Opinion ID: 2599854
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Exclusion of Vieyra's Prior Sex Crimes

Text: On learning that codefendant Vieyra intended to testify, defendant moved to admit evidence of Vieyra's prior contacts with law enforcement, characterizing them as: (1) a 1973 juvenile adjudication for forcible rape; (2) a 1977 arrest for unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor; (3) 1986 arrests for unlawful intercourse and sexual battery, apparently for the same incident, which charges were dismissed; and (4) a 1991 conviction for petty theft with a prior for an incident that may have involved indecent exposure. Defense Counsel Bestard asserted that these prior incidents were admissible to prove identity, that is, that Vieyra and not defendant was more likely to have been the one to sodomize the victim. The court took the matter under advisement and then issued a tentative ruling, explaining that defendant's characterization of Vieyra's prior contacts with the judicial system was inaccurate. The court stated it had reviewed the Probation Department's pre-plea report regarding defendant Vieyra and found only one prior conviction for a sex crime: a 1973 juvenile adjudication for attempted unlawful intercourse with a minor. There was no indication in the record this offense involved force. Further, the court found no evidence of any other sex crime charges, let alone convictions, against defendant Vieyra. The court tentatively ruled this 1973 incident was too remote to be admissible to prove identity pursuant to People v. Ewoldt (1994) 7 Cal.4th 380, 27 Cal.Rptr.2d 646, 867 P.2d 757 and People v. Balcom (1994) 7 Cal.4th 414, 27 Cal. Rptr.2d 666, 867 P.2d 777 and noted that, although it need not reach the question whether the evidence should be excluded under Evidence Code section 352, the prior juvenile adjudication bore little resemblance to the crime in this case and is of very little if any probative value and would create a risk of substantial prejudice to defendant Vieyra. The parties addressed the trial court's tentative ruling at a hearing held on September 30, 1997. The court noted it went back to the probation pre-plea report and went through their history with ... a fine tooth comb and found only one sex crime, 1973. Defense Counsel Bestard asserted that he had indicated to the court that most of these were arrests and police reports on the subject; he did not, at that time, seek to introduce any evidence suggesting any other law enforcement contacts Vieyra may have had that involved sexual crimes. Bestard then argued the evidence was nevertheless admissible to rebut Vieyra's evidence of good character, as impeachment and to prove identity. The trial court explained: We have got a single conviction which is not enough under [Evidence Code section 1101, subdivision (b) ] to establish any of the grounds for admissibility that would be permitted by the California Supreme Court, and as I indicated, I don't think it even gets to [Evidence Code section] 352 [because] I don't think ... it is enough to show intent, common scheme or plan, certainly not identity, and under Evidence Code section 1108, you still have to do [an Evidence Code section] 352 analysis even though you can now use it to prove propensity, and that just isn't there, so we are really down to the question of what can we use to impeach. The court then ruled that Vieyra could be impeached with his 1985 conviction for violating Penal Code section 273.5 (corporal injury to a spouse), as well as a 1991 prior felony conviction for theft, finding both were crimes involving moral turpitude. The trial court later affirmed its tentative ruling. Defendant contends the trial court erred under state law by excluding Vieyra's prior contacts with law enforcement and also characterizes the error as one of federal constitutional magnitude, contending he was denied his constitutional right to present a defense. At the threshold, he argues the trial court was wrong in finding Vieyra's only contact with law enforcement was the 1973 juvenile adjudication, claiming defense attorney Bestard was correct and the court was wrong regarding the extent of multiple sex crime contacts. In support, defendant cites several certified documents with which the appellate record has been augmented. The augmented documents reveal that Vieyra had multiple police contacts through the years, including several for drug abuse, spousal abuse, obstruction of justice, vehicle tampering and misdemeanor burglary. Other than his 1973 juvenile adjudication for attempted unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, however, none of the other offenses of a sexual nature for which he was arrested led to a conviction or other disposition. [4] More to the point, nothing indicates these records were available to the trial court or were provided by defense counsel. We thus cannot conclude the trial court erred in finding Vieyra had only the one 1973 adjudication for a crime of a sexual nature. Although defendant offered codefendant Vieyra's adjudication of a prior sex crime as evidence of identity, i.e., to show that it was Vieyra who sodomized and killed the victim, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in excluding the evidence under Evidence Code section 1101. The law is clear and well settled. Evidence Code section 1101, subdivision (b) provides in pertinent part that evidence of other crimes is admissible `when relevant to prove some fact (such as motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, absence of mistake or accident ...) other than [the defendant's] disposition to commit such an act.' `Evidence of the defendant's commission of a crime other than one for which the defendant is then being tried is not admissible to show bad character or predisposition to criminality but it may be admitted to prove some material fact at issue, such as motive or identity. (Evid.Code, § 1101.) Because evidence of other crimes may be highly inflammatory, its admissibility should be scrutinized with great care. [Citation.] [Citation.] In cases in which [a party] seeks to prove the defendant's identity as the perpetrator of the charged offense by evidence he had committed uncharged offenses, admissibility depends upon proof that the charged and uncharged offenses share distinctive common marks sufficient to raise an inference of identity.' [Citation.] `A somewhat lesser degree of similarity is required to show a common plan or scheme and still less similarity is required to show intent. ( People v. Ewoldt [, supra, ] 7 Cal.4th [at pp.] 402-403, 27 Cal.Rptr.2d 646, 867 P.2d 757.) On appeal, we review a trial court's ruling under Evidence Code section 1101 for abuse of discretion.' ( People v. Gray, supra, 37 Cal.4th at p. 202, 33 Cal.Rptr.3d 451, 118 P.3d 496.) Given that Vieyra's sole sex-related conviction was a juvenile adjudication for attempted unlawful intercourse with a minor occurring more than 20 years before the trial, the trial court was rightly concerned about the remoteness of the offense. ( People v. Branch (2001) 91 Cal.App.4th 274, 282, 109 Cal.Rptr.2d 870 [court should evaluate the remoteness in time of the uncharged offenses].) Although defendant argues the remoteness of the 1973 adjudication was mitigated by the fact Vieyra was incarcerated for much of his adult life, the records actually show he was in and out of custody often enough to accumulate an impressive number of arrests and other police contacts through the intervening years. Thus, despite Vieyra's time in custody, the trial court was legitimately concerned with the remoteness of the adjudication. [5] Apart from the age of the prior adjudication, another more compelling reason exists to support the trial court's decision: Vieyra's prior juvenile offense appears completely different from those of the crime here, namely, the sodomizing and murder of an older woman. `For identity to be established, the uncharged misconduct and the charged offense must share common features that are sufficiently distinctive so as to support the inference that the same person committed both acts. [Citation.] The pattern and characteristics of the crimes must be so unusual and distinctive as to be like a signature.' ( People v. Ewoldt, supra, 7 Cal.4th at p. 403, 27 Cal.Rptr.2d 646, 867 P.2d 757.) `The highly unusual and distinctive nature of both the charged and uncharged offenses virtually eliminates the possibility that anyone other than the defendant committed the charged offense.' ( People v. Balcom [, supra, ] 7 Cal.4th [at p.] 425, 27 Cal.Rptr.2d 666, 867 P.2d 777.) ( People v. Gray, supra, 37 Cal.4th at p. 203, 33 Cal.Rptr.3d 451, 118 P.3d 496, italics added.) Because the prior crime, though sexual in nature, was so different from the present crime, the inference that the person who attempted to have sex with a minor more than 20 years earlier was likely to be the person who sodomized and killed the 68-year-old victim here is weak. We would reach the same conclusion even if we considered Vieyra's past arrests for attempting to have sex with minors and indecent exposure. Accordingly, the trial court did not abuse its discretion under Evidence Code section 1101 by excluding evidence of Vieyra's past sex-related criminal activity, which defendant offered to prove identity. We reach a similar conclusion with regard to Evidence Code section 1108. Subdivision (a) of that section provides: In a criminal action in which the defendant is accused of a sexual offense, evidence of the defendant's commission of another sexual offense or offenses is not made inadmissible by Section 1101, if the evidence is not inadmissible pursuant to Section 352. Regarding the purpose of this section, we explained in People v. Falsetta (1999) 21 Cal.4th 903, 911, 89 Cal. Rptr.2d 847, 986 P.2d 182, that the Legislature enacted section 1108 to expand the admissibility of disposition or propensity evidence in sex offense cases. Moreover, [available legislative history indicates section 1108 was intended in sex offense cases to relax the evidentiary restraints [Evidence Code] section 1101, subdivision (a), imposed, to assure that the trier of fact would be made aware of the defendant's other sex offenses in evaluating the victim's and the defendant's credibility. In this regard, section 1108 implicitly abrogates prior decisions of this court indicating that `propensity' evidence is per se unduly prejudicial to the defense. ( Ibid. ) Addressing Evidence Code section 1108, Falsetta explained: Rather than admit or exclude every sex offense a defendant commits, trial judges must consider such factors as its nature, relevance, and possible remoteness, the degree of certainty of its commission and the likelihood of confusing, misleading, or distracting the jurors from their main inquiry, its similarity to the charged offense, its likely prejudicial impact on the jurors, the burden on the defendant in defending against the uncharged offense, and the availability of less prejudicial alternatives to its outright admission, such as admitting some but not all of the defendant's other sex offenses, or excluding irrelevant though inflammatory details surrounding the offense. ( People v. Falsetto, supra, 21 Cal.4th at p. 917, 89 Cal.Rptr.2d 847, 986 P.2d 182, italics added.) As the trial court found when ruling on the Evidence Code section 1101 question, the lack of similarity between Vieyra's 1973 adjudication and the present crimes justified exclusion of the evidence. This conclusion is bolstered by the remoteness of the 1973 adjudication. We cannot say the trial court abused its discretion in excluding the 1973 juvenile adjudication as proof of Vieyra's propensity, especially when we consider the court permitted his impeachment with two prior crimes of moral turpitude. The jury was thus not unaware of his checkered past. We also reject defendant's subsidiary claim that the trial court erred in excluding the evidence because it comprised evidence of third party culpability. Although defendant is correct that he has a right to present evidence that some other person committed the crime for which he is charged, [6] he overlooks that such evidence must be otherwise admissible. He cites no authority, and we have found none, holding that the right to present evidence of third party culpability allows admission of otherwise inadmissible evidence. As we have concluded the trial court did not abuse its discretion in excluding the evidence under Evidence Code sections 1101 and 1108, we reject the claim defendant was entitled to present inadmissible evidence suggesting Vieyra sodomized and killed the victim. Having found no state law error, we also reject defendant's federal constitutional claim. Citing Washington v. Texas (1967) 388 U.S. 14, 87 S.Ct. 1920, 18 L.Ed.2d 1019, Webb v. Texas (1972) 409 U.S. 95, 93 S.Ct. 351, 34 L.Ed.2d 330, Chambers v. Mississippi (1973) 410 U.S. 284, 93 S.Ct. 1038, 35 L.Ed.2d 297, and other cases from the high court, defendant contends the exclusion of Vieyra's past sex-related juvenile adjudication and arrests for similar crimes violated his federal constitutional right to present a defense. Defendant's argument fails to account for the general rule that the application of the ordinary rules of evidence under state law do not violate a criminal defendant's federal constitutional right to present a defense, because trial courts retain the intrinsic power under state law to exercise discretion to control the admission of evidence at trial. ( People v. Lawley (2002) 27 Cal.4th 102, 155, 115 Cal.Rptr.2d 614, 38 P.3d 461.) As one appellate court observed: Preventing and dealing with crime is more the business of the states than of the federal government. Accordingly, the state has power to regulate the procedures under which its laws are carried out, and a rule of evidence in this regard `is not subject to proscription under the Due Process Clause unless it offends some principle of justice so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental. [Citations.]' ( People v. Fitch (1997) 55 Cal.App.4th 172, 178-179, 63 Cal. Rptr.2d 753, quoting Patterson v. New York (1977) 432 U.S. 197, 201-202, 97 S.Ct. 2319, 53 L.Ed.2d 281.) This general rule will give way in extraordinary and unusual circumstances, but such was not the case here. In this case, defendant was able to impeach Vieyra with some of his prior crimes, but was not allowed to present evidence of Vieyra's more than two decades old sex crime. We cannot say the excluded evidence was so vital to the defense that due process principles required its admission. [Citations.] Although the high court in Chambers determined that the combination of state rules resulting in the exclusion of crucial defense evidence constituted a denial of due process under the unusual circumstances of the case before it, it did not question `the respect traditionally accorded to the States in the establishment and implementation of their own criminal trial rules and procedures.' ( Chambers v. Mississippi supra, 410 U.S. at pp. 302-303, 93 S.Ct. 1038.) ( People v. Cornwell (2005) 37 Cal.4th 50, 82, 33 Cal.Rptr.3d 1, 117 P.3d 622.) The exclusion of evidence in this case under Evidence Code sections 1101 and 1108 was a garden-variety evidentiary issue under state law and did not implicate defendant's federal constitutional right to present a defense. The trial court's discretionary ruling excluding the evidence did not violate defendant's constitutional right to present a defense.