Opinion ID: 2545831
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Aplington's fear of defendant

Text: At trial, the prosecutor presented evidence that in 1985 and 1986, defendant made various threats to Aplington, and she was afraid of him. The trial court ruled such evidence relevant to Aplington's credibility, specifically on the issue of the validity of her claimed inability to recall pertinent incidents surrounding the disappearance of defendant's mother, Geraldine. Thus, the prosecutor elicited Aplington's testimony that defendant threatened to put Aplington and her two young daughters in the pond behind Geraldine's house. Aplington stressed, however, that defendant didn't say kill, because putting us in the pond, underneath the pond is obviously not living, but he did not use the word kill. The prosecutor also brought out that at Aplington's deposition, when asked if she believe[d] defendant might kill her, she replied, I know that after this, adding, you guys get to go home to your normal houses and stuff and you won't have [defendant] coming after you. (Italics added.) Shortly after June 8, 1985, when defendant reported his mother missing, Aplington moved with her children from her Contra Costa County home to a women's shelter in Monterey County. On July 15, 1985, Aplington telephoned District Attorney investigator Tony Koester and told him she was very frightened of defendant, who was call[ing] around, trying to find out where she was hiding. But when cross-examined in this case, Aplington attributed her tearfulness not to anything defendant had done but to the authorities who threatened to take her children away and send her to jail if she failed to cooperate, and who were telling her she would be defendant's next victim. Defendant now contends that the trial court erred by admitting evidence of Aplington's fear of him, and that the prosecutor's comments on this evidence during closing argument were misconduct. He further contends that the trial court should on its own initiative have instructed the jury it could consider this evidence only in assessing Aplington's credibility and not as showing defendant's intent to harm Aplington, and that trial counsel was ineffective for not requesting such a limiting instruction. According to defendant, the treatment of the evidence of Aplington's fear violated not only California law but also the Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the federal Constitution, thus compelling reversal of the death judgment. We disagree. Generally, evidence that a witness is afraid to testify is admissible as relevant to the witness's credibility. (Evid.Code, ง 780; People v. Warren (1988) 45 Cal.3d 471, 481, 247 Cal.Rptr. 172, 754 P.2d 218.) Assuming that evidence of Aplington's fear of defendant in 1985 and 1986 shortly after defendant's mother disappeared would have somewhat less bearing on Aplington's apparent unwillingness to testify for the prosecution in 1991 at defendant's capital trial, we discern no possible prejudice. We have considered the evidence, the prosecutor's treatment of it during closing argument, and trial counsel's failure to request a limiting instruction that the court had no obligation to give without request ( People v. Padilla (1995) 11 Cal.4th 891, 950, 47 Cal.Rptr.2d 426, 906 P.2d 388). We are satisfied that it is neither reasonably possible ( People v. Jackson, supra, 13 Cal.4th at p. 1232, 56 Cal.Rptr.2d 49, 920 P.2d 1254) nor reasonably probable ( Strickland v. Washington, supra, 466 U.S. at p. 669, 104 S.Ct. 2052) that the evidence or its treatment altered the penalty phase outcome at defendant's capital trial.