People v. Huggins

California Court of Appeal Jun 24, 1986 No. H000448Published

Before: Brauer

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Holding. The court held that a neighbor's hearsay statement regarding her discovery of a burglary did not qualify as a declaration against penal interest under Evidence Code section 1230, as it lacked any admission of criminal conduct and provided an innocent explanation for her presence. Consequently, the trial court properly excluded the evidence because it remained inadmissible hearsay despite the standards for third-party culpability evidence set forth in People v. Hall.

Issues

Whether a neighbor's hearsay statement regarding her discovery of a crime scene qualifies as a declaration against penal interest under Evidence Code section 1230.
Whether the trial court erred in excluding hearsay evidence of third-party culpability under the standards established in People v. Hall.

Disposition. affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“To quote the statute is to establish that Miss Nugent’s declaration did not fall within its boundaries.”

“Incompetent hearsay is as inadmissible as it always was.”

Opinion

BRAUER, J.

Defendant was charged with first degree burglary arising out of the forcible entry into a home and theft of money contained in a letter indoors. He pleaded no contest in the face of virtually conclusive evidence consisting of four fingerprints and the absence of a benign explanation for their presence in the house. Thereafter substitute counsel woke up to the fact that the issue defendant wished to raise on appeal would not survive such a plea, even with a certificate of probable cause, as the alleged error was not of constitutional dimension nor undermined the legality of the proceedings.

(People

De Vaughan

(1977) 18 Cal.3d 889, 895-896 [135 Cal.Rptr. 786, 558 P.2d 872].) He thereupon successfully moved to vacate the plea and submitted the cause on the transcript of the preliminary hearing, a so-called “Bunnell plea.”

(Bunnell

Superior Court

(1975) 13 Cal.3d 592 [119 Cal.Rptr. 302, 531 P.2d 1086].) Defendant was promptly found guilty.

The sole ground for appeal is the refusal of the magistrate at the preliminary examination and of the trial judge at a pretrial hearing to admit the hearsay declaration of Teresa Grace Nugent, a neighbor of the victim, offered through the testimony of investigating police officer Michael Handa.

The offer of proof in the trial court was as follows:

“The Court: Do you have any comment on the motion?

“Ms. Waggoner [Deputy District Attorney]: Yes. In response, your Honor, the People’s position is that Miss Nugent’s statements are hearsay

[831]

and they do not fall within the [any?] exception to the hearsay rule. The statements are not declarations against penal interest. The statement which was in the police report is that Miss Nugent discovered that the rear bedroom sliding glass door was broken and that she entered through the broken door; she went toward the kitchen and picked up the mail on the floor of the hallway, placed the mail on the counter, and then attempted to locate . . . the victim. That statement is not a statement against her own penal interest.

People v. Huggins

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BRAUER, J.

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