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People v. Rizo4/24/2002
want to harm his immigration status.
The court denied the request for judicial notice. It ruled that the testimony was not relevant and that its probative value was substantially outweighed by its potential for prejudice.
As the Attorney General points out, defendants' request to introduce SanFilippo's prior testimony was improper since he was not unavailable as a witness, having previously testified at the trial. (Evid. Code, § 1291, subd. (a).) In addition, a court cannot take judicial notice of the truth of hearsay statements in court files, including testimony. (People v. Harbolt (1997) 61 Cal.App.4th 123, 126-127.)
Defendants respond that since the court did not exclude the evidence on these grounds, but rather because it found it was not relevant or sufficiently probative, it would not have allowed defendants to present the evidence even if they had recalled SanFilippo. Assuming that to be the case, we still find no prejudicial error in the ruling. Defendants argue the exclusion of the evidence allowed Santoyo to claim, without impeachment, that he lied out of fear of defendants. That claim, in turn, provided a convenient explanation for why Santoyo lied and also painted defendants as dangerous individuals who were likely to know a murder might result from their activities at the time of the shooting.
However, Santoyo's claim that he feared retaliation from defendants had minimal significance either in bolstering his credibility or portraying defendants as dangerous. Even if the jury completely believed Santoyo's claim he gave the police false information out of fear of defendants, it was still faced with the facts, noted earlier, that he had testified inconsistently numerous times and had changed his testimony after discussing the case with the prosecutor. It is not reasonably likely the evidence suggesting that in fact Santoyo lied out of concern about his immigration status would have affected the jury's assessment of his credibility.
Similarly, defendants would have been portrayed as dangerous regardless of whether the jury believed Santoyo was afraid of them. Wholly apart from Santoyo's testimony, the prosecution had introduced evidence of the two prior fights involving some of defendants and Galvan through witnesses Jose Galvan and Jacob Marquez. There was also the evidence of the murder weapon and ammunition found in defendants' house. It is not reasonably probable the jury would have formed a different impression of defendants' dangerousness had they been allowed to impeach Santoyo's claim that he lied because he was afraid of them.
F. Failure to Disclose Alleged Impeachment Evidence Regarding Santoyo
Defendants contend the prosecutor violated his obligation to disclose exculpatory evidence to the defense by failing to disclose evidence impeaching Santoyo's credibility, i.e., (1) the fact he had been arrested; (2) the fact he declined witness protection; and (3) the lunch meeting between Santoyo and the prosecution.
The prosecution's failure to disclose relevant impeachment evidence requires reversal only if the evidence is material in the sense that its suppression undermines confidence in the outcome of the trial, i.e., only if there is a reasonable probability that, had the evidence been disclosed to the defense, the result of the proceeding would have been different. (People v. Santos (1994) 30 Cal.App.4th 169, 179.)
Here, defendants concede they learned of all of the undisclosed evidence in time to use it at trial. Indeed, as discussed in the previous section, defendants tried to introduce the previous arrests, and did introduce the lunch meeting, to impeach Santoyo while he was
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