California Legal Brief

The Rule of The People v. Zapata is that when a suspect invokes and does not waive the right to counsel, and a known law enforcement officer continues to "stimulate" a Perkins operation in a manner that amounts to a custodial interrogation, the suspect's resulting incriminating statements are inadmissible, under circumstances where the known officer's actions were reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response and created a police-dominated atmosphere of compulsion.

The Rule of People v. Harzan is that a trial court prejudicially violates a defendant's constitutional right to present a defense when it conditions the exclusion of highly prejudicial prior misconduct evidence on the defendant's waiver of an entrapment defense, under circumstances where the prior misconduct evidence is not relevant to the objective entrapment standard under California law.