Court Opinion

ID: 9846547
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:43:30.89429+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:37.755931
License: Public Domain

MOSK, J., Concurring and Dissenting.
I agree with the majority’s reasoning and conclusions regarding the nature and scope of a criminal defendant’s Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment right to object in limine to the admission of a third party witness’s testimony on the ground that testimony would be involuntary and therefore inherently unreliable. (Maj. opn., ante, pts. 1(a) & 1(b), pp. 342-349.) I also agree with the majority’s analysis of the marital privilege. (Maj. opn., ante, pt. 2, pp. 362-365.) I cannot join with the majority, however, in concluding that the trial court’s denial of defendants’ motion in limine to exclude Henrietta Jasik’s assertedly involuntary testimony was harmless error as a matter of law.
A reviewing court must ordinarily use a two-part error analysis in cases like the one at bar. First, it must independently review the record to determine whether the trial court was correct to conclude that the witness’s in-court testimony would be voluntary. (See People v. Mickey (1991) 54 Cal.3d 612, 649 [286 Cal.Rptr. 801, 818 P.2d 84].) Second, if the trial court’s finding was error, it must decide whether the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. (See Arizona v. Fulminante (1991) 499 U.S. 279, 306-312 [113 L.Ed.2d 302, 328-333, 111 S.Ct. 1246]; People v. Cahill (1993) 5 Cal.4th 478, 510 [20 Cal.Rptr.2d 582, 853 P.2d 1037].)
*367This case is somewhat unusual because the trial court did not determine whether Jasik’s in-court testimony would be voluntary when it ruled on the motion in limine', instead, it denied the motion because of its erroneous conclusion that defendants lacked standing. The trial court partially cured this error—but only partially—when it ruled on defendants’ posttrial motion to strike Jasik’s testimony on the ground that it was the product of a coercive immunity agreement. (See, e.g., People v. Medina (1974) 41 Cal.App.3d 438, 450-455 [116 Cal.Rptr. 133].) In denying the motion to strike, the trial court expressly found that the immunity agreement did not render Jasik’s testimony “incredible,” i.e., inherently unreliable, and that it was not even a “terribly close” question. This finding survives independent review for the reasons stated by the majority. (Maj. opn., ante, pt. 1.d.iv., pp. 357-362.)
The trial court made no express or implied finding regarding the three additional contentions defendants raised in their motion in limine—that Jasik’s testimony would be involuntary, and therefore inherently unreliable, because of her unlawful arrest, the promise of leniency, and the unethical conduct of the district attorney and the police investigator. In the absence of an express or implied finding by the trial court, independent review is impossible for the simple reason that we, as a reviewing court, have nothing to review. Nor is it possible to assume arguendo that Jasik’s testimony was involuntary but conclude that its admission, if error, was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt given the other evidence in the case. Indeed, the trial court itself stated during the hearing on the motion to strike that without Jasik’s testimony there was not enough evidence to justify sending the case to the jury.
Under such circumstances, a reviewing court has only two principled options: if the evidence was fully developed below and, in light of all of the evidence, no rational trier of fact could have found that the witness’s testimony would be involuntary, it can conclude as a matter of law that the admission of the testimony was not error. Although this appears to be what the majority have done here (see maj. opn., ante, pts. l.c. & l.d.i-iii, pp. 349-357), I believe that they were wrong to do so, because a rational fact finder could have concluded that Jasik’s testimony was involuntary.
We are therefore left with only one option: to instruct the Court of Appeal to remand the cause to the superior court with directions to determine whether Jasik’s testimony was voluntary. Because the majority has declined to do so, I cannot join in their disposition of this case.