People v. Badgett

• Citation: 41 Cal.Rptr.2d 635,10 Cal.4th 330,895 P.2d 877
• Decision Date: 08 June 1995
• Docket Number: No. S040500,S040500
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 895 P.2d 877 The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Lance Christopher BADGETT et al., Defendants and Appellants.

Page 635

41 Cal.Rptr.2d 635

10 Cal.4th 330, 895 P.2d 877

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Lance Christopher BADGETT et al., Defendants and Appellants.

No. S040500.

Supreme Court of California, In Bank.

June 8, 1995.

Herbert F. Wilkinson, Office of the Atty. Gen., under appointment by the Supreme Court, San Francisco, for respondent.

David D. Carico, under appointment by the Supreme Court, Carmel, for appellant John Badgett.

Lynda A. Romero, San Diego, for appellant Lance Badgett.

LUCAS, Chief Justice.

The Court of Appeal reversed murder and conspiracy convictions entered against defendants Lance Christopher (Chris Badgett) and John Badgett on the ground the trial court erred in denying their motion to exclude the assertedly coerced testimony of the prime prosecution witness.

We reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeal. 34 Cal.App.4th 903, 30 Cal.Rptr.2d 152. Although defendants had standing under due process principles to complain of the admission of coerced trial testimony of a third person, our examination of the entire record persuades us defendants fail to demonstrate such a due process violation actually occurred at their trial. We also conclude the Court of Appeal erred in rejecting the trial court's ruling on a question of marital privilege. The trial court correctly determined that defendant Chris Badgett could not assert the privilege for confidential marital communications as to certain testimony of the prime prosecution witness, on the ground that he had not entered into a valid marriage with the witness in Texas.

FACTS

Defendants Chris and John Badgett, who are brothers, were convicted by jury of first degree murder (Pen.Code, § 187), ¹ and conspiracy to commit murder (§ 182). Both were sentenced to 25 years to life in state prison.

The victim was Michael Palmer from Devine, Texas, who accompanied the brothers from Texas to California when they left Texas to avoid revocation of probation. All three had apparently agreed they could never return to Texas.

Palmer's dismembered body was discovered in Santa Cruz. Police identified the body and sought the brothers for questioning, because it appeared all three men had applied for driver's licenses on the same date, using false identification papers but listing the same home address. Further, the victim had listed John Badgett as a reference in a job application. Police identified yet another driver's license applicant with the same home address, namely Henrietta (Retta) Jasik. All were from Devine, Texas. All three were arrested. Jasik's arrest was for having submitted a false driver's license application.

The primary prosecution evidence was supplied by Jasik, who was 17 years old at the time of her arrest. She testified under a grant of immunity that was the subject of dispute at trial.

Jasik testified that on the night of the murder of Michael Palmer in February 1989, she went with Chris Badgett out on the balcony of the condominium they all shared, and Chris brought up the subject of Palmer wanting to return home. Palmer had not said anything that evening about wanting to go home, but had mentioned on other occasions that he missed his wife and wanted to return to Texas. Chris told Jasik that he wasn't sure if he "should off him or not" or "if his brother would go along with it." Jasik thought Chris was "just in one of his moods."

According to Jasik, about half an hour later, Jasik, John Badgett, and the other two occupants of the apartment, Theresa Badgett and Joe Albano, went out on the balcony together. John Badgett said that since Palmer had talked so much about returning to Texas, they were going to send him back there on a bus. Theresa Badgett called to ascertain bus departure times and gave John Badgett a Versateller automatic teller machine card so he could borrow money for the ticket. Chris Badgett told everyone not to tell Palmer so they could surprise him. Someone told Palmer they were going to a party. Palmer called his job to get the night off. Jasik told Palmer, at Chris Badgett's request, that because she had to work the next day, she would not be going along. Chris, John, and Palmer left around 11 p.m. Chris and John returned around 4 a.m. Chris told Jasik that Palmer was on a bus back to Texas and would call in three days.

Jasik testified that a day or so later, Chris told her that he and John had driven Palmer up into the mountains and then stopped to smoke cigarettes. Palmer referred to Jasik and said he was glad she had not come with them. Chris was offended by these comments. When Palmer bent over to pick up the lighter he dropped, Chris shot him. Palmer rolled down the hillside and stopped at the base of a tree. There, while Chris held a flashlight, John dismembered Palmer and put the parts in a plastic bag Chris had placed in the car before they left. They took the bag down the road and threw the parts into the ocean.

Jasik also testified that at Chris's direction, she and John drove to San Francisco and threw the gun used in the murder off the Golden Gate Bridge.

Jasik testified that initially, when questioned about the disappearance of Palmer, she told the police that he had returned to Texas, and that she had been told that he had called to report his safe arrival there. Several days after she was arrested and brought to the juvenile facilities in Santa Cruz County, her mother arrived from Texas and told her she "had to tell the truth whether it hurt or not," and that she needed to "tell the truth and after that we can go home and not have to worry about anything." As a consequence, she decided to cooperate with the police. She told Officers Moore and Mansfield about the conversation in which Chris Badgett admitted to her that he had killed the victim and about the defendants' efforts to conceal their guilt after the crime, but she did not tell the officers about her conversation with Chris Badgett before the killing in which he said he did not know if he could trust the victim, and might have to kill him.

At a juvenile detention hearing upon a petition charging Jasik with obtaining a false identification and with being an accessory to murder, Jasik appeared, accompanied by her mother and her attorney, Stuart Rich, who had been appointed to represent Jasik on the perjury charges pending in juvenile court. A preliminary immunity agreement was entered on the record at that hearing and Jasik was released from custody and returned to Texas with her mother. Rich served as Jasik's appointed counsel until the first preliminary hearing, when juvenile charges against Jasik were dismissed and he was relieved. He continued to serve as retained counsel for a nominal sum until after the second preliminary hearing, when he withdrew because he anticipated being called at trial as a witness for the defense. Jasik remained unrepresented through trial.

Although initially she withheld this information from the police, Jasik did inform Rich of Chris Badgett's pre-offense statement about the necessity of killing the victim. Eventually she also told Rich that she had Chris's jacket and that it might have blood on it. Before the first preliminary hearing, Rich arranged for her to disclose these facts to the police on a further understanding regarding her immunity for the forthcoming statement and for turning over the jacket. Tests of the jacket did not disclose any blood.

Jasik was never provided with full transactional immunity, but received use immunity for her statements, as well as transactional immunity for crimes other than murder and perjury.

At trial, Chris Badgett made an in limine motion to exclude evidence of his statements to Jasik on the ground of marital privilege, claiming a common law marriage with her under Texas law. After a lengthy evidentiary hearing, the court ruled there was no common law marriage between Jasik and Chris under Texas law, and denied the motion.

The defense also made an in limine motion to exclude Jasik's trial testimony, asserting it was the product of an illegal arrest, an involuntary pretrial statement, improper interference with Jasik's counsel, and a coercive immunity agreement. Defendants claimed admission of such evidence at trial would violate their right to due process. Defendants made a lengthy offer of proof, alleging that Jasik was unlawfully incarcerated in Santa Cruz County for having a false identification because the charges arose from conduct in Santa Clara County. (See § 830.1; Welf. & Inst.Code § 626.) They also alleged that Jasik's initial cooperation with the prosecution was coerced by a promise of leniency, because police officers told Jasik she would be released from custody if she cooperated with them. They alleged that the prosecution had interfered with Rich's representation of Jasik, and finally, that the immunity agreement itself was coercive because it required Jasik to testify consistently with her previous statements to the police.

The trial court denied the motion on the ground that defendants lacked standing to make these claims, but made it clear that defendants were free to develop evidence before the jury of any coercion of the witness, including any evidence referred to in defendants' offer of proof.

At the conclusion of the evidentiary portion of trial, defendants moved to dismiss or, in the alternative, to strike Jasik's testimony on the ground that the immunity agreement was coercive. The trial court denied the motion, but advised defendants they were free to argue to the jury that her testimony should be discounted because of the agreement.

The jury convicted both defendants of murder and conspiracy, and both appealed. The Court of Appeal reversed on the ground that the trial court erred in rejecting, for lack of standing, what the Court of Appeal characterized as defendants' motion to exclude both Jasik's testimony and her out-of-court statements. The Court of Appeal also concluded the trial court erred in rejecting the...