Opinion ID: 1375029
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Refusing to Exclude Cornejo's Testimony

Text: Before trial defendant moved to exclude the testimony of Anthony Cornejo. He argued that it would be substantially more prejudicial than probative (Evid. Code, § 352) and that introducing it would violate constitutional rights he asserted to a reliable guilt and penalty determination, to due process, and to the right to counsel. Just before Cornejo testified in limine, defendant also added the ground of objection that if the court had granted him as speedy a trial as he desired he would never have encountered Cornejo and his testimony would not now be heard. To recapitulate, Cornejo testified that defendant told him his statements to the police were voluntary. On cross-examination, he was thoroughly impeached as a notorious jailhouse informant. (11a) Defendant argues that the government used Cornejo as an agent to elicit his purported statement about the circumstances surrounding his confession. (12) This, he asserts, violated his Sixth Amendment rights, because, as we stated in People v. Pensinger (1991) 52 Cal.3d 1210, 1249 [278 Cal. Rptr. 640, 805 P.2d 899], [i]t is a denial of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel to admit evidence of an indicted defendant's incriminating statements deliberately elicited from the defendant by a government agent. ( Massiah v. United States (1964) 377 U.S. 201 [12 L.Ed.2d 246, 84 S.Ct. 1199]; see also United States v. Henry (1980) 447 U.S. 264 [65 L.Ed.2d 115, 100 S.Ct. 2183].) A government agent includes a jailhouse informant whom the state has hired to obtain incriminating statements, even if they are made voluntarily and without solicitation. ( Maine v. Moulton (1985) 474 U.S. 159, 173 [88 L.Ed.2d 481, 494, 106 S.Ct. 477].) The court's ruling allowing a jailhouse informant's testimony to be introduced presents an essentially factual question, and we review it on a deferential standard. (11b) There was no abuse of discretion (Evid. Code, § 352; People v. Clair (1992) 2 Cal.4th 629, 660 [7 Cal. Rptr.2d 564, 828 P.2d 705]) in admitting Cornejo's testimony. We disagree with defendant's perception of Cornejo's role. The record does not at all compel the conclusion that Cornejo was acting at the government's behest. Pointing to Cornejo's history of testifying for the government, defendant naturally disagrees, but such a history does not automatically make an informant a state agent. (See In re Williams (1994) 7 Cal.4th 572, 597-598 [29 Cal. Rptr.2d 64, 870 P.2d 1072].) In our view, no constitutional question arises unless the informant is an agent of the state at the time he or she elicited the statements that would be the subject of later testimony. (See U.S. v. Sanchez (11th Cir.1993) 992 F.2d 1143, 1159-1160, mod. 3 F.3d 366.) It is clear that Cornejo testified to further selfish goals, and it appears that he instigated his conversation with defendant, if that is what happened, for the same ends, even though he declared that he was testifying out of a moral consciousness of the things that I believe that are involved in this. His goal may have been lenience from the parole board  he was awaiting or was on trial for murder when he first testified in this case in December 1986  but he testified that he was promised nothing except safe housing when incarcerated and there is nothing in the record to the contrary. The record supports our conclusion that this promise was made after he obtained defendant's statements against interest. In sum, the record supports the conclusion of the trial court that Cornejo was gathering information on his own initiative, not that of the state. As such, he was not a government agent. ( In re Williams, supra, 7 Cal.4th at p. 598; People v. Williams (1988) 44 Cal.3d 1127, 1141 [245 Cal. Rptr. 635, 751 P.2d 901].) We find no abuse of discretion in admitting the testimony and no constitutional violation.