Opinion ID: 2581358
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Ruling on Motion

Text: Before trial, defendant unsuccessfully moved to sever the three murder charges and try them separately. Defendant contends that the trial court abused its discretion when it denied his severance motion, rendering his trial fundamentally unfair, in violation of his right to due process and a fair trial under both the state and federal Constitutions. We disagree. Penal Code section 954 permits [a]n accusatory pleading to charge two or more different offenses of the same class of crimes or offenses, under separate counts .... Here, the three murder counts are crimes of the same class and thus come within the provisions of the statute. ( People v. Sapp (2003) 31 Cal.4th 240, 257, 2 Cal.Rptr.3d 554, 73 P.3d 433; People v. Maury (2003) 30 Cal.4th 342, 392, 133 Cal.Rptr.2d 561, 68 P.3d 1.) Section 954 further provides that the trial court, acting in the interests of justice and for good cause shown, may in its discretion order that the different offenses ... be tried separately. We review a trial court's decision not to sever for abuse of discretion based on the record when the motion is heard. ( People v. Stitely (2005) 35 Cal.4th 514, 531, 26 Cal.Rptr.3d 1, 108 P.3d 182; People v. Sapp, supra, 31 Cal.4th at p. 258, 2 Cal.Rptr.3d 554, 73 P.3d 433.) A pretrial ruling denying severance that is not an abuse of discretion can be reversed on appeal only if joinder is so grossly unfair as to deny the defendant due process. ( People v. Valdez (2004) 32 Cal.4th 73, 120, 8 Cal.Rptr.3d 271, 82 P.3d 296.) Factors to be considered in assessing the propriety of joinder include: (1) the cross-admissibility of the evidence in separate trials; (2) whether some of the charges are likely to unusually inflame the jury against the defendant; (3) whether a weak case has been joined with a strong case or another weak case so that the total evidence may alter the outcome of some or all of the charges; and (4) whether one of the charges is a capital offense, or the joinder of the charges converts the matter into a capital case. ( People v. Mendoza (2000) 24 Cal.4th 130, 161, 99 Cal.Rptr.2d 485, 6 P.3d 150.) When, as here, crimes of the same class are charged together, evidence concerning one offense or offenses need not be admissible as to the other offense or offenses before the jointly charged offenses may be tried together.... (§ 954.1.) In ruling on the motion, the trial court here considered first whether the Bettancourt and Morris murders could properly be tried together; it concluded that they could, noting that those victims were killed by multiple shots fired from the same gun, which defendant admitted was his. Thus, the trial court found substantial cross-admissibility of evidence as to those counts. It further found that neither case was particularly inflammatory in comparison to the other, and that in each there was substantial evidence of defendant's guilt. As for the murder of Sadler, the trial court considered the question much closer. Because Sadler was beaten rather than shot, the court concluded there was no evidentiary cross-admissibility between that killing and the other two, but it noted that there was a common eyewitness, Shawnte Early. On June 11, 1992, Early had given the police a taped statement, identifying defendant as the man who repeatedly shot Bettancourt. She also identified defendant as the man who argued with and then had a fistfight with Sadler, and who continued to beat Sadler with a stick after the latter fell to the ground. Although at trial Early repudiated her earlier statement, she had not done so when the trial court denied defendant's severance motion, and we review the trial court's rulings in light of the facts known to the court when it heard the motion. ( People v. Ochoa (1998) 19 Cal.4th 353, 409, 79 Cal.Rptr.2d 408, 966 P.2d 442.) Although the trial court found severance was a close question, in that Sadler's killing was a somewhat weaker case, it ruled that joinder did not pose a risk that the jury would return a guilty verdict on that count rather than find reasonable doubt as to defendant's guilt. Notwithstanding the brutality of Sadler's beating, the court concluded joinder was unlikely to prejudice defendant in light of the other two multiple gunshot killings. Lastly, referring specifically to section 954.1, the court concluded defendant would not be unduly prejudiced by joinder, and it denied defendant's severance motion. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in so ruling. Apart from the cross-admissibility of evidence between the Bettancourt, Morris, and Sadler killings, joinder of the three murder counts was proper because they were all murders, and therefore were offenses of the same class of crimes. (§ 954.1.) Nor was any one murder especially likely to inflame the jury's passions. The three killings were each committed for seemingly trivial reasons and all involved excessive force, as shown by the ferocity of the beating of Sadler and the number of shots fired at Bettancourt and Morris. None of the cases was especially weak. Defendant admitted that he had shot Bettancourt and that, while he could not remember actually shooting Morris, he possessed the gun immediately before and after the shooting until he discarded it the next day. There was strong evidence of defendant's responsibility for Sadler's death. Two eyewitnesses, Early and Woodard, had given pretrial statements to the police identifying defendant as the man fighting with Sadler. And Velisha Sorooshian's pretrial statement to police recounted defendant driving up after the fistfight and laughingly asking her to go see if the victim was dead. Also, defendant's cousin, Shannon Senegal, had reported to investigators that he heard defendant admit responsibility for the Sadler killing shortly after it occurred. Finally, joinder of only the Bettancourt and Morris murders would have sufficed to support the multiple-murder special circumstance; therefore, the joinder of the Sadler murder did not expand defendant's death penalty liability. Even under a heightened scrutiny for joinder of charges, when the joinder itself gives rise to the only special circumstance allegation  that of multiple murder ( Williams v. Superior Court (1984) 36 Cal.3d 441, 454, 204 Cal. Rptr. 700, 683 P.2d 699)  we here conclude that defendant has not shown suffered prejudice from a single trial on all three murder charges. We also reject defendant's contention that the single trial of the three murders resulted in actual unfairness so great as to deny him due process ( People v. Valdez, supra, 32 Cal.4th at p. 120, 8 Cal.Rptr.3d 271, 82 P.3d 296; People v. Mendoza, supra, 24 Cal.4th at p. 162, 99 Cal.Rptr.2d 485, 6 P.3d 150) and to deprive him of his right to a fair trial under the Fifth Amendment to the federal Constitution. (See United States v. Lane (1986) 474 U.S. 438, 446, fn. 8, 106 S.Ct. 725, 88 L.Ed.2d 814.) Here, before trial defendant admitted to investigators that during a dispute over a street sale of crack cocaine he repeatedly shot and killed Bettancourt on February 14, 1995. As to his motive, two witnesses (Steven Sims and Nathan Gardner) testified at trial that defendant said he shot Bettancourt because the victim was trying to steal defendant's cocaine. The first victim, Sadler, had been murdered only some five days earlier when, according to defendant, Sadler tried to run away after taking some of defendant's cocaine. Defendant told police that, shortly before Morris was shot, Morris threatened him, and that, while he could not recall the actual shooting, the last thing he remembered was seeing Morris looking inside the car at him as his loaded gun lay on the car seat next to his right leg. A witness (Shannon Senegal) to the shooting testified that defendant suddenly shot Morris point blank, and then said, I told you I will get your punk ass back. In light of defendant's admissions, the testimony of eyewitnesses identifying defendant as the perpetrator of the killings, and the use of defendant's gun in two of the three shootings, a joint trial of all three murders was not fundamentally unfair.