1DCA Division 3 Oral Argument - 2026/05/27 - May 27, 2026

argument

1DCA Division 3 Oral Argument - 2026/05/27

California First District Court of Appeal 2h 17m 7 chapters transcribed 1 month ago official recording ↗

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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

What does the court’s opening and panel introduction cover?

Kayla Rathchin 0:00

Court of Appeal for the State of California for Sapella District Division Three is now in session. The Honourable Alison M. Tucker presiding.

Alison M. Tucker 0:08

Good morning. Thank you. Welcome. Please be seated. Welcome everyone to Oral Argument for Division III. You see that with me on the bench this morning are my colleagues, Justice Karen Fujisaki and Justice Iwana Petru. We will have a panel change a little bit later in the morning. If you're here on line one, please come forward. In several of our cases today, including, for example, at least the first three, uh, tentative opinions were issued. We trust that you have the tentative opinions. Um we have read, as you know, the the briefs everybody has submitted in all of the cases and uh other materials as well, of course. And so we look forward to hearing your targeted arguments. Uh line one is the matter of people versus Richard Rice.

Alison M. Tucker 1:06

May I have appearances, please?

David Kaiser 1:08

Yes, appearance for appellant, David Kaiser for Richard Rice.

Alison M. Tucker 1:12

Good morning.

Kevin Lensley 1:13

Morning, Your Honors. Kevin Lensley for Respondent.

Alison M. Tucker 1:16

Good morning. Welcome to you both. Um Mr. Kaiser, the matter's down for ten minutes. Would you like to reserve some of your time?

David Kaiser 1:22

Yes, I would like to reserve two minutes.

Alison M. Tucker 1:24

We'll try to help you keep track. The microphone is yours. Please go ahead.

David Kaiser 1:30

Um like to thank the court for its clear tentative opinion which helps focus The uh the issues. Uh let I'm the issue I'm gonna be focusing on is the exclusion of the social media post. Um which is a Interesting new wrinkle. in the law of reputation for violence. Um The tentative on page sixteen says How Randy P. chose to portray himself on social media. Was not a fact of any consequence in this case. He and his persona were completely unknown. to the people who beat him up. The tentative thus seeks to dismiss The excluded social media post is categorically irrelevant. Because it was unknown to a to a poet. And the tent the tentative opinion follows the A G in this argument. Who makes such an argument of the R be it?

David Kaiser 2:27

fourteen and twenty six. But with all due respect The tentative and the AGR are wrong as a matter of law on this issue. It is not it is wrong as a matter of law that Randy P's reputation for violence, as announced in the social media post, Can only be relevant if the victim was aware of that social media post. So Uh as appellant discussed in detail the R ARB at pages eight through eleven and at the AOB at page thirty six. The case law for character for violence under evidence code. eleven zero three includes two different categories. The first in which the victim was a was aware. Of the evidence of the aggressor's character for violence. And the second in which the victim was not aware.

How do the parties argue the relevance of the social‑media post in People v. Richard Rice?

David Kaiser 3:20

So Mr

Alison M. Tucker 3:20

Kaiser, wouldn't it be relevant then to look at the uh couple of sentences that before the portion that you read to us from the tentative? Because the tentative not only says what you told us it says about uh the existence of the social media post n being unknown to the fell uh the people who uh attacked Randy P but it also says that Randy P's willingness to engage in physical activities that put him in harm's way was very well established by other evidence. For example his self professed enthusiasm for mar mixed martial arts.

David Kaiser 3:55

That's the redundancy argument, yes. And the problem is the trial court excluded it on relevance, not redundancy. And I will have further arguments that it is not in fact redundant. So The first thing is the uh The lines I read you though uh seem to be categorically excluding it because he was unknown to appellant. That's just wrong as a matter of law. The

Alison M. Tucker 4:19

Or it's incomplete as a matter of law, but then of course you only read an incomplete portion of what we wrote.

David Kaiser 4:24

No, because relevance is a different issue. Relevance is different from redundancy. It can be relevant. And then it can be as a subcategory, it could be excluded as redundancy. But the establishment of relevance is the key issue here. The trial court below excluded it on relevancy. This opinion continues to exclude it on relevancy. I want to get it to clear that relevancy bar and then we can deal with the other bars that might be uh applicable.