Opinion ID: 4211658
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Rhonda Robinson’s Allegedly False Testimony

Text: In claim 6 of his federal habeas petition, Sanders maintains that Rhonda Robinson’s trial testimony was false because it was inconsistent with testimony she gave at a hearing in Freeman’s case about whether she had seen a photograph of Sanders and Stewart before Freeman’s preliminary hearing. Rhonda Robinson was a Bob’s Big Boy waitress. The shorter robber ordered her to lay on the floor in the kitchen before she was told to enter the freezer. She testified at trial that she observed the taller robber for three to four seconds in the freezer. The district court correctly ruled that there was “no conflict between Robinson’s testimony at Petitioner’s trial and her testimony at Freeman’s trial.” During the December 1981 search of Sanders’s apartment, the police seized a carnival photograph of Sanders and Stewart holding fake guns. The trial court initially ruled that the photograph was inadmissible, but after a detective who participated in the search mentioned it during his testimony, the defense introduced the photograph and the court admitted it into evidence. Defense counsel also called Richard Price, who took the photograph, to testify that in December 1980 he managed a photographic studio near an amusement park where people could pose with props and costumes. Price testified that Sanders and Stewart posed for such a photograph with a replica gun and a toy gun as a gag. SANDERS V. CULLEN 35 In an effort to undermine the reliability of Robinson’s identification testimony, defense counsel questioned whether Robinson and other witnesses saw the gag photo while they were waiting to testify at Freeman’s February 1981 preliminary hearing. The photograph was apparently in a blue notebook inside a cardboard evidence box. Defense counsel Abramson asked Robinson whether she remembered seeing a blue notebook while she was waiting to testify at Freeman’s preliminary hearing, and Robinson answered, “I don’t remember.” Abramson then asked whether she remembered “any of the witnesses going through any notebooks or making comments about any photographs,” to which Robinson answered “Yes.” After a sidebar about a hearsay objection, Abramson inquired whether Robinson remembered the other witnesses “mentioning Ricky Sanders’[s] name” or “suggesting that Ricky Sanders was one of the guys who did this thing.” Robinson again answered “Yes.” The transcript of the sidebar discussion suggests that Abramson asked these questions to explore whether Robinson identified Sanders at trial because she heard other witnesses say that he was one of the robbers, but Robinson was not asked whether she saw the photograph itself. At a hearing in Freeman’s trial held pursuant to California Evidence Code section 402, Robinson was again asked about what happened while she was waiting to testify at Freeman’s preliminary hearing. Robinson said she remembered seeing a cardboard box and that she remembered people looking inside the box. She could not recall who, “but someone opened the notebook, and [the witnesses] saw a photo.” Robinson further testified that it was a blue notebook, and that it contained a photograph of Sanders and a girl “standing together holding a gun.” 36 SANDERS V. CULLEN The only inconsistency between Robinson’s testimony at Sanders’s trial and Robinson’s testimony at the hearing held during Freeman’s case concerns whether she recalled seeing the blue notebook; Robinson did not deny seeing the photograph at either proceeding, and the fact that she remembered seeing the notebook at Freeman’s evidentiary hearing does not show that she lied at Sanders’s trial. Sanders maintains that the prosecution knew Robinson lied about her memory of the notebook because the police showed the photograph to her. But the only evidence he cites to support this argument is Robinson’s testimony at Freeman’s evidentiary hearing, and it only establishes that the police had Robinson wait in the same room with the evidence box and notebook. There is no evidence the prosecution had reason to doubt the testimony Robinson actually gave, that she did not recall the blue notebook. Nor does Sanders explain how Robinson’s memory about the blue notebook might have made a material difference to the jury. She testified at Sanders’s trial that other witnesses made comments about a photograph while they were waiting to testify at Freeman’s preliminary hearing, but she was not asked whether she saw the photograph nor whether the photograph had any impact on her identification of Sanders. As discussed in more detail below, Robinson had already identified Sanders in person, at the December 23, 1980 lineup. The state court could have reasonably determined that Sanders failed to support any of the three Mooney-Napue elements with respect to Robinson’s testimony.