People v. Smith

*919 Opinion

Defendants Jeffrey Alan Smith and Mark Perry Taffolla were convicted of first degree murder, first degree burglary, and attempted robbery. The jury found true two allegations of felony-murder special circumstances, and both defendants were sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

Smith contends the court committed Aranda/Bruton error (See Bruton v. United States (1968) 391 U.S. 123 [ 20 L.Ed.2d 476 , 88 S.Ct. 1620 ] (Bruton); People v. Aranda (1965) 63 Cal.2d 518 [ 47 Cal.Rptr. 353 , 407 P.2d 265 ] (Aranda)), and violated his confrontation rights by admitting testimony of Taffolla’s out-of-court statements incriminating Smith. We disagree. Taffolla’s statements were admissible against Smith pursuant to the hearsay exception for spontaneous statements, and so the Aranda/Bruton rule did not apply. Admitting these statements did not violate Smith’s confrontation rights, because the statements were nontestimonial and fell within a firmly rooted hearsay exception. We also reject Smith’s claims of prosecutorial misconduct, instructional error, and cruel and unusual punishment. As for Taffolla, we reject his challenges to the denial of his Marsden motion…