ALBILLAR
People v. ALBILLAR
Opinion
Opinion
Vanessa Place, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Albert A. Albillar, Appellant.
Sharon Jones, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, Ventura, for Alex Adrian Albillar, Appellant.
Conrad Peterman, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for John Madrigal, Appellant.
Edmund G. Brown Jr., Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Pamela C. Hamanaka, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Michael C. Keller, Douglas L. Wilson, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
YEGAN, J.
A person who joins a criminal street gang, boasts of his membership, and commits crimes with fellow gang members, is in a poor posture to complain about evidence of gang association. A trial is a search for the truth and no defendant has the right to an antiseptic trial where the jury is deprived of a full and relevant evidentiary presentation. (See e.g., People v. Zack (1986) 184 Cal.App.3d 409, 415 , 229 Cal.Rptr. 317 ). Here the trial court, consistent with both the law and common sense, exercised its discretion and allowed this evidence in a unitary trial. As we shall explain, despite their best efforts to present this as something other than a…