Court Opinion

ID: 9745736
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 13:29:57.15882+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:26:41.473708
License: Public Domain

PERLUSS, P. J., Dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the majority’s
decision to reverse Timothy Stallworth’s convictions for murder, attempted murder (three counts) and shooting at an occupied motor vehicle (three counts) in connection with the October 10, 2003 freeway shootings.
In its recent opinion in People v. Lewis (2008) 43 Cal.4th 415 [75 Cal.Rptr.3d 588, 181 P.3d 947] (Lewis) the California Supreme Court explained, “Severance may be necessary when a defendant’s confession cannot be redacted to protect a codefendant’s rights without prejudicing the defendant. [Citation.] A defendant is prejudiced in this context when the editing of his statement distorts his role or makes an exculpatory statement inculpatory.” (Id. at p. 457.) The redactions here neither distorted Stallworth’s role in the murder and attempted murders on October 10, 2003 nor made his exculpatory statement inculpatory—in both the original and redacted versions he insisted he was lying down in the far backseat of the Tahoe, did not participate in the shootings and was unaware his associates were armed until he heard the gunfire. Accordingly, I do not believe it was prejudicial to jointly try Stallworth and Myron Davis and to permit Stallworth’s redacted statement to be read to the jury.
To be sure, redacting Stallworth’s account of the freeway shootings to remove all references to Davis made the statement somewhat less coherent— although the original, unredacted statements are themselves difficult to follow and internally inconsistent, at least in part. Accordingly, it may well have *1106been better to try the two men separately or for the trial court to have impaneled separate juries to hear the cases. But the relatively minor problems created by the redactions do not satisfy the definition of prejudice set forth in Lewis and, in my view, did not make Stallworth’s trial fimdamentally unfair, requiring reversal of the convictions.
The majority’s contrary conclusion—“that the redactions effectively rendered his exculpatory account of the freeway shooting implausible”—rests on two principal points. First, the redacted statement unfairly exposed Stallworth’s credibility to challenge because it contained varying representations about the number of shooters and the number of guns they used. Second, by removing all mention of Davis, Stallworth’s statement suggested the front passenger seat was empty, or if not empty, Stallworth was lying or concealing who was sitting there.
As to the first point, although the redacted statement plainly does not identify the second shooter—Stallworth’s codefendant Davis—it leaves no doubt that there were two guns used by two shooters and that Stallworth claimed he was not one of them. Specifically asked, “Was it one gun or two?,” Stallworth responds, “I guess it, it had to be two.” When asked about “Two-P’s” role in the incident, Stallworth unequivocally states, “He was one of the shooters”—necessarily implying there was also a second shooter. Moreover, Stallworth repeatedly refers to the men with the guns in the plural, stating, “that night they had guns”; “I didn’t even know they had guns”; after the shooting at Stallworth’s girlfriend’s house, “they was . . . wiping [the weapon] off”; and “they did that stupid stuff. Jeopardize my life.”
As to the second point, the majority concedes the redacted statement remained exculpatory. Stallworth emphatically states, “y’all accused me for something I didn’t do” and repeatedly makes similar denials of involvement or culpability. From the other testimony introduced at trial, there could be no serious question the second shooter was in the front passenger seat. In the redacted statement Stallworth is never asked who occupied that seat (or even whether it was occupied); he never asserts there were only three individuals in the Tahoe (although he identifies only two others by name); and he gives no responses that suggest he is trying to conceal the identity of the second shooter. Use of a neutral placeholder name, rather than complete omission of Davis, would have allowed Stallworth’s statements to appear somewhat more complete (although they may have then improperly incriminated Davis), but I simply cannot agree with the majority’s conclusion the redacted version of events—including Stallworth’s denial of knowledge or involvement in the shootings—was any more implausible than the unredacted statement.
*1107As was trae in Lewis, supra, 43 Cal.4th at page 458, “the trial court did not prevent [Stallworth] from cross-examining the witnesses to bring out his own hearsay statements that exculpated him or lessened his own role in the crimes. Nor . . . did the trial court prevent [Stallworth] from presenting nonhearsay testimony or evidence that implicated his codefendants. [Citation.] Rather, the trial court precluded defendant only from bringing out his own hearsay statements that expressly inculpated his codefendants. These limits were permissible notwithstanding Evidence Code section 356.”
Accordingly, I would affirm the judgment in its entirety.
On July 14, 2008, the opinion was modified to read as printed above. Appellant’s petition for review by the Supreme Court was denied October 16, 2008, S165149.