People v. Woods

• Decision Date: 21 July 2004
• Docket Number: No. G030494.,G030494.
• Citation: 16 Cal.Rptr.3d 174,120 Cal.App.4th 929
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Michael WOODS, Defendant and Appellant.

16 Cal.Rptr.3d 174

120 Cal.App.4th 929

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Michael WOODS, Defendant and Appellant.

No. G030494.

Court of Appeal of California, Fourth District, Division Three.

July 21, 2004.

Review Denied October 27, 2004.

Law Offices of Dennis A. Fischer, Dennis A. Fischer, Santa Monica, and John M. Bishop, for Defendant and Appellant.

Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, Robert R. Anderson, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Gary W. Schons, Assistant Attorney General, Meagan J. Beale and Susan Elizabeth Miller, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

OPINION

BEDSWORTH, Acting P.J.

Michael Woods was convicted of special circumstances murder for instigating the shooting death of his business partner Horace McKenna. As the prosecutor explained in his opening statement, this "case spans about 20 years and involves hundreds of people." The jury heard from a good many of those people at trial. However, it did not hear from John Sheridan, the man who killed McKenna. Woods contends the prosecution unlawfully interfered with his right to call Sheridan as a witness. He also contends the police infringed upon his right to counsel by using an informant to elicit incriminating statements from him. We recognize the fact the prosecution's actions in this case forced Woods to detour his defense, and put on a different — possibly less convincing — case than he wanted. But we find no misconduct on the part of the prosecution and, equally important, find no diminution of Wood's Fifth or Sixth Amendment rights which rose to the level of constitutional error. * * *

Shortly after midnight on March 9, 1989, McKenna was gunned downed by machine gun fire as he returned to his Carbon Canyon home in the back of a limousine. It is undisputed Sheridan was the shooter. The only question for the jury was whether Woods instigated the hit.

Woods and McKenna met while working as California Highway Patrol officers. Upon leaving the highway patrol, they went into the strip club business. That was 1977. By 1980, they had three clubs and business was good. However, not all was well between them. McKenna was a huge, intimidating man who witnesses said liked to "live large" and "throw his weight around." And according to people in the clubs, he often imposed himself on Woods and made life difficult for him. At one point, Woods asked a bouncer if he would kill McKenna for $30,000. When the bouncer declined—and then revealed the offer to others — Woods gave him his walking papers.

In the early 1980's, Woods hired David Amos to work in the clubs. Over time, it became apparent to Amos that Woods and McKenna did not get along. And because Amos was friendly with Woods, he was persona non grata with McKenna. This worried Amos because he considered McKenna to be very dangerous.

So did Woods. And in 1988, his fear of McKenna gathered more gravitas when McKenna threatened to have his daughters raped. Woods told Amos about the threat and asked him if he would help him kill McKenna. Amos said he would. Sometime later, Woods was overheard to say he was going to kill McKenna.

Actually, though, Amos ended up hiring Sheridan for the job. Woods had allotted $50,000 for the hit, but Amos only gave Sheridan about half of that. According to Amos, Woods had no contact with Sheridan, and Sheridan did not know Woods was behind the scheme. In fact, Amos told Sheridan he wanted McKenna killed for his own protection. Following the murder, Amos became Woods' new partner. However, their relationship soured when Amos came to suspect Woods was embezzling money from the clubs. Amos threatened legal action and tried to obtain greater control over the clubs by making business deals without Woods' knowledge.

It took the police nearly a decade to piece the case together. Eventually, Sheridan confessed to the shooting and worked with authorities to implicate Amos. Investigators then used Amos to get Woods. In exchange for leniency, Amos agreed to meet with Woods and wear a wire so the police could listen to their conversation.

The meeting was held at a Los Angeles deli. To get Woods talking about the murder, Amos told him Sheridan was pestering him for money. Woods advised Amos not to give him any, because it would look like an admission. Amos then told Woods that Sheridan suspected he was behind the murder. This took Woods by surprise, but he was confident the police would not be able to prove his involvement. He was confident the police were only on to him for tax evasion and did not "have shit on the other thing." Toward the end of the conversation, he asked Amos what ever happened to the murder weapon, and Amos assured him Sheridan had thrown it away.

As Woods was leaving the deli, the police placed him under arrest. He was charged with murder for financial gain and by means of lying in wait. The jury convicted him of murder for financial gain, but the court struck the special circumstance and sentenced him to prison for 25 years to life.

I

Woods contends the prosecutor committed prejudicial misconduct by interfering with his right to call Sheridan as a witness. The record does not bear this out.

The prosecutor originally designated Sheridan as a witness. However, after the jury was sworn, the prosecutor announced he did not intend to call Sheridan after all. This caused the defense great consternation. Claiming Sheridan was the "linchpin" to its case, the defense sought to call Sheridan as its own witness. However, Sheridan's attorney said he would advise Sheridan to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination because his plea agreement with the prosecution had yet to be consummated.

Under the agreement, the prosecution would dismiss the charge of capital murder in exchange for Sheridan's guilty plea to manslaughter and other allegations carrying a 20-year sentence. The prosecutor informed the court the agreement was brought about by Sheridan's willingness to work with authorities and was contingent on his continued cooperation, meaning he would have to testify truthfully if called by the prosecution. The prosecutor made no bones about the fact he was not going to execute the agreement until Woods' trial was over. Sheridan's attorney made it equally clear Sheridan would not testify for Woods until Sheridan was sentenced. Believing this presented a potential due process problem, the court invited briefing from the parties and set the matter for a hearing.

The defense papers did not mince words: "In its strategic effort to make Sheridan unavailable as a witness, the prosecutor provided Sheridan and his counsel with a written proposed plea agreement, but has delayed execution of that agreement until after Mr. Woods' trial ... thereby technically allowing for the assertion of the Fifth Amendment under just the circumstances that have arisen here. What is implicit in this arrangement is that the prosecution has made Sheridan's deal contingent upon his not being available to the defense. This is nothing short of misconduct on the part of the prosecution."

The defense proposed an assortment of remedies to address the situation. First, it asked the court to dismiss the case, declare a mistrial, or exclude Amos' testimony. Then it suggested various means to secure Sheridan's testimony, such as granting him judicial immunity or continuing Woods' trial until Sheridan was sentenced. The defense also argued Sheridan had waived his Fifth Amendment rights by accepting the plea bargain and agreeing to testify for the prosecution.

The court held a lengthy hearing on the matter. Although it did not expressly impugn the prosecutor's motives, it did recognize Sheridan's availability "is, to a certain extent, controlled by the People because the People have pending a deal" with him. The court said it would take "an idiot" not to see that "in order for [Sheridan] to protect himself, he's got to do what will maintain this deal with the prosecution. Which is, if the prosecution is not calling [him], just sit there and shut up."

While the court believed the prosecution was at least partly responsible for Sheridan's decision to take the Fifth, it did not believe this warranted dismissing the case, declaring a mistrial, or excluding Amos' testimony. Nor did it believe a continuance would solve anything, given the prosecutor's refusal go forward with Sheridan's plea agreement prior to the completion of Woods' trial. The court did believe there was a "pretty good case" for granting Sheridan judicial immunity, but in the end it rejected this option as unprecedented.

The court then discussed the prospect of allowing the defense to introduce Sheridan's statements through other witnesses. To accommodate Woods' due process rights, the court said it would be willing to relax the hearsay rule and afford the defense wide latitude as far as admitting Sheridan's statements into evidence. It also promised to instruct the jury Sheridan's out-of-court statements could be considered for their substantive truth.

When asked about this approach, the defense admitted it would be able to get all of Sheridan's statements into evidence through other witnesses. However, it insisted this would not be a suitable substitute for examining Sheridan on the witness stand. The court rejected this position, saying, "It is not necessarily a constitutional violation for a defendant not to be able to present their case in the way that they would like to present it, as opposed to getting the substance of the evidence in." Believing the defense could get the substance of Sheridan's statements into evidence through other witnesses, the court ruled Sheridan's unavailability did not amount to a violation of Woods' constitutional rights.

At trial, the defense was given free reign in terms of admitting Sheridan's statements into evidence. It used his statements to impeach Amos' version of events and show Amos and Sheridan had the most to gain from McKenna's demise. It...