Does the court have to admit evidence that a defendant showed a witness a second gun that could not be linked to the murder weapon?

California, United States of America


The following excerpt is from People v. Carpenter, 21 Cal.4th 1016, 90 Cal.Rptr.2d 607, 988 P.2d 531 (Cal. 1999):

Defendant also contends the court should not have admitted evidence about the first, larger gun defendant showed the witness. He argues that because this gun could not have been the murder weapon, Riser requires its exclusion. (People v. Riser, supra, 47 Cal.2d at p. 577, 305 P.2d 1.) However, defendant did not object to testimony about this larger gun. The witness did not mention seeing two guns until two days before her trial testimony, long after the pretrial hearing. In light of the court's earlier expressed doubt about admitting evidence of a gun that could not be linked to the murder weapon, it may well have excluded evidence of a different gun had defendant objected at trial. Defendant's objection at the pretrial hearing to any testimony about gun possession was not sufficient to preserve an objection to the actual testimony about two different guns. (People v. Morris (1991) 53 Cal.3d 152, 190, 279 Cal.Rptr. 720, 807 P.2d 949.)

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