People v. Hernandez CA2/2

DISCUSSION

I. Denial of Request For Continuance

On the third day of trial, defendant asked for a one-day continuance so he could recreate the scene on the driveway and illustrate, with a photograph, that Officer Ruiz could not have seen defendant place the loaded gun in the SUV’s engine compartment. Defendant explained that his request was timely because Officer Ruiz had only testified to his vantage point during the last day of trial, and defendant had located an identical SUV and was going to ask its owner to borrow it. The trial court denied defendant’s request for three reasons: (1) it would be nearly impossible to recreate Officer Ruiz’s vantage point in the scene because that vantage point turns on “a million factors,” including the angle of the officer’s head, the orientation of the SUV, the angle of defendant’s body, the relative heights of the defendant and Officer Ruiz, and the lighting;

We granted defendant’s request to judicially notice the trial court’s amended abstract of judgment. 3 (2) defendant had not exercised reasonable diligence because he waited until the middle of trial to attempt to recreate the scene; and (3) any photograph from the recreated…