People v. Williams

93 Cal. App. 3d 40, 155 Cal. Rptr. 414, 1979 Cal. App. LEXIS 1747
California Court of Appeal·Decided May 16, 1979·No. Crim. 32281·Published·Cited by 40 cases

Opinion

Opinion

JEFFERSON (Bernard), J.

Defendant appeals from a judgment convicting him of two counts of forcible rape in violation of Penal Code sections 261, subdivision 2 and 261, subdivision 3.

*47 In an original information, defendant was charged in one count with committing forcible rape in violation of Penal Code sections 261, subdivision 2 and 261, subdivision 3, by acting in concert with codefendants Robert Boyd and Malcolm Hardaway. In a second count, defendant, along with codefendant Hardaway, was charged with committing the felony offense of kidnaping in violation of Penal Code section 207. In a third count, defendant, along with codefendants Boyd and Hardaway, was charged with committing a violation of Penal Code section 288a through aiding Boyd to perform an act of forcible oral copulation with the victim. The victim of the three charged offenses was Rebecca, a female, and the date of the alleged offenses was June 7, 1976. After a trial by jury on the original information, a mistrial was declared on May 18, 1977, because the jury could not arrive at a verdict as to defendant Williams. 1

After the mistrial, the information was amended so that defendant was charged in one count with personally raping Rebecca and, in another count, with aiding and abetting Hardaway in the latter’s rape of Rebecca. Defendant was convicted by the jury of both these offenses but found not guilty of the kidnaping and oral copulation charges. Defendant was sentenced to state prison for the term prescribed by law, with the sentences on the two counts ordered to run consecutively.

I

The Factual Background

On the evening of June 6, 1976, Rebecca, who lived in Orange County, drove alone to the Forum in Inglewood in Los Angeles County to attend a concert. When she left the Forum to return home, she got lost and stopped at a liquor store at the corner of Florence Avenue and Hoover Street in Los Angeles to seek directions to the freeway. The store was closed. As she turned to go back to her car, she was struck in the stomach and her purse was snatched. She saw someone running down the alley with her purse. Her car keys were in the purse and she had locked the car.

Rebecca was lent a dime to make a phone call. She went into a nearby phone booth and called a friend, Linda, who suggested that she call *48 Linda’s brother, Lariy. Defendant came up and said he would help get her purse back. She declined the offer of help but defendant took her by the arm and forced her into the front seat of a car between defendant, the driver, and another male seated on the passenger side. She screamed as she was pushed into the car.

Rebecca was driven around for awhile and ultimately the vehicle stopped at a house. She was forced to enter the house where she saw several males, including Hardaway, Waters and Boyd. Hardaway struck her in the nose, causing her nose to bleed. Defendant took her into a bedroom, removed her clothes, and forced her to have sexual intercourse with him. Hardaway came into the bedroom and he forced her to have sexual intercourse with him. While Hardaway was having intercourse with her, Boyd came in and forced her to orally copulate his penis. She was slapped a number of times during this sexual mistreatment.

Rebecca said that the next thing she remembered was the sun coming up and that defendant came into the room and helped her find her clothes. After she got dressed, Hardaway put a pillow case over her head and she was taken out of the house, placed in the front seat of a car and driven around for a period of time. She was then shoved out of the car into the street with the pillow case still over her head. Removing the pillow case, she began walking, ending up at a Jerseymaid Dairy. The police were called. Rebecca was taken to a hospital for examination. She was taken to a lot where she identified the vehicle which she had been forced to enter.

Although defendant did not testify, his defense was that Rebecca had voluntarily gotten into Hardaway’s car so that they could help her recover her purse; that Rebecca had voluntarily entered the residence where the alleged sexual offenses were committed but that no sexual acts took place.

II

Defendant’s Contentions of Error

Defendant asserts that the following errors occurred below: (1) The trial court erred in finding that Rebecca, the rape victim, was unavailable as a witness for the second trial to make admissible her first trial testimony as former testimony. (2) It was error for the trial court to deny defendant’s discovery motion for notes of the prosecutor regarding his interview with Rebecca, the victim. (3) It was error for the trial court to *49 deny defendant’s evidence suppression motion inasmuch as the evidence seized was the product of defendant’s illegal warrantless arrest. (4) Evidence of incriminating statements made by defendant to the police was inadmissible because secured in violation of his Miranda rights. (5) Defendant was denied a fair trial by having the codefendants from the first trial brought into court wearing jail clothes during the reading of the rape victim’s first-trial testimony, during a police officer’s testimony and during the prosecution’s closing argument.

Ill

The Finding of the Rape Victim’s Unavailability as a Witness to Make Admissible Her First-Trial Testimony Under the Former Testimony Exception to the Hearsay Rule

Rebecca, the rape victim, testified at the first trial of defendant and codefendants Boyd and Hardaway. As indicated previously herein, these two codefendants were convicted but a mistrial was declared as to defendant after the juiy could not reach a verdict as to defendant’s guilt or innocence of any of the charges alleged in the information. The mistrial was declared on May 18, 1977. The second trial against defendant alone was started on November 7, 1977. Jury selection was completed on November 9, 1977. On November 15, 1977, the trial court conducted a hearing to determine whether Rebecca was unavailable as a witness. As a result of the hearing the court determined that Rebecca was unavailable as a witness within the meaning of Evidence Code section 240, subdivision (a)(3), as being unable to testify because of her “then existing physical or mental illness or infirmity.” Rebecca’s testimony at the first trial was then read to the jury from the reporter’s transcript of her testimony. Defendant asserts that the trial judge’s ruling was erroneous, an abuse of discretion, and in violation of his constitutional witness-confrontation rights.

At the hearing on witness unavailability, one witness was the judge who presided at the first trial of defendant and the codefendants. The judge testified that Rebecca had testified for six days and that, during this time, her hands and legs were shaking and she was obviously under severe emotional strain; that on an initial occasion she collapsed as soon as she entered the courtroom; however, he did not observe any further collapses during her six days of testimony. The judge testified that the physician who examined Rebecca at the emergency hospital testified at *50

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People v. Williams, 93 Cal. App. 3d 40, 155 Cal. Rptr. 414, 1979 Cal. App. LEXIS 1747 (Cal. Ct. App. 1979).

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