Defendant was found guilty of the crimes of interfering with a peace officer in the performance of his or her duties and of resisting a peace officer with resulting serious bodily injury to the officer. On appeal, defendant contended the trial court erred in rejecting his objection to being required to wear a stun belt while testifying at trial. The Court of Appeal of California, Fifth Appellate District, affirmed. Defendant appealed.
In affirming, the appellate court held that although the general rules governing the use of physical restraints during trial, ADA attorney Orange County set forth in Duran, applied to the use of the stun belt, the record supported the stun belt's use on defendant during his trial. On review, the supreme court agreed that Duran controlled, but found that the record did not establish that the trial court's decision to compel the use of a stun belt was based upon its determination that there was a manifest need to impose such a restraint for security purposes. In the absence of such a finding, the trial court could not properly compel defendant to bear the burden of testifying while subjected to a remote-controlled stun belt that he objected to wearing. Accordingly, the trial court abused its discretion in rejecting defendant's objection to the use of the stun belt. Given the relative closeness of the evidence, the crucial nature of defendant's demeanor while testifying, and the likelihood that the stun belt had at least some effect on his demeanor while testifying, the supreme court determined the error was prejudicial in that there was a reasonable probability the error affected the trial's .
The judgment was reversed and the case was remanded to the appellate court with directions to remand the matter for a new trial.
Defendant was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and one count of second-degree murder in a nonjury trial in the Superior Court of Los Angeles County (California), which found special circumstances of multiple murder and imposed a death sentence. Defendant appealed, arguing that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress his confession and in refusing his requests for discovery in aid of his motion to suppress.
In a prosecution for the murders of three children, defendant was convicted and sentenced under the 1977 death penalty act, Cal. Penal Code § 190 et seq., whereupon an automatic appeal ensued under Cal. Penal Code § 1239(b). Defendant argued that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress his confession and in refusing discovery in aid of the motion. The court reversed, ruling that discovery might have led to evidence of habit or custom admissible under Cal. Evid. Code § 1105 to show that the police acted in conformity with habit or custom in extracting the confession and that evidence of reputation, opinion, and specific instances of conduct was also admissible to show motive, intent, or plan under Cal. Evid. Code § 1101(b). The court held that evidence that interrogating officers had acted according to a plan or with a motive to coerce defendant's confession was relevant to defendant's claim of involuntariness and reputation or opinion evidence would also be relevant. The court also ruled that, although defendant waived a jury on the guilt issue, Cal. Penal Code § 190.4(a) required a separate waiver of a jury trial on the special circumstance allegations.
The court reversed defendant's murder convictions and death sentence. The court ruled that the trial court erred in denying defendant's motions for discovery to support the contention that his confession was unlawfully extracted. The court also ruled that although defendant had waived a jury trial on the issue of guilt, the multiple murder special circumstances required a separate jury trial waiver.
