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People v. Kraft8/10/2000
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Defendant contends the trial court erred in denying his motion to sever the homicide counts and try them separately, in 16 separate trials. In support of the motion, the defense presented expert testimony by Dr. Steven Penrod, a professor of psychology who has researched the effects of joinder on jury decisionmaking. Penrod concluded that joining multiple charges against a defendant increases the likelihood of conviction, probably not because of confusion of the evidence but rather because the jury tends to infer a criminal disposition.
Section 954 provides in relevant part: "An accusatory pleading may charge . . . two or more different offenses of the same class of crimes or offenses, under separate counts, . . . provided, that the court in which a case is triable, in the interests of justice and for good cause shown, may in its discretion order that the different offenses or counts set forth in the accusatory pleading be tried separately or divided into two or more groups and each of said groups tried separately." Because the charges in this case all alleged offenses of the same class, the statutory requirements for joinder were satisfied. Defendant, therefore, can predicate error in denying the motion only on a clear showing of potential prejudice. (People v. Bradford (1997) 15 Cal.4th 1229, 1314-1315.) We review the trial court's ruling on the severance motion for abuse of discretion. (Id. at p. 1315.)
" `The burden is on the party seeking severance to clearly establish that there is a substantial danger of prejudice requiring that the charges be separately tried.' [Citation.] [ ] `The determination of prejudice is necessarily dependent on the particular circumstances of each individual case, but certain criteria have emerged to provide guidance in ruling upon and reviewing a motion to sever trial.' [Citation.] Refusal to sever may be an abuse of discretion where: (1) evidence on the crimes to be jointly tried would not be cross-admissible in separate trials; (2) certain of the charges are unusually likely to inflame the jury against the defendant; (3) a `weak' case has been joined with a `strong' case, or with another `weak' case, so that the `spillover' effect of aggregate evidence on several charges might well alter the outcome of some or all of the charges; and (4) any one of the charges carries the death penalty or joinder of them turns the matter into a capital case. [Citations.]" (People v. Bradford, supra, 15 Cal.4th at p. 1315.)
Our determination whether defendant was prejudiced by joinder requires us first to examine whether evidence on each of the joined charges would have been admissible, under Evidence Code section 1101, in separate trials on the others. If so, any inference of prejudice is dispelled. (People v. Bradford, supra, 15 Cal.4th at pp. 1315-1316.) Conversely, however, the absence of cross-admissibility does not, by itself, demonstrate prejudice. (Id. at p. 1316.)
In denying the severance motion, the trial court in this case noted most of the evidence on the various charges would be cross-admissible. Defendant disputes that conclusion. We find his arguments unpersuasive. In a trial on each individual murder count, evidence of the other charged murders generally would have been admissible to show defendant committed the charged murder as part of a common scheme or plan, which was relevant to the element of intent. (Evid. Code, § 1101, subd. (b); Pen. Code, § 187.) The victims shared certain characteristics, all being White males between the ages of 18 and 25, all but one being single, and most being, at the time of the offense, vulnerable by virtue of lack of transportation. The method of obtaining control over the victims was similar in mos
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