People v. Sullivan CA3

DISCUSSION

I The Trial Court Did Not Err In Having Defendant’s Juvenile Companion Take The Stand A Additional Factual Background Before trial, the trial court granted the prosecutor’s request to produce D. C., who was in juvenile custody, as a witness at trial. The court explained D. C. had “apparently

3 admitted to being a ward based on [a] second-degree murder conviction” and the conviction was not yet final. The prosecutor confirmed, that to compel D. C.’s testimony, she would be prepared to offer D. C. use immunity if he asserted his Fifth Amendment privilege on the stand. The trial court continued: “And, therefore, you believe that he can be ordered to testify. Obviously, the problem is normally the hammer that you have to try to coerce somebody to testify is incarceration. He is incarcerated so the Court would be limited to really effectively adding fines to that. And we really don’t know what the situation will be so we’ll have to have a hearing outside the presence of the jury to size that up. [¶] The one thing that [the prosecutor] did argue is that even if the minor did refuse to testify, she believes that should be able to occur before the jury and invite the jury to…