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Murder Convictions Upset Based on Reading of Preliminary Hearing Testimony—C.A.
Opinion Says Inadequate Efforts Were Made to Locate Witness; Right to Confrontation Was Violated
By a MetNews Staff Writer
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RAMIREZ |
AYALA |
A judge erred in admitting the preliminary hearing testimony of a missing key witness in a special-circumstance murder case against two persons accused of murdering the victim and burning him alive where the prosecution knew that the witness lived a transient lifestyle and had gone missing at least two years earlier yet failed to search for her until shortly before the trial, Div. One of the Fourth District Court of Appeal has held.
Justice William Dato wrote the opinion, filed Friday, which, in its published portion, reverses the judgments of conviction as to each defendant—Gabriela T. Rangel Ayala and Raymundo Ortega Ramirez—in Riverside Superior Court. Acting Presiding Justice Terry B. O’Rourke and Justice Julia C. Kelety joined in the opinion.
In an unpublished portion of the opinion, Dato found that the trial court erred in allowing the prosecution to introduce evidence of satanic worship by Ayala.
In September 2016, Ayala had been living in a recreational vehicle near an abandoned home in a remote area of Riverside County with her boyfriend Ramirez and Breanna Stratton, a pregnant woman who was previously homeless. On Sept. 11 of that year, Ayala telephoned Samuel Galvan, a man who had recently threatened Stratton after Stratton broke off their sexual relationship, and invited him to the property for a threesome. After Stratton indicated that she wanted no part in a threesome, Ayala said he will “get his threesome” and pounded her fist.
Stratton heard Ayala pray “Dear Lord Satan, please let this go through.” Stratton left, going into the abandoned house, watching from a window.
Stratton saw Ramirez and another man carry Galvan from the vehicle on a sheet and put him on a lit fire pit, at Ayala’s direction. The man who helped Ramirez carry Galvan said that he believed that Galvan was alive and breathing when he was placed on the fire.
It took an investigator nearly two months to locate Stratton for the 2017 preliminary hearing, but she appeared on two dates in November and December to testify and was cooperative.
After multiple continuances, the trial was set for April 8, 2020, and due to delays caused by emergency orders related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the trial did not begin until July 13, 2021. The prosecution moved in limine to introduce Breanna’s preliminary hearing transcript on the ground that she was unavailable pursuant to Evidence Code §1291.
During a due diligence hearing on the motion, Felipe Villalobos, an investigator for the prosecution, detailed efforts to locate Stratton during the two-week period before the trial, including contacting her grandmother with whom Stratton’s child lived. The grandmother explained that Stratton had visited a few days before, but was homeless and “comes and goes like the wind.”
Villalobos followed up on all other addresses and phone numbers for her as well as checking in with markets where she had used a food-stamp card and distributing a wanted flyer, but was unable to locate her. The trial court allowed the transcript of her testimony to be read to the jury.
The jury convicted Ayala and Ramirez of murdering Galvan and found true special circumstances allegations that they had killed Galvan while lying in wait and that the murder involved torture. They were each sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.
Ayala and Ramirez appealed, challenging the admission of the transcript, among other things.
Insufficient Due Diligence
Dato explained that a criminal defendant has a constitutional right to confront prosecution witnesses, with some exceptions. One such exemption is that a witness’s preliminary hearing testimony of an unavailable witness may be admitted at trial without violating the defendant’s confrontation rights as the witness had been subject to cross-examination at the earlier hearing.
Evidence Code §240(a)(5) provides that a witness is deemed “unavailable” when the witness is absent from the hearing and the proponent of the witness’s testimony has exercised reasonable due diligence to try to secure the witness’s presence at the court proceeding. He explained that courts look to three factors to determine whether the prosecutor had shown reasonable diligence—the timeliness of the search, the importance of the witness’s testimony, and whether leads as to the witness’s location had been reasonably explored.
Finding that Stratton was a key prosecution witness, Dato wrote:
“Breanna’s testimony was critical to establish the degree of murder and the lying in wait special circumstance allegation as to both defendants.”
Too Late
Given the essential nature of her testimony to the trial, Dato found the prosecution’s efforts lacking. He said:
“Although the prosecution exercised diligence during the two weeks it searched for Breanna immediately before trial, it did nothing to locate her during the months this matter was repeatedly continued for trial, making the search untimely. The uncertainty as to when trial would begin does not excuse the prosecution from timely starting to search for a cooperative witness it actually knew was missing. The record suggests Breanna would have been found and produced had the prosecution begun to look for her even a short time earlier.”
The jurist declared:
“We conclude the error was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt as to either defendant because Breanna’s testimony was critical to several aspects of the prosecution’s case….Accordingly, we reverse defendants’ first degree murder convictions and the attached special circumstance allegations.”
Dato found that double jeopardy did not apply to bar retrial of the case because the erroneous admission of the preliminary hearing transcript was a trial error and not an evidentiary one.
Unpublished Portion
In the unpublished portion of the opinion, Dato addressed two issues he said might arise again before the trial court on remand.
He first addressed the admission of evidence at trial suggesting that Ayala worshipped the devil. Dato found the admission of such evidence to be in error and said:
“[E]vidence** Ayala worshiped Satan at best had only minor probative value regarding her state of mind or intent, and to show that certain witnesses feared her. As we have already noted, the potential for unfair prejudice is patent. The trial court erred in admitting the evidence because of its limited probative value and high potential for prejudice….On remand if the matter is retried, this evidence should be excluded.”
He rejected the defendants’ assertion that the jury should have been instructed that Stratton was an accomplice as a matter of law—and as such the jury should view her testimony with caution—finding that her status as an accomplice was reasonably disputable.
The case is People v. Ayala, 2024 S.O.S. 1189.
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