Court Opinion

ID: 9599719
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:20:59.849311+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:46.518643
License: Public Domain

KAUS, J.
I respectfully dissent. Basically—contrary to the majority’s conclusion in part II—I believe that the trial court erred in suppressing evidence that the victim was under the influence of heroin during his violent 1979 encounter with the police. This error compounded the admitted error—see part I of the majority opinion—in keeping out evidence that he had ingested heroin within 24 hours of his death.
Before explaining the reasons for these conclusions, I think it must be emphasized that whatever errors were committed did not—as the majority seems to suggest—merely affect defendant’s claim of self-defense which, if accepted, would have resulted in an acquittal. Under all the circumstances such a result was, perhaps, too much to expect even in the absence of error. The case was, however, also submitted to the jury on the theory of “imperfect self-defense”—that defendant harbored an honest but unreasonable belief in imminent peril. (People v. Flannel (1979) 25 Cal.3d 668, 674-680 [160 Cal.Rptr. 84, 603 P.2d l].)1 That “defense,” if accepted, would have led to a conviction of voluntary manslaughter. Thus, in evaluating the likelihood of prejudice, we must consider not only the possibility that the admission of the erroneously excluded evidence could have resulted in an acquittal, but also the more realistic prospect that the jury—had it had all *595the evidence supportive of defendant’s version of the incident before it— might have had a reasonable doubt so as to reduce the offense to manslaughter. This “lesser offense” option clearly makes it much more likely that an erroneous exclusion of favorable defense evidence may have affected the outcome.
Now, to the errors themselves.
The majority agrees with defendant that the evidence concerning morphine in the victim’s urine was erroneously excluded. That evidence admittedly would have permitted the jury to infer that the victim was under the influence of a narcotic at the time of the shooting. As the majority points out, the fact that the evidence was not conclusive does not negate its probative value. Moreover, it impeached Mrs. Jurado who had testified that the victim had not used narcotics in the 24 hours before his death.
Mrs. Jurado also testified, however, that when the victim was under the influence he “slept a lot”—implying that even such evidence of recent narcotics usage as found its way into the record, did not support defendant’s claim of irrational and threatening conduct on the part of the victim.
It seems clear to me that defendant was entitled to overcome the implication of Mrs. Jurado’s testimony with evidence that on at least one fairly recent occasion the victim did not sleep while under the influence of heroin, but behaved quite violently. (Evid. Code, § 1103.) Standing alone, the 1979 evidence is admittedly of minimal value to prove he was impetuous or highly strung, even when under the influence, but when considered in connection with the evidence—both admitted and improperly excluded—concerning the time just before the homicide, it obviously gains considerable force.
I would reverse or, minimally, give the People the option of retrying defendant on the murder charge or of accepting a reduction to voluntary manslaughter.
Bird, C. J., and Broussard, J., concurred.
Appellant’s petition for a rehearing was denied September 25, 1985. Bird, C. J., and Broussard, J., were of the opinion that the petition should be granted.

The jury was instructed: “The crime of voluntary manslaughter is the unlawful killing of a human being without malice aforethought when there is an intent to kill. [K] There is no malice aforethought if the killing occurred in the honest but unreasonable belief in the necessity to defend oneself against imminent peril to life or great bodily injury, [f] In order to prove the commission of the crime of voluntary manslaughter, each of the following elements must be proved: [1f] 1. That a human being was killed, [1|] 2. That the killing was ' unlawful, and [H] 3. That the killing was done with the intent to kill.”