In People v. Thornton (2000) 85 Cal.App.4th 44, officers found a shaving kit containing a syringe during a consent search of the defendant's car. As he was being handcuffed, the defendant volunteered, "'I have only tried or used heroin several times. I am not really using it.'" ( Id. at p. 46.) After they took the defendant to jail, the officers found a bag with $ 10 worth of heroin in the back seat of their police car. On appeal from his conviction for possession of heroin, defendant contended his statement was erroneously admitted against him because it was irrelevant and its prejudicial effect substantially outweighed its probative value. ( People v. Thornton, supra, 85 Cal.App.4th at p. 46.) The appellate court disagreed. Responding to the assertion "the statement was cumulative because the hypodermic syringe found in his shaving kit was sufficient to prove knowledge," the appellate court wrote: "These arguments are based on confusion of the concept of a fair trial with the concept of a fair fight. A criminal trial must always be fair. But it need not be fair in the sense of a fair fight: one in which each side has an equal chance to win. We do not handicap the parties to a criminal trial. If one side or the other has overwhelming evidence, it is allowed to use as much as it chooses, subject only to exercise of the trial court's considerable discretion under Evidence Code section 352. While we can sympathize with Thornton's feeling he would have had a better chance for acquittal if the prosecution had been forced to elect between introducing his statement or the hypodermic syringe, we find nothing in law or logic to compel such an election. An objection that evidence is cumulative, on the occasions when it is well taken, is almost always made to direct evidence, not circumstantial. While a trial judge might easily conclude that a third or fourth witness to the same event or opinion would be cumulative, it is the rare occasion when one of two different types of circumstantial evidence is correctly ruled cumulative. Indeed, it is usually the accumulation of circumstantial evidence which makes it convincing." ( Id. at pp. 47-48.) On the trial court's balancing of the probative value of the defendant's statement against its prejudicial effect, the appellate court wrote: "This was, undeniably, highly probative evidence, and the prejudice of an admission of having, 'on occasion' in the past used heroin could reasonably be found not to have substantially outweighed that probative value." ( Id. at p. 49.)