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People v. Mayfield1/2/1997
hey refrain from entering Haverstick's house or making any attempt to arrest defendant. Some of the demands were for the performance or nonperformance of "official acts" (for example, an officer acts in an official capacity when making a felony arrest or when placing or interrupting a wiretap) while others were not (for example, no use of a public office is necessary to furnish an automobile ).
Given the evidence at trial, therefore, a reasonable juror applying the court's instruction could have rested the verdict finding defendant guilty of kidnapping for extortion on a demand by defendant for the performance of an act that either was or was not an "official act." Although this situation would usually require reversal of the conviction, we conclude that the error is harmless here because defendant's demands were "so closely connected in time that they formed part of one transaction" ( People v. Diedrich (1982) 31 Cal. 3d 263, 282 [182 Cal. Rptr. 354, 643 P.2d 971]), all defendant's demands were proved by the tape recordings of defendant's telephone conversations, and defendant did not dispute the authenticity of the recordings either in whole or in part. In this situation, rational jurors could not disagree on which demand or demands defendant made. If the jurors accepted the authenticity of the tapes (and they were given no reason not to do so), they must necessarily have found that defendant made all the demands shown by the recordings. Otherwise stated, the jurors were presented with no evidence based upon which reasonable jurors could disagree as to which demand defendant made and yet convict him of kidnapping for extortion as defined for them by the court's instructions. (See People v. Brown (1991) 234 Cal. App. 3d 918, 935 [285 Cal. Rptr. 824].) Because the evidence of defendant's demands afforded "no reasonable basis for the jury to distinguish between them" ( People v. Stankewitz (1990) 51 Cal. 3d 72, 100 [270 Cal. Rptr. 817, 793 P.2d 23]), a finding that defendant made any one of the demands is "functionally equivalent" (see Carella v. California (1989) 491 U.S. 263, 271 [105 L. Ed. 2d 218, 225-226, 109 S. Ct. 2419] (conc. opn. of Scalia, J.)) to a finding that defendant made all the demands, including demands for the performance or nonperformance of "official acts." For this reason, we are persuaded beyond a reasonable doubt that the instructional error in failing to correctly define "official act" was "unimportant in relation to everything else the jury considered on the issue in question, as revealed in the record." ( Yates v. Evatt, (supra) , 500 U.S. 391, 403 [114 L. Ed. 2d 432, 449].)
This reasoning also disposes of defendant's contention that the evidence is insufficient to support the verdict. As we have explained, the tape recordings constitute substantial and indeed virtually uncontrovertible evidence that defendant held and detained William Haverstick, whom defendant repeatedly referred to as his "hostage" and repeatedly threatened to kill, to cause law enforcement officers to perform or refrain from performing "official acts" within the meaning of the statutory definition of extortion and kidnapping for extortion as explained by this court in People v. Norris, (supra) , 40 Cal. 3d 51.
N. Jury Instructions Regarding Confessions and Admissions
The court instructed the jury that "evidence of an oral confession or oral admission of the defendant should be viewed with caution," but it added that " he caution instruction as to an oral confession or oral admission does not, however, apply when the said oral statement or statements is proved by a tape recording."
As defendant recognizes, a trial court is required on its own initiative to inst
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