Opinion ID: 2637056
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Poverty as motive for robbery

Text: Under the well-established rule, a defendant's poverty generally may not be admitted to prove a motive to commit a robbery or theft; reliance on such evidence is deemed unfair to the defendant, and its probative value is outweighed by the risk of prejudice. (E.g., People v. Wilson (1992) 3 Cal.4th 926, 939, 13 Cal. Rptr.2d 259, 838 P.2d 1212.) In some circumstances, however, evidence of a defendant's poverty is admissible for the limited purpose of refuting a claim that he did not commit the offense because he did not need the money, or to eliminate other possible explanations for sudden wealth after the occurrence of a theft offense. ( People v. Hogan (1982) 31 Cal.3d 815, 854, 183 Cal.Rptr. 817, 647 P.2d 93, disapproved on another ground in People v. Cooper (1991) 53 Cal.3d 771, 836, 281 Cal.Rptr. 90, 809 P.2d 865; People v. Gorgol (1953) 122 Cal. App.2d 281, 303-304, 265 P.2d 69.) In the present case, the prosecutor elicited, on cross-examination, defendant's testimony pertaining to his earnings in the months prior to the offenses and the extent of the money and property he had accumulated. This line of questioning, defendant contends, violated the state law evidentiary principles cited above and deprived him of his rights to due process of law, a fair trial, trial by jury, confrontation and cross-examination, presentation of a defense, effective assistance of counsel, equal protection, and reliable guilt and penalty phase verdicts as guaranteed by the Fifth, Sixth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the federal Constitution, and their state constitutional counterparts, article I, sections 7, 15 and 17. Defendant acknowledges he failed to object on these grounds, but argues the evidence thus elicited tended so strongly to lead to an unreliable death judgment that we nevertheless may and should reach the merits of his argument. Defendant's failure to object at trial renders the contention forfeited, and it lacks merit in any event. In an effort to show he lacked a motive to steal Martinez's car, defendant testified that he more than adequately met his needs for food, shelter and other material goods by a combination of food stamps, welfare, the shared housing arrangement at the Volunteers of America apartments, odd jobs, and part-time work at a flea market. Defendant also contrasted Martinez's alleged impecuniousness with his own relatively ample resources, claiming he had lent Martinez money on occasion. Defendant testified that when Martinez's car ran out of gas shortly after the shooting, a California Highway Patrol officer stopped to offer help, and defendant proclaimed he had plenty of money, showing the officer $320 in cash that he kept in a money clip. The prosecutor was entitled to explore, on cross-examination, the basis for defendant's testimony; he did not improperly introduce defendant's poverty as a motive for robbery.