Opinion ID: 1237936
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 26

Heading: Comment on Failure to Call Defense Expert

Text: As we have mentioned, the weapon used to kill Richard Barnes was a .22-caliber handgun. Police seized a gun, known at trial as the Baca firearm, after receiving information that one of Barnes's friends had sold it the day after Barnes was killed. At the trial, Robert Christansen, the prosecution's firearms expert, testified that the Baca firearm could not have fired the bullets that killed Richard Barnes. During presentation of the defense case, the defense recalled Christansen to question him further about the basis of this opinion. During cross-examination, the prosecutor asked whether Christansen would be willing to accompany the defense expert to the crime lab out at the college and go through the checks of bullets and stuff.... On rebuttal, the prosecution called its investigator, Barry Brown, who testified that he had met Christansen, a man named Chuck Morton, and a defense investigator at a Department of Justice Crime Lab where Morton had conducted a three-hour examination of bullets test-fired from the Baca firearm and bullet fragments from the head of Richard Barnes. During argument to the jury, both prosecutors commented on the failure of the defense to call as a witness Chuck Morton, whom they identified as a defense expert. They urged the jury to infer that Morton must have concluded, like Christansen, that the Baca firearm could not have fired the bullets that killed Barnes. (63) Defendant now contends the trial court erred in permitting the prosecution to introduce evidence that revealed the defense's employment of an expert who was never called to testify. He argues that allowing evidence and prosecutorial argument on a failure by the defense to call its own expert violates the right to counsel guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment to the federal Constitution and the parallel provision of the state Constitution. He also argues that the comment violated Evidence Code section 913 (barring comment on the exercise of a privilege). When the prosecution offered evidence of the defense expert's examination of the bullets, defense counsel did not object on the grounds now urged, but only on the ground that it was not proper rebuttal. The lack of a specific objection on the ground now urged precludes consideration on appeal of the defendant's claim that the evidence was improperly admitted. (Evid. Code, § 353.) Also, because any prejudice from the prosecutors' comments during argument could have been cured by a timely objection and admonition, defense counsel's failure to object to the argument waives any claim that the argument was improper. (See People v. Bittaker (1989) 48 Cal.3d 1046, 1104 [259 Cal. Rptr. 630, 774 P.2d 659].) We reject defendant's contentions that the failure to make specific and timely objections constituted ineffective assistance of counsel. A defendant seeking relief on the basis of ineffective assistance of counsel must show both that trial counsel failed to act in a manner to be expected of reasonably competent attorneys acting as diligent advocates, and that it is reasonably probable a more favorable determination would have resulted in the absence of counsel's failings. ( People v. Fosselman, supra, 33 Cal.3d 572, 584; see also Strickland v. Washington, supra, 466 U.S. 668, 687-696 [80 L.Ed.2d 674, 693-699].) Because defendant has not satisfied the second part of the test, we need not consider whether trial counsel's performance was deficient. Christansen's qualifications as an expert are unchallenged and his expert opinion that the Baca firearm did not kill Richard Barnes was not effectively challenged at trial. The claim of ineffective assistance fails because defendant has not shown it is reasonably probable a more favorable determination would have resulted had all reference to the defense expert been excluded.