People v. Leon CA2/8

BACKGROUND

I. Discovery and Evidentiary Issues

On February 18, 2014, the case was sent out for trial. The case had been assigned to the prosecutor a week earlier. On February 19, while jury selection was underway, codefendant’s counsel told the court that the prosecutor had just turned over booking photographs of the defendants that she intended to use at trial. Codefendant’s counsel objected on relevance grounds. The prosecutor stated that she had just been assigned to the case, and did not realize the relevance of the booking photographs until she observed defendant in court, and discovered that his appearance had changed dramatically from the

All further references are to the Penal Code, unless otherwise indicated.

2 time of his arrest. Codefendant’s appearance had also changed. Defendant’s counsel joined in the objection. The court reserved decision on the issue, after the prosecutor represented that she did not intend to mention the photographs in her opening statement. The prosecutor stated she intended to have several police officers identify the defendants in the surveillance video capturing the burglary. Because the prosecutor did not intend to mention this…