## Facts

- Leticia Garcia lived with a family in Santa Ana as a live-in babysitter/maid and cared for A.G., a girl who was about six years old when the relevant period began.
- The charged conduct occurred over several years in the early 1990s and involved repeated sexual molestation of A.G. while Garcia was supervising her.
- A jury convicted Garcia of continuous sexual abuse of a child (Cal. Penal Code § 288.5), and the trial court imposed a 16-year prison term.
- Before trial, the defense sought to exclude evidence and insinuations about Garcia’s sexual orientation as irrelevant and unduly prejudicial and also sought to exclude a booking photograph depicting Garcia with short hair.
- At trial and in closing argument, the prosecutor attempted to portray Garcia as a lesbian and argued that her attraction to females was “very telling” because the victim was a female child, inviting the jury to treat sexual orientation as a motive for molestation.
- The trial court sustained objections and limited some orientation-related material but denied defense motions for mistrial based on the prosecutor’s repeated references and arguments.

## Issues

1. Whether the trial court abused its discretion by denying mistrial motions after the prosecutor attempted to inject Garcia’s sexual orientation into the case.
2. Whether the prosecutor committed prejudicial misconduct by arguing that Garcia’s sexual orientation showed a motive to molest a female child, thereby depriving Garcia of a fair trial.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeal held the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying mistrial motions during the evidentiary phase because the court largely limited the jury’s exposure to sexual-orientation material.
- The Court of Appeal held the prosecutor’s closing argument linking Garcia’s sexual orientation to motive was prosecutorial misconduct.
- The Court of Appeal concluded the misconduct was prejudicial and rendered the trial fundamentally unfair.
- The judgment of conviction was reversed.

## Legal Principles

- A defendant’s sexual orientation is not relevant to prove motive or propensity to sexually abuse a child absent a valid evidentiary connection.
- Prosecutorial argument that invites jurors to infer guilt from stereotypes, bias, or other inflammatory and irrelevant considerations constitutes misconduct.
- Misconduct is prejudicial when it undermines confidence that the jury could evaluate the evidence fairly and impartially, requiring reversal where the error is not harmless.

## Conclusion

The court reversed Garcia’s conviction because the prosecutor urged jurors to treat Garcia’s sexual orientation as a reason she molested a female child, an irrelevant and bias-based theory that amounted to prejudicial misconduct and denied due process.


People v. Garcia, 229 Cal. App. 4th 302 (Cal. Ct. App. 2014)