California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from People v. Booker, 119 Cal.Rptr.3d 722, 245 P.3d 366, 51 Cal.4th 141 (Cal. 2011):
Defendant further contends evidence of this violent criminal activity was unduly prejudicial and misleading, and violated his constitutional rights to due process and to a fair and reliable penalty determination. Defendant fails to explain how any of the evidence was misleading, other than weakly suggesting the evidence wrongly portrayed him as a "dangerous knife wielding assassin." "Prejudice" in the context of Evidence Code section 352 is not synonymous with "damaging": it refers to evidence that poses an intolerable risk to the fairness of the proceedings or reliability of the outcome. (See People v. Alexander (2010) 49 Cal.4th 846, 904-905, 113 Cal.Rptr.3d 190, 235 P.3d 873.) Although the evidence of his violent criminal activity likely was damaging to defendant, he fails to demonstrate how it was unduly prejudicialthe inference that he was dangerous was entirely proper. Accordingly, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting this evidence, and defendant's constitutional rights were not violated.
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