The judge instructed the jurors with the words, “The past has nothing to do with what happens in this case…” Even though two police officers disclosed that a defendant was on parole, the judge’s extensive admonishment to the jury about disregarding the defendant’s criminal record convinced the appeals court that a mistrial was not warranted.

Writing for a unanimous three-judge panel in California’s Second District Court of Appeal, Associate Justice Maria E. Stratton affirmed the assault with a deadly weapon conviction of defendant Todd Johnson that was reached in the Superior Court of Los Angeles. Johnson was sentenced to eight years in state prison that had been doubled because of the Three Strikes Law. He appealed both the denial of his motions for a mistrial and a new trial.

The case centered on a street fight near the Santa Monica pier between Karisa Rivers, Johnson’s female companion, and Shaina Brown, a homeless artist who was showing her work and soliciting donations. Brown had previously been asked to leave the location and on previous occasions had exhibited signs of mental illness and was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

While Johnson was not involved in the majority of the 50-plus-blow-scuffle, near its conclusion, he stabbed Brown with a folding knife, causing a one-inch, six-to-eight centimeter deep cut. Spectators called the police, and Brown was taken to a nearby hospital where she underwent surgery.

The same witnesses who saw the fight described Johnson and Rivers to the police and both were soon apprehended when officers responded to a radio call that gave their descriptions. During their arrest and identification through a “field show-up,” Johnson told two different officers that he was on parole. The suspect’s field show-up occurred when they were detained shortly after the stabbing incident because their appearance matched the descriptions provided by the couple who had called the police.

Both police officers were witnesses in Johnson’s trial and both repeated Johnson’s disclosures that he was currently on parole. Defendant objected to the jury hearing this information. The objection was initially sustained, and the judge asked jurors to leave the courtroom. Out of the jury’s hearing, the prosecutor claimed she had instructed the officers not to include parole information in their testimony. Both denied hearing this instruction.

The parole disclosures followed a question from the prosecutor that asked the first officer what had happened after the field show-up. Superior Court Judge Kathryn A. Solorzano, criticized both the “open-ended question” and the appellant’s failure to request that the parole information be excluded from police reports during his “many pretrial motions.” Later, she told the prosecutor she gets “paid to do the right thing, not to win.”

Johnson, who was representing himself, then moved for a mistrial. Solorzano said she would consider it, then recalled the jurors who were soon given a lengthy speech on the importance of a variety of instructions they were given during jury selection. She told them to “entirely disregard” the parole disclosures, then reminded them of the importance of “compartmentalizing” their life experiences from trial testimony.

Solorzano also stressed the need for restraint, “intellectual honesty and absolute commitment to the (constitutional and procedural) principles) that apply in this case.” She then told them to let her know if they were not capable of doing that. She repeated, “So, again, that reference has zero, zero, relevance to what you are here for in this case now, which is to look at the facts that come to you, the evidence in this case, decide how much weight you wish to give that evidence-none, some, a great amount. It's up to you.

“You quantify the weight of the evidence and whether or not the People meet their burden in this case which is proof beyond a reasonable doubt as to every essential element… And if you were to disobey my order, there will not be justice at the conclusion of this case. That's how strongly I feel about that,” she stressed.

Shortly after testimony resumed, the second officer took the stand, and incredibly repeated information about the field show-up parole disclosure. Solarzano seemed shaken and uttered, “Oh my God. Okay,” before again instructing the jury to remember they had “absolutely no idea” that Johnson was on parole. She then excused them for the day and reminded them to let her know, any time during the trial, even during deliberation, if the parole information would affect their verdict. This was necessary, she said, to ensure “a fair fight.”

Every juror pledged to disregard the information during a subsequent individual poll, although Johnson’s attorneys objected to the answers given by several of them. One was excused because he did not “seem to appreciate the significance of the issue,” but two others were kept after a transcript review because neither “gave any indication they would engage in misconduct.”

In her opinion, Solorzano gave a lengthy review of Brown’s mental status before and after the altercation with the defendant and his companion. It is possible that Johnson felt this was relevant to their understanding of the fight. According to a psychiatrist who examined her during her hospitalization, she, was often “belligerent, dismissive, minimizing, disorganized, incoherent, confused, guarded, paranoid, vigilant, delusions of being injected with stuff and subjected to a computerized transgendered machine, loud, (and) disruptive. Another psychiatrist testified that he believed Brown was “suffering from severe psychosis the night of the stabbing.”

Appellate Justice Stratton then got to the heart of the matter—Johnson’s motion for a mistrial. She wrote that according to law and precedent, “A motion for a mistrial should be granted when a [defendant's] chances of receiving a fair trial have been irreparably damaged." She concluded that statements by the police officers were “brief and nonspecific,” without disclosing anything about “defendant’s criminal history or prior convictions.” They were not “incurably prejudicial.”

More importantly, she wrote that Solorzano “promptly and forcefully directed the jury to disregard the improper references to parole status.” Her juror questioning went to “great lengths,” and she dismissed a juror who hesitated in response to her inquiries about fairness.

Regarding Johnson’s motion for a new trial, Stratton emphasized her belief about the damage that Johnson did to his own case during his own testimony. She said his impeachment was “far more, from my perspective, far more evidence of an actual conviction in the sense that they know what he was convicted of versus a basic statement about him being on parole, which doesn't indicate what he's on parole for and would call for speculation on the part of the jurors.”

Finally, she addressed testimony about Brown’s mental health, explaining that her issues were not discredited and the decision was not “merely a credibility contest between alleged victim and alleged attacker.” Witness testimony was more important and the trial court “did not abuse its discretion in denying the motion for a new trial.”

Thus, the trial judge’s textbook admonition and the defendant’s own impeachment were found to be valid reasons for his eight-year prison sentence.