P. v. Mano
Filed 8/1/12
P. v. Mano CA2/1
California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts
and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or
ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for
publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115
IN
THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
SECOND
APPELLATE DISTRICT
DIVISION
ONE
THE PEOPLE,
Plaintiff and Respondent,
v.
JONATHAN MANO,
Defendant and Appellant.
B235284
(Los Angeles
County
Super. Ct.
No. NA080274)
APPEAL from
a judgment of the Superior Court
of
County. Mark C. Kim, Judge. Affirmed.
Chris R.
Redburn, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
Kamala D.
Harris, Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General,
Lance E. Winters, Assistant Attorney General, Scott A. Taryle and Pamela C.
Hamanaka, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
_________________________________
>
Jonathan
Mano is serving a term of 52-years-to-life for
testimony of an informant whose convictions for armed robberies in the state of
Washington were excluded from
evidence at Mano’s trial. Mano claims
this ruling and other evidentiary errors
require us to reverse his conviction. We
don’t agree.
FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS BELOW
Christopher
Davenport was shot on a street in San Pedro in the early morning hours of May 18, 2007. There were no eyewitnesses to the murder but
residents of the neighborhood reported hearing the shots and immediately
afterward hearing a Japanese-sounding motorcycle speed from the scene.
Eight days
later, on May 26, 2007, two
Los Angeles police officers
detained Charles Bliss for riding his bicycle on a San Pedro sidewalk. The officers found narcotics in Bliss’s
possession and placed him under arrest.
In the course of his arrest Bliss told the officers that he had
information about some narcotics cases.
The officers told Bliss they weren’t interested in that information and
asked him whether he had any information on the “Tittyhead” murder. (Tittyhead was Davenport’s
nickname.) Bliss said that he might
know something. According to Bliss, one
of the officers showed him the picture of a man that Bliss identified as
being involved in the murder. The man in
the picture was not Mano.
name="_ftnref1" title="">[1] The officers took Bliss to the Harbor
Division station where he was interviewed by the detectives assigned to the Davenport
investigation.
Bliss’s
first interview with the detectives was on May 26, 2007, the day of his arrest. He told the detectives that three or four
days earlier (i.e. some time after the murder) he and a friend were sitting in
the hallway of an apartment building when a man named Grageda and another man
whose name he didn’t know entered the hall.
Bliss described the unnamed man and said that he was wearing a white
T-shirt. He did not see any tattoos on
him. The man was waiving a .380 or
nine-millimeter gun as he and Grageda spoke.
Bliss overheard portions of the men’s conversation. Grageda told the man that he had paid him
“darn good money to‑‑take care of this little item for him because
the guy owed him a line of money.” Bliss
also heard Grageda tell the man:
“‘I paid you to do a good job [and] apparently you did.’”
“‘I’ll hire you again, you know, provided you don’t ‑ that nothing
bad goes on over here . . . directed towards me or anything
else.’” Grageda threatened the man that
“‘if I go to jail . . . the homeboys are going come out and get you.’” Bliss heard Grageda mention “something about
a black guy over on 1st and Gaffey . . . .”
recent murder because he had heard on the street before the murder that someone
owed a large “dope debt” and “they’re going to shoot him.” The detectives asked Bliss why he was
talking to them. Bliss answered: “Because . . . I’m tired of being locked up
and this is a serious matter.” Detective
Rodriguez told Bliss that he couldn’t make any deals or promises but that he
would inform the District Attorney’s office of Bliss’s cooperation.
The
detectives’ second interview with Bliss took place a year later, on June 4, 2008, at Corcoran
State Prison. Bliss identified Mano from
a photographic lineup as the person that had been conversing with Grageda in
the hallway.
title="">[3] He mentioned the name Davenport to the
detectives for the first time.
Bliss was
interviewed again on June 26, 2008. This
time he told the detectives that the conversation between Grageda and the
unnamed man took place before the Davenport murder. He stated that he heard Grageda ask the man:
“‘Now, you know who Davenport is, don’t you You sure’”
The other man answered: “‘Yeah.’”
Grageda stated to the man:
“‘Well, we’ve already made arrangements. . . . Take care of it and it’s done.’”
Mano and
Grageda were arrested and charged with murder and conspiracy to commit
murder. Bliss testified at their
D.A. and the detectives for the first time that the man he saw conversing with
Grageda in the hallway had a tattoo on his abdomen. Bliss stated he could see the tattoo and the
man’s gun because the man’s T-shirt “was open and that he could see the gun
and, in fact, he could see a tattoo on the abdomen area.”
hearing as the person he had seen in the hallway with Grageda.
Mano and
Grageda were tried separately.
Before
Mano’s trial began, and before Bliss testified, Mano asked the court to allow
him to impeach Bliss with two robbery convictions in the state of Washington in
the 1970s.
convictions on the ground that they were too remote. The court also disallowed evidence that as a
consequence of the Washington robbery convictions Bliss was subject to a
25-to-life sentence under the California Three Strikes law when he was arrested
for narcotics possession in May 2007.
The court ruled that under Evidence Code section 352 the evidence was
unduly prejudicial and not very probative because Mano could not show that
Bliss was actually promised some benefit in return for his testimony. The court, however, did allow Mano to impeach
Bliss with a 1993 conviction for spousal abuse.
At Mano’s trial Bliss testified
that the conversation he heard between Mano and Grageda occurred about
half an hour before he was arrested on May 26, 2007 but moments later
corrected himself and stated the conversation occurred four, five
or six days before his arrest (the week after the murder, under
either version). On cross‑examination,
Bliss stated that he believed he heard the conversation on
May 26, 2007, half an hour before he was arrested but that he wasn’t
sure.
Bliss testified that he and his
girlfriend were in the hallway of an apartment building when he heard Grageda
and another man, who were also in the hallway, arguing. The other man “sounded like he demanded more
money or something” and Grageda responded “that he had already gave him enough;
he wasn’t going to give him any more” and that he had “already gave him enough
to kill a moose.” After saying that,
Grageda told the man: “‘If you do a good
job, . . . I will hire you again some time.’” Bliss stated he did not know what the men
were referring to or what the man was being hired or paid to do but he did hear
Grageda mention the name Davenport.
Grageda asked the other man if he knew who Davenport was and the man
said yes. After that Grageda said
“‘I will pay you what we agreed on’” and Grageda and the man left the
building. Bliss positively identified
Mano as the man who had the conversation with Grageda in the hall.
Other evidence linked Mano to the
murder. Approximately four months after
the murder police conducting a parole search found a Barretta semiautomatic
handgun along with 9 millimeter ammunition and a canvas shoulder holster in a
bedroom rented by Mano. Mano admitted
possession of the gun. Ballistics tests
showed that the Barretta was the murder weapon.
The prosecution also produced evidence that a month before the murder
Mano purchased a Yamaha motorcycle.
A jury
convicted Mano of one count of first degree murder and acquitted him of the
conspiracy charge. The court sentenced
Mano to a total prison term of 52 years to life.
DISCUSSION
Focusing on
Bliss’s testimony alone, Mano argues that there was insufficient evidence to
convict him of murder. We disagree. We note that although Bliss’s testimony was
rife with inconsistencies and contradictions he was consistent in identifying
Mano in the photo line-up, at the preliminary hearing and at the trial as the
man he saw and heard conversing with Grageda in the apartment house
hallway. Bliss was also consistent in
describing the parts of the conversation that he overheard between Grageda and
Mano. Inconsistencies and contradictions
within a witness’s testimony are for the jury to resolve, not the appellate
courts. (People v. Hecker (1960) 179 Cal.App.2d 823, 827.)
Mano
contends that the court erred in not allowing him to impeach Bliss with the two
37-year-old armed robbery convictions.
The court did, however, allow evidence that Bliss was arrested for
a drug offense in 2007 and that he was in prison for that crime in 2008 when he
talked to the police. The court also
allowed evidence that he had been convicted of spousal abuse in 1993. Thus the jury was presented with significant
evidence of criminal behavior even
absent evidence of the 37-year-old convictions. Therefore the court did not
abuse its discretion under Evidence Code section 352 in excluding evidence of
the robberies as substantially more prejudicial than probative on the issue of
honesty.
Mano,
however, argues that the robbery convictions were relevant not only on the
issue of honesty but also to show that Bliss had a motive to invent or
embellish Mano’s involvement in the murder in order to try to avoid a
25-to-life Three Strikes sentence for drug possession. We agree that this theory presents a separate
relevance issue but we conclude the facts do not support the theory. Bliss was sentenced for the drug offense
he saw conversing with Grageda.
name="_ftnref6" title="">[6]
In any case, even if the court
erred in excluding evidence of the robbery convictions the strong
rendered that error harmless: Mano not
only owned a Yamaha motorcycle at the time of the murder but was found in
possession of the murder weapon.
Finally,
Mano argues that the court erred in allowing Davenport’s girlfriend to testify
because she had nothing relevant to say and her testimony only inflamed the
passions of the jury. Given the strength
of the People’s case, as discussed above, the error, if any, was
harmless. (People v. Watson (1956) 46 Cal.2d 818, 836.)
DISPOSITION
The
judgment is affirmed.
NOT TO
BE PUBLISHED.
ROTHSCHILD,
Acting P. J.
We concur:
CHANEY,
J.
JOHNSON,
J.
name="_ftn1" title="">[1] The officer whom Bliss claimed showed
him the photograph testified he did not remember doing so and that it was not
his practice to show photographs to possible witnesses in homicide
investigations. The officer was positive
that he did not show Bliss a photograph of Mano because he knew Mano and would
have remembered showing Bliss his picture.
murder occurred on First
Street in
San Pedro.
