Court Opinion

ID: 9737831
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:35:16.190131+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:01.692894
License: Public Domain

THOMPSON, J.
—I dissent. In my view, People v. Johnson, 68 Cal.2d 646 [68 Cal.Rptr. 599, 441 P.2d 111] and People v. Green, 70 Cal.2d 654 [75 Cal.Rptr. 782, 451 P.2d 422] require that the judgment of conviction be reversed. Comity to a decision of the Court of Appeal of the Third District in People v. Pierce, 269 Cal.App.2d 193 [75 Cal.Rptr. 257] indicates a similar result.
Facts
Appellant was charged in a three-count information with robbery (count I), kidnaping for the purpose of robbery (count II), and possession of a eoneealable firearm, he having previously been convicted of a felony (count III).
All three counts of the information charge offenses occurring on or about February 26, 1968. On that day, Mr. Paul Krumhauer was present at the spaghetti restaurant owned and operated by him. At about 8 p.m., a man whom Krumhauer thought to be a customer came in. As Krumhauer approached, the man displayed a black, snub-nosed revolver and demanded the money .in the cash register. Krumhauer opened the register and the robber took the bills from it. The robber forced Krumhauer at gunpoint to walk to the kitchen of the restaurant where he took the victim’s wallet. Krumhauer identified appellant as the robber.
Mrs. Loye Bostic and her four children lived with appellant. At the trial she testified that she owned a .38-caliber revolver which she had purchased for her protection and of which appellant had knowledge. On February 26, 1968, Mrs. Bostic and appellant had an argument, and Mrs. Bostic, fearing the presence of the weapon, gave it to Mrs. Sharon Wyller, appellant’s sister, for safekeeping. Later that evening appellant and Mrs. Bostic went to the Wyller residence. They stopped quarreling and Mrs. Bostic retrieved the revolver. Mrs. Bostic’s testimony was that she had never seen the gun in appellant’s possession. The prosecution then, without objection, introduced evidence of prior inconsistent statements by Mrs. Bostic on February 27 that on February 26, 1968, at *248approximately 8 p.m., appellant had the revolver in his possession. Mrs. Bostic explained the prior statement as having been made in her anger against appellant because of a resumption of the prior quarrel. On February 27, she had called the police and given them the gun.
Mrs. Bostic's 12-year-old son, Mark, and 16-year-old daughter, Milan, both testified to seeing something brown in appellant's waistband on February 26 but that they could not identify it as a revolver or other weapon. The prosecution, also without objection, introduced prior inconsistent statements by Mark and Milan that the brown object was a revolver. Both also testified that they had made the prior statements because of their anger at appellant.
Other evidence introduced without objection disclosed a bill of sale dated February 18, 1968, from Mrs. Bostic to appellant for “One .38 caliber Miroku revolver, Serial Number 8001” (People’s Exhibit No. 4) and that on occasions prior to February 26, appellant had cleaned the weapon. Mrs. Bostic explained that the purpose of the bill of sale was to protect her from any legal involvement concerning the revolver but that she had never delivered the gun to appellant.
The defense testimony, while admitting appellant had “cleaned” the gun, denied his possession of it. The testimony also included substantial alibi evidence with respect to the robbery. The jury, on May 17,1968, acquitted appellant of the counts of robbery and kidnapping but convicted him of the count involving possession of the revolver. Appellant was sentenced to state prison and this appeal followed.
Contentions of Appellant and Respondent
Appellant’s grounds of appeal are: (1) that the trial court erred in admitting as substantive evidence the prior inconsistent statements regarding possession by appellant of the revolver; and (2) that the trial judge should have on his own motion instructed the jury to limit its consideration of those statements to impeachment.
Respondent concedes that admission of the inconsistent statements as substantive evidence violates the rule of People v. Johnson, 68 Cal.2d 646 [68 Cal.Rptr. 599, 441 P.2d 111]. Respondent, however, argues that: (1) no objection to the evidence was made here nor limiting instruction requested, thereby making the Johnson rule inapplicable; and (2) any error in this regard is nonprejudicial.
*249Inconsistent Statements as Substantive Evidence— Absence op Limiting Instructions
Accepting respondent’s well-founded concession that the evidence of prior inconsistent witness statements is rendered incompetent by Johnson, we must determine the consequences of the failure of appellant at trial either to object to the admissibility as substantive evidence of the prior statements or to request an instruction that the jury should consider those statements only for the purpose of impeachment. In view of the ostensibly unimpaired existence of Evidence Code section 1235 at the time of trial of the case at bench, and Johnson which after the completion of the trial held section 1235 inapplicable to criminal cases, that failure must be deemed excused. Appellant may, therefore, properly raise the claimed error in this appeal. (People v. Pierce, 269 Cal.App. 2d 193 [75 Cal.Rptr. 257]; People v. Odom, *(Cal.App.) 71 Cal.Rptr. 260; People v. Vinson, 268 Cal.App.2d 672 [74 Cal.Rptr. 340].)
Prejudice
If the validity of the conviction which is now before us for review were to be tested by the standard of sufficiency of the evidence to support a guilty verdict or perhaps if the test of review were that of determination of a miscarriage of justice within the meaning of section 13, article VI of the state Constitution,* 1 there would be good reason to affirm the judgment. People v. Johnson, supra, 68 Cal.2d at page 660, however, requires that the prejudicial character of the admission as substantive evidence of inconsistent statements of the witnesses and the failure to instruct that the testimony could be considered only for impeachment be tested by the rule of Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18 [17 L.Ed.2d 705, 87 S.Ct. 824]. That rule requires that the judgment of conviction be reversed unless the respondent has succeeded in convincing the reviewing court beyond a reasonable doubt that the error *250was harmless. I cannot find that respondent has carried its burden in the case at bench.
Chapman suggests two approaches in applying its rule. The court on review is required to ask “whether there is a reasonable possibility that the evidence complained of might have contributed to the conviction,” (17 L.Ed.2d at page 710) and whether, absent the error, “honest, fair-minded jurors might very well have brought in a not guilty verdict.” (17 L.Ed.2d at page 711.) The record is clear that the theory of the prosecution’s case at trial was bottomed upon proof by the improperly admitted out-of-court statements that appellant was in sole possession of the proscribed weapon on February 26, 1968. The statements were corroborated by evidence of a bill of sale of the gun to appellant and testimony that on occasions other than on February 26 he had cleaned it. While the corroborating evidence could have been the basis of a prosecution upon the theory that appellant was a joint possessor of the gun with his paramour and thus guilty of the crime charged, I cannot accept the proposition that there is no reasonable possibility that the constitutionally improper evidence contributed to the conviction or that honest, fair-minded jurors might not have brought in a verdict of not guilty had that evidence been excluded.
Examination of the two decisions of our Supreme Court since Johnson, which have considered the Chapman rule in the context of evidence held improperly admitted by the rule of Johnson, supports the conclusion here reached. In People v. Bradford, 70 Cal.2d 333 [74 Cal.Rptr. 726, 450 P.2d 46], the error was determined to be harmless beyond a reasonable doubt where the tainted evidence was consistent with the theories of both the defense and the prosecution and hence damaging to neither. Bradford contrasts with People v. Green, 70 Cal.2d 654 [75 Cal.Rptr. 782, 451 P.2d 422], In Green, error in admitting prior inconsistent statements as substantive evidence was found prejudicial in spite of other evidence tending to establish guilt. There the reluctant witness when confronted by his prior inconsistent statement implicating the defendant stated that he “guessed” he had told the truth at the time of the inconsistent statement. Additional evidence tended to prove that the defendant was guilty of the crime charged (furnishing marijuana to a minor) at a time other than that alleged in the information.
In my judgment the case before us is made analogous to Green and distinguishable from Bradford by the presence of *251important heavily damaging evidence of the prosecution received in the commission of constitutional error.2 (See Chapman v. California, 17 L.Ed.2d at page 710: “An error in admitting plainly relevant evidence which possibly influenced the jury adversely to a litigant cannot ... be conceived of as harmless.”)
There is a further ground for finding a reasonable doubt of the effect of the improperly admitted evidence upon the conviction. Appellant testified in his defense. On cross-examination he exhibited a damaging familiarity with the serial number of the weapon and admitted cleaning it and that he might have used it to repel a prowler if the occasion had arisen. In the language of Division Pour of this court: ‘ ‘ [W] e can only speculate as to whether [he] would have testified at all if the evidence . . . had not been admitted.”3 (People v. Wilson, 268 Cal.App.2d 581, 587 [74 Cal.Rptr. 131].)
To hold that in the case at bench the error is nonprejudicial beyond a reasonable doubt is to apply that “overemphasis upon the courts’ view of 'overwhelming evidence' ” that is condemned by the Supreme Court of the United States in Chapman v. California (386 U.S. 18, 23 [17 L.Ed.2d 705, 710, 87 S.Ct. 824, 827]).
I would reverse the judgment of conviction.
A petition for a rehearing was denied May 22, 1969. Thompson, J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted. Appellant’s petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied June 18, 1969. Peters, J., and Tobriner, J., were of the opinion that the petition should be granted.

 A hearing was granted by the Supreme Court on October 23, 1968. The opinion of that court is reported in 71 Cal.2d- [78 Cal.Rptr. 873, 456 P.2d 145],

 The learned and esteemed justices of the majority seemingly have risen to the bait of decisions affirming judgments of conviction for sufficiency of evidence. See for example the following citations in the majority opinion: People v. Thompson, 252 Cal.App.2d 76 [60 Cal.Rptr. 203]; People v. Garcia, 187 Cal.App.2d 93 [9 Cal.Rptr. 493]; People v. Nieto, 247 Cal.App.2d 364 [55 Cal.Rptr. 546], In my opinion, neither the holdings nor language of those cases is applicable to the case before us.

 The majority analyzes Green as a decision in which the only evidence of guilt consisted of the improperly admitted witness statements. The court in that ease, however, stated: 1 ‘ Since the two most damaging statements of the witness Porter are inadmissible as substantive evidence, and since we find no other substantial evidence of a narcotics transaction between Porter and defendant on the date charged, the prejudicial nature of the error is manifest ...” (70 Cal.2d p. 665.) (Underscoring added to indicate portion omitted from the sense of the majority’s analysis of Green.) In the case at bench, the evidence other than improperly admitted statements tending to establish guilt similarly does not pertain to possession ‘ ‘ on the date charged. ’ ’ I cannot accept the proposition that that language of Green is without significance. Bather the words tend to emphasize the need in applying the Chapman rule to look to the ease as tried and not to how it might have been tried. (Ross v. California, 391 U.S. 470 [20 L.Ed.2d 750, 88 S.Ct. 1850], reversing People v. Ross, 67 Cal.2d 64 [60 Cal.Rptr. 254, 429 P.2d 606].)

 Sinee the majority opinion stresses appellant’s testimony as of primary significance, it is safe to assume the trier of fact did also.