Opinion ID: 1172140
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Prosecution's Impeachment Use of Defendant's July 21, 1987, Statement

Text: After his arrest, defendant, accompanied by his attorney, spoke to the prosecutor and the police about Ewing's murder. This meeting occurred on July 21, 1987. The meeting was tape-recorded, and it began with the following exchange: DEFENSE COUNSEL: There is, I think, an agreement between the District Attorney's Office and the defense that this conversation will not involve a Mirandi [ sic ] statement by Mr. Quartermain, my client, nor will this conversation be used in court. And that the tape recording is for the protection of both parties involved and will be made available to both parties. PROSECUTOR: All of that's correct. DEFENDANT: QUESTION. DEFENSE COUNSEL: Yes. DEFENDANT: Will this, is that in court or across the board or is that just about me, against me? DEFENSE COUNSEL: That's in, that's in, in, well, I think we all understand that materials that come from, uh, this meeting may be used against other parties. Um, that's certainly clear. DEFENDANT: It is now. DEFENSE COUNSEL: Okay. None of this material will be used against [ sic ] in either municipal court or in any superior court proceedings relating to this offense. Is that correct? PROSECUTOR: Yes. Defendant then proceeded to give an account of Ewing's death and the events surrounding it. At trial, defendant testified concerning these same events. The account he gave in his trial testimony varied in numerous respects from the account he had given in his July 21, 1987, statement. After the direct examination of defendant concluded, the prosecution moved the trial court for permission to use defendant's July 21, 1987, statement in cross-examining him. The prosecution argued that it was entitled to do so under People v. May (1988) 44 Cal.3d 309 [243 Cal. Rptr. 369, 748 P.2d 307], and Harris v. New York (1971) 401 U.S. 222 [91 S.Ct. 643, 28 L.Ed.2d 1], which permit voluntary statements taken in violation of Miranda v. Arizona (1966) 384 U.S. 436 [86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694, 10 A.L.R.3d 974] to be used for purposes of impeachment. Defendant objected vigorously, contending that his agreement with the prosecution prohibited such use. The trial court, relying on May and Harris, granted the prosecution's motion. In cross-examining defendant, the prosecution used defendant's July 21, 1987, statement to impeach extensively his trial testimony. (1) On appeal, defendant contends the prosecution's use of his July 21, 1987, statement breached his agreement with the prosecution limiting the statement's use and that this breach denied him the fundamental fairness embodied in the due process guarantee of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution. At the threshold lies the question of whether the prosecution's use of the statements breached the agreement. There is no doubt that it did. As set forth above, the prosecutor expressly agreed that None of this material will be used against [ sic ] in either municipal court or in any superior court proceedings relating to this offense. This blanket prohibition was not subject to any qualification that would permit use of the statement for impeachment or for any other purpose. Moreover, contrary to the People's argument, the parties did not condition the prohibition on the truthfulness of defendant's statement. Nor is there any basis on which to imply these qualifications into the agreement. Whether the violation of the agreement was also a constitutional violation as defendant contends is a distinct question that requires further analysis. In arguing that the prosecution's breach of the agreement violated the due process guarantee of fundamental fairness, defendant relies on Santobello v. New York (1971) 404 U.S. 257 [92 S.Ct. 495, 30 L.Ed.2d 427]. In Santobello, the defendant reached a plea bargain whereby he pleaded guilty in exchange for the prosecutor's withholding any recommendation as to sentence. At the sentencing hearing, a different prosecutor appeared and argued that the defendant should receive the maximum sentence; the court sentenced defendant to the maximum sentence. The United States Supreme Court vacated the defendant's conviction because of this breach of the plea agreement. It explained its decision in these terms: This phase of the process of criminal justice, and the adjudicative element inherent in accepting a plea of guilty, must be attended by safeguards to insure the defendant what is reasonably due in the circumstances. Those circumstances will vary, but a constant factor is that when a plea rests in any significant degree on a promise or agreement of the prosecutor, so that it can be said to be part of the inducement or consideration, such promise must be fulfilled. ( Id. at p. 262 [92 S.Ct. at p. 499].) Defendant contends that due process requires that the prosecution's promise here similarly be enforced. The United States Supreme Court's subsequent decision in Mabry v. Johnson (1984) 467 U.S. 504 [104 S.Ct. 2543, 81 L.Ed.2d 437] reaffirmed the due process obligation of the prosecution to honor agreements made with and relied upon by the defendant. In Mabry, the prosecutor made a plea offer to the defendant's lawyer, who thereafter communicated it to the defendant. The defendant agreed to accept it, but when his lawyer communicated his acceptance to the prosecutor, the prosecutor withdrew the offer. The defendant ultimately accepted a new, less favorable offer from the prosecutor and pleaded guilty. He contended nonetheless that due process entitled him to specific performance of the prosecutor's first offer. Although the high court in Mabry v. Johnson, supra, 467 U.S. 504, rejected the defendant's claim, it reaffirmed the principle that when a prosecutor makes a promise that induces a defendant to waive a constitutional protection and act to his or her detriment in reliance on that promise, the promise must be enforced. ( Id. at pp. 509-510 [104 S.Ct. at pp. 2547-2548].) The court noted that it had vacated the conviction in Santobello v. New York, supra, 404 U.S. 257, because the prosecution's broken promise in that case had induced the defendant's plea, and it quoted the Santobello court's statement that `[W]hen a plea rests in any significant degree on a promise or agreement of the prosecutor, so that it can be said to be part of the inducement or consideration, such promise must be fulfilled.' ( Mabry v. Johnson, supra, 467 U.S. at p. 509 [104 S.Ct. at p. 2547].) The defendant in Mabry, by contrast, pleaded guilty after the prosecutor had withdrawn his initial offer, so the defendant had not relied on the initial offer in pleading guilty: [The defendant's] plea was in no sense induced by the prosecutor's withdrawn offer; unlike Santobello, who pleaded guilty thinking he had bargained for a specific prosecutorial sentencing recommendation which was not ultimately made, at the time [the defendant] pleaded guilty he knew the prosecution would recommend a 21-year consecutive sentence.... [The defendant's] plea was thus in no sense the product of governmental deception; it rested on no `unfulfilled promise'.... [¶] ... [¶] ... [The defendant] was fully aware of the likely consequences when he pleaded guilty; it is not unfair to expect him to live with those consequences now. ( Id. at pp. 510-511 [104 S.Ct. at p. 2548].) There is another line of due process jurisprudence that bears on the issue before us as well. In a series of cases beginning with Doyle v. Ohio (1976) 426 U.S. 610 [96 S.Ct. 2240, 49 L.Ed.2d 91], the United States Supreme Court has held that it is fundamentally unfair and a denial of due process to introduce at trial evidence of a defendant's silence following advisement pursuant to Miranda v. Arizona, supra, 384 U.S. 436, of his or her right to remain silent. The high court explained this holding as follows: [W]hile it is true that the Miranda warnings contain no express assurance that silence will carry no penalty, such assurance is implicit to any person who receives the warnings. In such circumstances, it would be fundamentally unfair and a deprivation of due process to allow the arrested person's silence to be used to impeach an explanation subsequently offered at trial. ( Doyle v. Ohio, supra, at p. 618 [96 S.Ct. at p. 2244].) The high court has continued to characterize the Doyle rule as resting on the fundamental unfairness presented by a breach of the implicit promise that the prosecution will not use at trial a defendant's silence: The point of the Doyle holding is that it is fundamentally unfair to promise an arrested person that his silence will not be used against him and thereafter to breach that promise by using the silence to impeach his trial testimony. ( Wainwright v. Greenfield (1986) 474 U.S. 284, 292 [106 S.Ct. 634, 639, 88 L.Ed.2d 623]; accord, Brecht v. Abrahamson (1993) 507 U.S. 619, 629 [113 S.Ct. 1710, 1717, 123 L.Ed.2d 353] [ Doyle was not simply a further extension of the Miranda prophylactic rule. Rather, as we have discussed, it is rooted in fundamental fairness and due process concerns.]; Fletcher v. Weir (1982) 455 U.S. 603, 606 [102 S.Ct. 1309, 1311, 71 L.Ed.2d 490] [we have consistently explained Doyle as a case where the government had induced silence by implicitly assuring the defendant that his silence would not be used against him]; Anderson v. Charles (1980) 447 U.S. 404, 407-408 [100 S.Ct. 2180, 2181-2182, 65 L.Ed.2d 222].) In light of the foregoing decisions of the high court, we conclude that it was fundamentally unfair and a violation of due process for the prosecutor in this case to use at trial defendant's July 21, 1987, statement in breach of the prosecutor's promise not to do so. Just as the defendant in Santobello v. New York, supra, 404 U.S. 257, waived his constitutional rights and pleaded guilty in exchange for and in reliance upon the prosecutor's promises in the plea agreement, defendant here waived his constitutional right to remain silent in exchange for and in reliance upon the prosecutor's promise not to use in court anything defendant said. Because the prosecutor's promise induced defendant's waiver of his constitutional right to remain silent, due process required that the prosecution honor the promise. As is true of a guilty plea, when a defendant's waiver of the right to remain silent rests in any significant degree on a promise or agreement of the prosecutor, so that it can be said to be part of the inducement or consideration, such promise must be fulfilled. ( Santobello v. New York, supra, 404 U.S. at p. 262 [92 S.Ct. at p. 499].) Mabry v. Johnson, supra, 467 U.S. 504, also supports this conclusion. Unlike the defendant in Mabry, defendant here did act to his detriment in reliance on the prosecutor's promise by waiving his right to remain silent and making a statement: To use the words of the Mabry court, defendant's statement was induced by the prosecutor's ... offer; defendant made his statement thinking he had bargained for a specific prosecutorial [promise] ... which was not ultimately [performed]; defendant's statement did rest on an `unfulfilled promise'; defendant was not fully aware of the likely consequences when he made his statement; and it is unfair to expect him to live with those consequences now. ( Id. at pp. 510-511 [104 S.Ct. at p. 2548].) Analysis under the Doyle v. Ohio, supra, 426 U.S. 610, line of cases leads to the same conclusion. Defendant received an explicit promise that his statement would not be put to any use at trial; the prosecution breached that promise by using defendant's statement to impeach his trial testimony. Just as the defendant's silence in Doyle was induced by the implicit promise that his silence would not be used at trial, defendant's July 21, 1987, statement was induced by the prosecutor's promise that it would not be used at trial. Just as it violates due process to use at trial a defendant's silence in breach of the implicit promise in the Miranda warnings not to do so, it violates due process here to use at trial defendant's statement in violation of the explicit promise not to do so. By the prosecution's use of his statement contrary to the agreement, defendant was made an unwilling witness against himself. [2] (2) Given our conclusion that defendant was denied his federal constitutional right to due process by the prosecution's use of the July 21, 1987, statement, we must decide whether the error was harmless. We conclude that under the circumstances of this case the proper test is whether the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt  that is, whether it is clear beyond a reasonable doubt that use of the statement did not contribute to the verdict. ( Chapman v. California (1967) 386 U.S. 18, 24 [87 S.Ct. 824, 828, 17 L.Ed.2d 705, 24 A.L.R.3d 1065].) Under this test, the appropriate inquiry is not whether, in a trial that occurred without the error, a guilty verdict would surely have been rendered, but whether the guilty verdict actually rendered in this trial was surely unattributable to the error. ( Sullivan v. Louisiana (1993) 508 U.S. 275, 279 [113 S.Ct. 2078, 2081, 124 L.Ed.2d 182], italics original.) For the reasons that follow, we conclude that the error was not harmless with respect to any portion of the guilt phase verdict. The only direct evidence that defendant killed or conspired to kill Ewing consisted of prosecution witness David Younge's testimony that defendant had agreed with McIntosh and Anthony to kill Ewing and that defendant later admitted to Younge that he had killed Ewing. The rest of the evidence linking defendant to the murder plot was circumstantial. This evidence largely concerned events whose occurrence was undisputed: for example, defendant's meetings with McIntosh, Anthony, and Younge; defendant's meeting with Ewing and Anthony at Denny's on the night of the murder; defendant's presence at the murder scene, and the postmurder payments to defendant by McIntosh. Defendant presented an exculpatory version of how those events came to occur; Younge presented an incriminating version of the same events. The jury's assessment of defendant's credibility thus was crucial to his defense. The prosecution sought to undermine defendant's credibility, and its use of defendant's July 21, 1987, statement was a significant part of its impeachment of defendant. Although both defendant's July 21, 1987, statement and his trial testimony were exculpatory, the prosecution demonstrated in its cross-examination of defendant that the two statements diverged on numerous points, raising doubts as to whether either statement was truthful. The prosecution's cross-examination established that defendant's July 21, 1987, statement and his trial testimony differed in these respects: whether defendant went to Strawberry Mac's at various times to meet with Younge, Anthony, and McIntosh, and to observe Ewing; whether Anthony called defendant at a bar or a residence to ask him to obtain cocaine and whether Anthony told defendant how much cocaine he wanted; whether Younge and defendant called Anthony together to tell him they had obtained the cocaine; whether defendant had delivered the cocaine the same day that he had obtained it or had instead held it in his garage for several days; whether on the night of the killing he and Chandler had met at a bar or a residence; whether defendant told Chandler for whom the cocaine was intended; whether defendant intended to introduce Chandler to Anthony; whether Chandler entered the restaurant where defendant met with Anthony, McIntosh, and Ewing; whether defendant brought a gun with him when he delivered the cocaine; whether Anthony's headlights remained on during the entire time defendant was at the beach where Ewing was killed; whether defendant disposed of Anthony's gun after the killing; whether defendant told Younge what occurred during the killing; whether the price for the killing was to be $60,000 or $250,000; whether McIntosh wanted both Anthony and Ewing killed; whether defendant had given Younge any of the $20,000 he received from McIntosh after Ewing's killing; whether defendant received any money from Anthony after Ewing's killing; and whether Younge had authorized defendant to sue FITC in the name of Younge's company, Devereaux Capital. The prosecution's use of defendant's July 21, 1987, statement was not limited to defendant's cross-examination. A major theme of the prosecution's guilt phase closing argument to the jury was that defendant was a chronic liar whose testimony was completely untrustworthy. (If you find that someone lies over and over again, then I think that we can all assume that he's just lying all the time, and why is he lying? Because he's guilty of murder.) In support of this theme the prosecution repeatedly argued to the jury the contradictions between defendant's trial testimony and his July 21, 1987, statement. In extensively cross-examining defendant concerning the July 21, 1987, statement and in focusing in closing argument on the contradictions between defendant's statement and his trial testimony, the prosecution sought to paint defendant as a fabulist. In doing so, it struck at the heart of his defense. Under the circumstances, it is not possible to conclude that the guilt phase verdict was surely unattributable to the error. ( Sullivan v. Louisiana, supra, 508 U.S. at p. 279 [113 S.Ct. at p. 2081].) Accordingly, we reverse the entire judgment, including defendant's convictions for murder and conspiracy to murder, the findings on the special circumstance and personal-firearm-use allegations, and the sentence of death. For the guidance of the trial court, we also address the following issues that are likely to arise upon retrial.