Opinion ID: 2599941
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Admission of Witnesses' Prior Statements

Text: Defendant contends the trial court erred in admitting testimony regarding statements made by the witness Santiago Ontiveros during a police interview. When Ontiveros testified at trial, he denied that defendant had told him he was involved in a robbery or that Ontiveros had told anyone else that defendant had admitted being involved in a robbery. He further testified that he did not remember any conversation with a San Jose police officer in March of 1979. When the prosecutor asked him how he could flatly deny telling anyone that defendant had committed a robbery, but also testify that he did not remember what he told the police, he stated, It's in my nature. I wouldn't tell anything to begin with. Over a hearsay objection, a police officer testified that in March of 1979 he interviewed Ontiveros, who said that defendant had told him that defendant and Jesse Perez were involved in the robbery at the Hudson gas station. In addition, the prosecutor was permitted to play for the jury a portion of the tape-recorded interview during which Ontiveros told an officer that he did not know anything about the murder, but that defendant had told him that Jesse Perez was on the back of the motorcycle during the robbery. The trial court admitted the tape and the testimony as prior inconsistent statements. (Evid.Code, § 1235.) A witness's prior statement that is inconsistent with his or her testimony is admissible so long as the witness is given the opportunity to explain or deny the statement. (Evid.Code, §§ 770, 1235.) Defendant complains that the trial court failed to make a factual finding that Ontiveros's testimony was inconsistent with his prior statement, a prerequisite for the admission of those statements. No such explicit finding is required. A ruling on the admissibility of evidence implies whatever finding of fact is prerequisite thereto; a separate or formal finding is unnecessary unless required by statute. (Evid.Code, § 402, subd. (c); see People v. Pinholster (1992) 1 Cal.4th 865, 935, 4 Cal.Rptr.2d 765, 824 P.2d 571.) Furthermore, Ontiveros's insistence that he never told anyone that defendant had admitted being involved in the robbery was plainly inconsistent with his prior statements to the officer.
Defendant similarly challenges the admission of prior statements of Sylvia Lopez Ontiveros, Santiago's former wife, which also were admitted as prior inconsistent statements. Sylvia Ontiveros initially testified that she did not remember having a conversation with defendant concerning a robbery or murder. Subsequently, she denied that he ever had told her he was going to kill someone. Ontiveros recalled speaking to a police officer in March of 1979, and she recalled testifying at the preliminary hearing in 1979. But she stated she did not remember what she testified about, and did not remember testifying that defendant had told her he had killed somebody. She did remember being in the district attorney's office during the last year and listening to a tape recording in which she was speaking to a man about defendant, but stated she did not remember many of the things she said on the recording. She did, however, admit that she might have said on the recording that defendant had killed the gas station attendant because the man was going to testify against him. She testified she did not want to be in court and admitted that when she was called to testify in a previous proceeding in the same case, she failed to appear and the police had to bring her to court. After Ontiveros read a copy of her prior preliminary hearing testimony, she testified that she still did not remember her testimony or the conversations with defendant to which she had testified. She said she blanked things out because she did not want to think about them. Over defense objection, the prosecutor was permitted to have a portion of her preliminary examination testimony read to the jury. That testimony disclosed that defendant had told her he had killed someone who had identified him in a robbery, in order to eliminate the witness. She also testified at the preliminary hearing that, prior to the murder, she had overheard defendant tell her husband that he was thinking of getting rid of the witness because the witness had identified him. Evidence of statements made by Ontiveros during a police interview also were admitted over a hearsay objection. In the interview, she stated that defendant had told her, prior to the murder, that he wanted to get rid of the victim. She recounted that he later had told her he had shot the victim and had told another guy to finish him off. Defendant also told her he felt that if he eliminated the victim, the police would not be able to press charges against him. Defendant argues that the trial court failed to make a finding that Ontiveros's prior statements were inconsistent with her testimony. Normally, the testimony of a witness that he or she does not remember an event is not inconsistent with that witness's prior statement describing the event. ( People v. Green (1971) 3 Cal.3d 981, 988, 92 Cal.Rptr. 494, 479 P.2d 998.) However, . . . [w]hen a witness's claim of lack of memory amounts to deliberate evasion, inconsistency is implied. ( Id. at pp. 988-989, 92 Cal.Rptr. 494, 479 P.2d 998.) As long as there is a reasonable basis in the record for concluding that the witness's `I don't remember' statements are evasive and untruthful, admission of his or her prior statements is proper. ( People v. O'Quinn (1980) 109 Cal. App.3d 219, 225, 167 Cal.Rptr. 141.) ( People v. Johnson (1992) 3 Cal.4th 1183, 1219, 14 Cal.Rptr.2d 702, 842 P.2d 1.) The requisite finding is implied from the trial court's ruling. (Evid.Code, § 402, subd. (c).) Although Ontiveros consistently denied at trial being able to remember anything that defendant had told her, what she had told the police, or her prior testimony, the record provides a reasonable basis to conclude she was being evasive. (See People v. Coffman & Marlow (2004) 34 Cal.4th 1, 78, 17 Cal.Rptr.3d 710, 96 P.3d 30.) She had been a friend of defendant's and admitted she was reluctant to testify and had failed to appear at a previous hearing. She claimed that even reading her prior testimony in full and listening to a tape recording of her police interview did not refresh her recollection.