Cal.3d 57, 83-84 [241 Cal. Rptr. 594, 744 P.2d 1127] [defendant's actions at the time of his arrest were relevant to establish his consciousness of guilt and his knowledge of the magnitude of the crime], and People v. Mendoza (1987) 192 Cal. App.3d 667, 675-676 [238 Cal. Rptr. 1] [defendant's statements were not hearsay, because they were not offered for the truth of the matters asserted, but were properly characterized as admissions since an admission simply is any extrajudicial statement  whether inculpatory or exculpatory  `which tends to prove his guilt when considered with the rest of the evidence' (quoting CALJIC No. 2.71)].)