Opinion ID: 2543191
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 16

Heading: Evidence of Mistreatment by Defendant's Father

Text: On direct examination Jennifer McNees, defendant's mother, when asked why she and her then husband Bob Williams, Sr., had moved out of his parents' house soon after their marriage, replied that it was not a good situation. When asked to elaborate, the prosecution objected. In chambers, counsel responded that he intended to ask about fights between McNees and Bob Williams, Sr., when defendant was very young, and in particular about an incident in which Williams, Sr., punched McNees in the stomach while she was pregnant with defendant. The prosecutor objected that incidents that did not occur in defendant's presence or occurred when he was so young that he would not have a memory of them should be excluded. The court ruled that testimony regarding the punching incident would be excluded unless the defense was prepared to offer some foundational medical testimony that defendant was injured as a result. The trial court also ruled, however, that testimony of violence that occurred in defendant's presence even at a young age would be admissible. Defendant contends the trial court erred in not allowing evidence that defendant's father punched his mother when she was pregnant with defendant. The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution requires that a capital jury not be precluded from considering, as a mitigating factor, any aspect of a defendant's character or record and any of the circumstances of the offense that the defendant proffers as a basis for a sentence less than death. ( Lockett v. Ohio (1978) 438 U.S. 586, 604, 98 S.Ct. 2954, 57 L.Ed.2d 973, fns. & italics omitted.) Nonetheless, the trial court still `determines relevancy in the first instance and retains discretion to exclude evidence whose probative value is substantially outweighed by the probability that its admission will create substantial danger of confusing the issues or misleading the jury.' ( People v. Cain (1995) 10 Cal.4th 1, 64, 40 Cal.Rptr.2d 481, 892 P.2d 1224.) Defendant argues on appeal that the punching incident would have shown that defendant was an unwanted child, and the father, as well as the stepmother, neglected and abused defendant. Defense counsel did not advance that theory of admissibility at trial, nor is the act of violence toward the pregnant mother particularly probative of the father's subsequent conduct toward the child after he was born. Moreover, there was considerable evidence that defendant's father did not have a good relationship with defendant. We conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in excluding this testimony, and, even if it had, the error would have been harmless under any applicable standard. [9]