Opinion ID: 1172635
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Climate of Fear

Text: (18a) Defendant contends he was denied a fair trial because the prosecution elicited, from several witnesses, irrelevant and excessively prejudicial testimony regarding their fear of testifying. Defendant analogizes to Dudley v. Duckworth (7th Cir.1988) 854 F.2d 967, a robbery prosecution. There, the United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit, found fundamentally unfair the trial court's refusal to strike extended testimony by a prosecution witness to the effect that, on the eve of trial, he had received certain anonymous telephone calls that caused him to fear for his family's safety should he testify. ( Id. at p. 972.) Defendant argues the admission at his trial of certain testimony by John Gardner, Officer Joe Holmes, Officer Michael Mejia, Kenneth Simmons and Patricia Lewis was similarly unfair. We are not persuaded. First, by failing to raise them at trial, defendant waived the objections he now makes to John Gardner's, Officer Holmes's and Officer Mejia's testimony. Defendant argues there was no waiver under the rules in effect at the time of his trial. Citing People v. Frank (1985) 38 Cal.3d 711 [214 Cal. Rptr. 801, 700 P.2d 415], defendant apparently means to suggest that, because this is a capital case, we should disregard technical insufficiencies in his objections to admission of evidence regarding prosecution witnesses' fear of testifying and, instead, examine the whole record to determine whether there has been a miscarriage of justice. (See Frank, supra, 38 Cal.3d at p. 729, fn. 3 [On an appeal from a judgment imposing the penalty of death, a technical insufficiency in the form of an objection will be disregarded and the entire record will be examined to determine if a miscarriage of justice resulted.].) We reject the suggestion. We previously have noted that [t]he lead opinion in Frank was not signed by a majority of the court, and although later cases from this court have never disapproved its language, they have cited it only for the purpose of distinguishing it. ( People v. Diaz (1992) 3 Cal.4th 495, 527 [11 Cal. Rptr.2d 353, 834 P.2d 1171].) Moreover, defendant's reliance on the Frank footnote is misplaced, as his waiver consisted not merely in raising technically insufficient objections, but in raising none whatsoever. (See People v. Poggi (1988) 45 Cal.3d 306, 331 [246 Cal. Rptr. 886, 753 P.2d 1082].) Even had defendant not waived the objections, we would reject his claim of error based on Gardner's, Office Holmes's and Officer Mejia's testimony. John Gardner, a jailhouse informant whose role in the prosecution's case has been described, testified he and his mother were relocated by the authorities after he provided information about defendant. Gardner answered Yes to the question: I take it your mother was relocated also? Immediately thereafter, the prosecutor said: Is that in case  strike that. Defendant complains the prosecutor's aborted question put unanswerable innuendo before the jurors. We disagree. If the defense had desired to cross-examine Gardner on that topic, so as to dispel any perceived innuendo, it was free to do so. Presumably for its own tactical reasons, however, the defense conducted no such cross-examination. Officer Holmes was asked whether Gardner had been given any favors or special consideration for his testimony; Holmes testified Gardner had been relocated. Extending his answer, unbidden, Holmes volunteered that Gardner didn't want to get killed and was really concerned about the safety of his family. Defendant complains Officer Holmes's remarks regarding Gardner's fears were irrelevant to the issue of any rewards Gardner received for testifying and unfairly raised the implication defendant or someone acting at his behest would kill Gardner or his family. Defendant's trial counsel unsuccessfully moved for a mistrial after Officer Holmes's testimony; defendant argues the trial court erred in denying the motion. The motion for a mistrial was grounded on the supposition that cumulatively Holmes's testimony on direct examination (that he was concerned, when first contacting witness Gardner, that Gardner be safe), and on cross-examination (that Gardner was relocated by the government because [h]e didn't want to get killed or his family didn't get killed), deprived defendant of a fair trial, the inference being logically that any reprisal will come because of the defendant in the case. The trial court denied the motion without explanation. Officer Holmes's remarks regarding Gardner's fears were quite brief and did not, in our estimation, necessarily suggest to the jurors that defendant was guilty of witness intimidation. Defense counsel did not object to Holmes's testimony on direct that he was concerned for Gardner's safety. Moreover, Holmes's testimony on cross-examination (that Gardner was afraid) was elicited by defense counsel, but the defense made no motion to strike any of Holmes's responses to its questions. Counsel was free to request that the jury be admonished to disregard any objectionable portions of Officer Holmes's testimony, but did not. Both times when Officer Holmes remarked on Gardner's fears, he was responding to questions about any inducements offered Gardner in return for his testimony. Personal safety may logically comprise one such inducement, and Holmes's answers were responsive in this general sense. We review a ruling on a motion for mistrial under the deferential abuse-of-discretion standard. ( People v. McLain (1988) 46 Cal.3d 97, 113 [249 Cal. Rptr. 630, 757 P.2d 569].) Under this standard, we discern no error. Officer Michael Mejia, responding to a question by defense counsel about the original complaint against defendant, stated: We had Mrs. Lewis positively identifying him as seeing him in the van. We had in excess of eight phone calls, again, they were  The court interrupted Officer Mejia and repeated twice: Don't tell us what the phone calls were. Defendant suggests that Mejia's mention of phone calls may have caused the jury improperly to infer that other people reported information to the police, but did not, out of fear of defendant, come forward as witnesses. We disagree. Once the trial court sua sponte instructed Officer Mejia not to elaborate on his remark that [w]e had an excess of eight phone calls, Officer Mejia went no further. There simply is no reason to suppose that defendant's jurors inferred witness intimidation had occurred from the bare testimony that police received eight telephone calls of an unspecified nature. Kenneth Simmons, another jailhouse informant whose testimony has substantially been described, arrived in court one day wearing a white jail-issue wristband, whereas on previous days he had been wearing a red wristband. Asked by the prosecutor about the color change, Simmons testified it related to a change in the area of the jail in which he was housed, and that the change in housing assignment was related to the fact he had been scared when he was housed with the general inmate population. Simmons also stated he was scared to be testifying. Defendant complains Simmons's testimony transgressed a limitation the trial court had imposed moments earlier to the effect that Simmons could be asked only whether he was scared in jail, and could not be questioned further on the topic. Defendant too narrowly characterizes the trial court's ruling, which was: I will let you ask him if he was scared because of when he was in the court jail, but I want you to stop right there. I don't want you to go into any detail[ed] explanations [of] why he is scared of any threats made to him, or anything like that. We agree with the People, as, apparently, did the trial court itself, that the prosecutor's subsequent questions whether Simmons was scared because he was in the general population and testifying in this case fell within the trial court's ruling. Patricia Lewis was questioned by defense counsel about the timing of her identification of defendant. She testified her initial failure positively to identify defendant from a photographic show-up was due to the fact I was afraid. Asked, Then what happened? she answered, That's when I started getting telephone calls I had gotten prior to that if I testified I would be killed. At defense counsel's request, the latter answer was stricken and the jury admonished to disregard it. Later in her testimony, Lewis stated I had gotten a call to the effect  The trial court intervened: Don't tell us about that call. Lewis went on, This is the reason I made the statement that I did. Moments later, questioned about possible inconsistencies between certain statements she made at the preliminary hearing and her trial testimony, Lewis stated, I was [in] fear for my life. The trial court denied the defense motion for a mistrial based on this exchange. Later, the court denied a defense motion for a mistrial based on the cumulative impact of Lewis's references to her fears. (19a) Although most cases involve prosecutorial or juror misconduct as the basis for [a mistrial] motion, a witness's volunteered statement can also provide the basis for a finding of incurable prejudice. ( People v. Wharton (1991) 53 Cal.3d 522, 565 [280 Cal. Rptr. 631, 809 P.2d 290].) (18b) Nevertheless, the trial court properly denied defendant's mistrial motions. As previously discussed, there was evidence defendant attempted to intimidate Lewis so that she would not testify against him. Moreover, Lewis's testimony that she was afraid for her life at the preliminary hearing was relevant to the issue of her credibility, as it explained apparent inconsistencies between her testimony there and at trial. We find no error. (19b) Whether a particular incident is incurably prejudicial is by its nature a speculative matter, and the trial court is vested with considerable discretion in ruling on mistrial motions. ( People v. Haskett (1982) 30 Cal.3d 841, 854 [180 Cal. Rptr. 640, 640 P.2d 776].) (18c) Finally, defendant contends that, when considered for their cumulative impact, references by the prosecution witnesses to their fears of testifying denied him fundamental fairness. (20) We have recognized that evidence of an anonymous threat not connected with the defendant `should at once be suspect as ... an endeavor to prejudice the defendant before the jury in a way which he cannot possibly rebut satisfactorily because he does not know the true identity of the pretender.' ( People v. Mason (1991) 52 Cal.3d 909, 946 [277 Cal. Rptr. 166, 802 P.2d 950], quoting People v. Weiss, supra, 50 Cal.2d at p. 554.) (18d) Nevertheless, for several reasons, we reject defendant's contention. First, as we recently noted, a witness's statement, alone, that he or she is afraid to testify is far from accusing defendant or his associates of threatening [the witness] if he testified. ( People v. Padilla (1995) 11 Cal.4th 891, 944 [47 Cal. Rptr.2d 426, 906 P.2d 388].) Similar analysis is appropriate as to most of the fear testimony of which defendant complains. Second, we have previously distinguished Dudley v. Duckworth, supra, 854 F.2d 967, upon which defendant relies, on the basis of the trial court's failure there to admonish the jury to disregard testimony about unattributed threats. (See People v. Wharton, supra, 53 Cal.3d at p. 566, fn. 9.) We have also distinguished Dudley as a case in which the record suggested the `strong possibility that the prosecutor intended to get the threat testimony before the jury under a pretext.' ( People v. Mason, supra, 52 Cal.3d at p. 947, fn. 17, quoting Dudley v. Duckworth, supra, 854 F.2d at p. 971.) Dudley is distinguishable on both these grounds from this case, as well. Finally, and most fundamentally, we cannot conclude that Patricia Lewis's testimony was more prejudicial than probative. Lewis's testimony about her fears was directly relevant to why she did not identify defendant with certainty at the first photographic showup. When recently considering similar facts, we found no error, concluding that to have omitted explanatory fear testimony would have grossly distorted the record. (See People v. Rodrigues, supra, 8 Cal.4th at p. 1123.)