People v. Woolman

California Court of Appeal Jul 16, 1974 No. Crim. 23844Published

Before: Kingsley

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Holding. The court held that the trial court properly conducted an in camera hearing to determine the relevance of a police officer's personnel file and correctly declined to provide a sua sponte instruction on the defense of others when it contradicted the defendant's theory of the case.

Issues

Whether the trial court erred in denying access to a police officer's personnel file after an in camera review.
Whether the trial court erred by conducting an in camera hearing regarding privileged records without the presence of counsel.
Whether the trial court had a sua sponte duty to instruct the jury on the defense of others.

Disposition. Affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“We have examined the filé tendered to the trial court at the in camera hearing and agree with that court’s ruling; nothing in that file not already known to defense counsel could possibly have aided in the defense.”

“To require an adversary hearing with counsel would destroy, at the outset, the very privilege that the hearing is designed to protect.”

Opinion

KINGSLEY, J.

Defendant was charged with assault on a police officer by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury, in violation of subdivision (b) of section 245 of the Penal Code. After a trial by jury, he was found guilty of assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury, in violation of subdivision (a) of section 245, a lesser and included offense. Defendant was sentenced to the county jail, the sentence was suspended and defendant was granted probation. He has appealed; we affirm.

On May 10, 1972, a demonstration against the Viet Nam war was conducted on Wilshire Boulevard near Burlington Avenue in the City of Los Angeles. One of the leaders of that demonstration was Ron Kovic, a paraplegic veteran of the. war, who was confined to a wheel chair. When

[654]

the demonstration was broken up, the lieutenant commanding the assigned police force ordered Officer Robinson, Officer Bonneau and Officer Moran to arrest Kovic. The officers were in plain clothes, having earlier been detailed as undercover operatives to infiltrate the demonstration movement. The prosecution’s case was that, as the officers, having displayed their badges and initiated the arrest of Kovic, were wheeling him toward a police van, Officer Robinson was attacked by defendant and injured. Defendant’s claim was that he thought Kovic was being set upon by civilians not in sympathy with the demonstration and started to his aid, only to be attacked by the arresting officers and forcibly restrained before he could or did attack them.

In that state of the case, defendant sought, by various motions, to secure access to Officer Robinson’s official files in order to support a claim that that officer had a propensity for violence (Evid. Code, § 1103). The officer was called and testified, in open court, telling of two previous instances in which he had been the alleged victim of similar assaults—one being three and the other four years previously; he also admitted to one instance of shooting a resisting person in order to effect an arrest. Accurately anticipating the rules and procedures later to be laid down by the Supreme Court in

Pitchess

People v. Woolman

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KINGSLEY, J.

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