Opinion ID: 844263
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Denial of Severance Motions

Text: Defendants filed pretrial motions to sever count 1 (the Eaton murder) from counts 4 and 5 (the Skyles and Price murders). Defendants contend the trial court erred in denying their motions to sever the two sets of murder counts and thereby violated their federal due process rights and corresponding rights guaranteed by the California Constitution. [8] As we conclude below, the trial court properly denied the motions. Section 954 provides that [a]n accusatory pleading may charge . . . two or more different offenses of the same class of crimes or offenses, under separate counts . . ., and that the court . . . in the interests of justice and for good cause shown, may in its discretion order that the different offenses or counts set forth in the accusatory pleading be tried separately . . . . Defendants' murder counts were of the same class and, accordingly, joinder was permissible. ( People v. Catlin (2001) 26 Cal.4th 81, 110 [109 Cal.Rptr.2d 31, 26 P.3d 357].) We review a trial court's decision not to sever counts for abuse of discretion based on the record when the motion was heard. ( People v. Cook (2006) 39 Cal.4th 566, 581 [47 Cal.Rptr.3d 22, 139 P.3d 492].) But even if a trial court's ruling on a motion to sever is correct at the time it was made, a reviewing court still must determine whether, in the end, the joinder of counts resulted in gross unfairness depriving the defendant of due process of law. ( People v. Rogers (2006) 39 Cal.4th 826, 851 [48 Cal.Rptr.3d 1, 141 P.3d 135].) (1) The party seeking severance has the burden to establish a substantial danger of prejudice requiring the charges to be separately tried. ( People v. Catlin, supra, 26 Cal.4th at p. 110.) Refusal to sever may be an abuse of discretion where (1) evidence of the crimes to be jointly tried would not be cross-admissible in separate trials; (2) certain of the charges are unusually likely to inflame the jury against the defendant; (3) a weak case has been joined with a strong case or with another weak case, so that the spillover effect of aggregate evidence on several charges might well alter the outcome of some or all of the charges; and (4) any one of the charges carries the death penalty or joinder of them turns the matter into a capital case. ( Ibid. ) If evidence on each of the joined crimes would have been admissible in a separate trial of the other crimes, then such cross-admissibility ordinarily dispels any inference of prejudice. ( Ibid. ) As to the first factor, one very significant piece of evidence was cross-admissible. A live nine-millimeter round found in the getaway van used in the Hillgrove Market robbery murder showed the same magazine markings as the expended shells found at the scene of the Skyles and Price murders. This evidence showed that the same gun, and thus inferentially its bearer, was present at both of the murders. [9] As to the second factor, defendants contend the murders of Skyles and Price were particularly inflammatory because the killings had racial overtones. The evidence at trial, however, indicated that Skyles and Price were targeted because they fit the profile of members of a rival gang that is predominantly African-American; no evidence was presented they were killed because of racial animus per se. Both sets of murders were reprehensible and senseless in their own waysthe shooting of an elderly neighborhood grocer during the course of a robbery and the shooting of two teenagers as retaliation for a gang murder to which they apparently had no connection. Neither crime, however, was significantly more inflammatory than the other. As to the third factor, each defendant contends the murder count in which the prosecutor theorized him to be the aider and abettor was a weak case. Thus, Soliz contends the evidence against him as an aider and abettor in the Hillgrove Market robbery murder was weak, and Gonzales argues the evidence against him as an aider and abettor in the Skyles and Price murders was weak. But the strength of the evidence supporting each set of murders was similar. In the Hillgrove Market murder, Dorine Ramos testified she saw both defendants preparing for the robbery, and she identified the getaway van they used. Betty Eaton testified two men robbed the market about 7:30 p.m. and one of them killed her husband. Richard Alvarez testified he received a call from Gonzales on the evening of the murder and picked up both defendants near the market between 7:00 and 8:00 p.m. In his taped conversation with Salvador Berber, Gonzales admitted that defendants committed the robbery murder and that he, Gonzales, had been the shooter. Physical evidence linked the van to the Hillgrove Market robbery murder, and Gonzales's fingerprint was found in the van. In the Skyles and Price murders, Judith Mejorado, a passenger in the car in which defendants rode to the gas station, testified that both defendants got out of the car and confronted the victims, and that Soliz was the shooter. Carol Mateo, who was driving by the gas station at the time of the shooting, and Alejandro Garcia, the clerk on duty at the gas station, testified they saw two men standing outside of the car and identified Soliz as the shooter. In his taped conversation with Berber, Gonzales admitted he and Soliz were at the gas station, although, contrary to the prosecutor's theory of the case, Gonzales claimed sole responsibility for the killings and denied Soliz was involved. As mentioned, a live round found in the getaway van used in the Hillgrove Market robbery murder showed the same magazine markings as the expended shells found at the scene of the Skyles and Price murders, thus providing a physical evidentiary link between the two sets of murders. As to the fourth and final factor, as defendants acknowledge, both sets of murders were capital counts (the Hillgrove Market murder as involving a robbery murder special circumstance, and the Skyles and Price murders as involving a multiple-murder special circumstance). Either set of murder counts would have exposed defendants to the death penalty even had the counts been severed. Examining the four factors, therefore, we conclude the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying the severance motions, and the joinder of counts did not result in gross unfairness depriving defendants of due process of law. ( People v. Rogers, supra, 39 Cal.4th at p. 851.)