Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/california/supreme-court/2d/63/518.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 07:55:20+00:00

Document:
THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. JOHN MARK ARANDA et al., Defendants and Appellants.
Caryl Warner and Charles Hamel, under appointment by the Supreme Court, for Defendants and Appellants.
Stanley Mosk and Thomas C. Lynch, Attorneys General, William E. James, Assistant Attorney General, and George J. Roth, Deputy Attorney General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
About 4:30 p.m., July 10, 1962, Louis Luna was watching television with Betty Holbrook in the back room of his jewelry store on North Main Street in Los Angeles. Luna heard the door buzzer and went into the front room of the store where he saw two men. One was holding what appeared to be a nickel- plated .25 caliber automatic in one hand and a lunch box in the other. The gunman ordered Luna to "put the money in the box," and when Luna replied that he had none, the man told him to give him his keys. He then took Luna into the back room, tied his hands with a piece of cord, and forced him to lie face down on the floor. He ordered Miss Holbrook to face the wall and then returned to the front of the store.
At this juncture, Alex Salgado entered the shop to have his watch repaired. He saw the back of one man by the open safe and another man holding what he thought was a .38 or [63 Cal. 2d 522] a .45 caliber gun. Salgado could see only the gunman's face since his body was hidden by the safe. The latter pointed the gun at Salgado and spoke to him, and Salgado left, went across the street, and called the police.
Police officers found two fingerprints, later identified as those of defendant Martinez, on a black box containing a lighter. The men had taken money, new jewelry, several customers' watches, and a Smith and Wesson gun.
About a week later at approximately 2:30 a.m.police Officer Collier and his partner saw Martinez walking along Emma Street. Officer Collier knew Martinez and offered him a ride, which he accepted. Martinez said that he was going to defendant Aranda's apartment. The officers let him out of the car at Lincoln Park Avenue and watched where he went. They followed him to Aranda's apartment, where they arrested both defendants. Officer Collier told Martinez that he had been identified as one of the perpetrators of an armed robbery.
In a later search of Aranda's apartment, which he shared with his mother, the police found three .25 caliber shells in a bedroom. The gun used in the robbery was never found.
Martinez testified on his own behalf and denied committing the robbery or making a confession to the police. To explain the fingerprints in Luna's office, he testified that he had gone to the shop on several occasions before the robbery and once while looking for a gift for his cousin, had handled the lighter and the box on which his fingerprints were found.
[1a] At the time of Martinez's confession, the investigation into the robbery had ceased to be a general inquiry into an unsolved crime and had focused on him and Aranda. Martinez had been taken into custody and was being interrogated for the purpose of eliciting incriminating statements. Nothing in the record indicates that he had been advised of his rights to counsel and to remain silent or that he had waived those rights. Under such circumstances, the confession obtained was inadmissible by virtue of the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U.S. 478 [84 S. Ct. 1758, 12 L. Ed. 2d 977]. (People v. Bilderbach, 62 Cal. 2d 757, 761-762 [44 Cal. Rptr. 313, 401 P.2d 921]; People v. Lilliock, 62 Cal. 2d 618, 621-622 [43 Cal. Rptr. 699, 401 P.2d 4]; People v. Stewart, 62 Cal. 2d 571, 576-581 [43 Cal. Rptr. 201, 400 P.2d 97]; People v. Dorado, 62 Cal. 2d 338 [42 Cal. Rptr. 169, 398 P.2d 361].)  Since this case was tried before the Escobedo decision, Martinez's failure to object to the admission of the confession into evidence does not preclude his raising the question on appeal. (People v. Davis, 62 Cal. 2d 791, 796 [44 Cal. Rptr. 441, 402 P.2d 129]; People v. Hillery, 62 Cal. 2d 692, 711 [44 Cal. Rptr. 30, 401 P.2d 382].) [1b] The judgment against defendant Martinez must therefore be reversed.
On rebuttal the prosecution called Aranda's mother, who testified that she had not brought the bullets into the house or seen them there. Aranda was also impeached by evidence of three prior felony convictions and testimony of a police officer that on the day of his arrest Aranda denied knowing where the Luna jewelry store was located.
Aranda contends that the error in admitting Martinez's confession into evidence was also prejudicial to him. The Attorney General contends that the error did not prejudice Aranda on the ground that the trial court instructed the jury on several occasions that the confession was to be considered as evidence only against Martinez, the declarant. To hold otherwise, he asserts, would be inconsistent with the rule permitting joint trials in such cases.
 Whether or not these criticisms of the present rule require its abrogation, a question we consider later herein, they clearly foreclose any assumption that error in admitting a confession that implicates both defendants is rendered harmless to the nonconfessing defendant by an instruction that it should not be considered against him. At best, the rule permitting joint trials in such cases is a compromise between the policies in favor of joint trials and the policies underlying the exclusion of hearsay declarations against one who did not make them. fn. 4 When, however, the confession implicating both defendants is not admissible at all, there is no longer room for compromise. The risk of prejudicing the nonconfessing defendant can no longer be justified by the need for introducing the confession against the one who made it. Accordingly, we have held that the erroneous admission into evidence of a confession implicating both defendants is not necessarily cured by an instruction that it is to be considered only against the declarant. (People v. Gonzales, 136 Cal. 666, 668-669 [69 P. 487]; see Greenwell v. United States (D.C. Cir.) 336 F.2d 962, 968-969; People v. Donovan, 13 N.Y.2d 148, 151 [243 N.Y.S.2d 841, 193 N.E.2d 628]; People v. Waterman, 9 N.Y.2d 561, 567 [216 N.Y.S.2d 70, 175 N.E.2d 445]; compare People v. Rudish, 294 N.Y. 500 [63 N.E.2d 77] with Malinski v. New York, 324 U.S. 401, 410-412 [65 S. Ct. 781, 89 L. Ed. 1029].)  The giving of such instructions, however, and the fact that the confession is only an [63 Cal. 2d 527] accusation against the nondeclarant and thus lacks the shattering impact of a self-incriminatory statement by him (see People v. Parham, 60 Cal. 2d 378, 385 [33 Cal. Rptr. 497, 384 P.2d 1001]) preclude holding that the error of admitting the confession is always prejudicial to the nondeclarant.
Since the judgments must be reversed, we consider other questions that may arise on retrial.
It is contended that it is a denial of due process to admit into evidence at a joint trial the confession of one defendant inculpating a codefendant even though the jury is instructed that the confession is not to be considered against the codefendant. In Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368 [84 S. Ct. 1774, 12 L. Ed. 2d 908, 1 A.L.R. 3d 1205], the United States Supreme Court held that a defendant was constitutionally entitled to have a trial judge or possibly a separate jury determine that his confession was voluntary before it was submitted to the trial jury for an assessment of its credibility. The court did not believe that a jury could separate the issue of the voluntariness of an extrajudicial statement from the issue of its truth. "If there are lingering doubts about the sufficiency of the other evidence, does the jury unconsciously lay them to rest by resort to the confession? Will uncertainty about the sufficiency of the other evidence to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt actually result in acquittal when the jury knows the defendant has given a truthful confession.
"It is difficult, if not impossible, to prove that a confession which a jury has found to be involuntary has nevertheless influenced the verdict or that its finding of voluntariness, if this is the course it took, was affected by other evidence showing the confession was true." (Pp. 388-389.) It quoted from Justice Frankfurter's dissent in Delli Paoli to the effect that a jury should not be permitted to be influenced by evidence against a defendant that as a matter of law they cannot consider but as a matter of fact they cannot disregard, and cited Morgan, Some Problems of Proof under the Anglo-American System of Litigation (1956) pages 104-105, to the same effect.
Indeed, the latter task may be an even more difficult one for the jury to perform than the former. Under the New York procedure, which Jackson held violated due process, the jury was only required to disregard a confession it found to be involuntary. If it made such a finding, then the confession was presumably out of the case. In joint trials, however, when the admissible confession of one defendant inculpates another defendant, the confession is never deleted from the case and the jury is expected to perform the overwhelming task of considering it in determining the guilt or innocence of the declarant and then of ignoring it in determining the guilt or innocence of any codefendants of the declarant. A jury cannot "segregate evidence into separate intellectual boxes." (People v. Chambers, 231 Cal. App. 2d 23, 33 [41 Cal. Rptr. 551].) It cannot determine that a confession is true insofar as it admits that A has committed criminal acts with B and at the same time effectively ignore the inevitable conclusion that B has committed those same criminal acts with A.
 Defendant Aranda objects to the introduction into evidence of proof of two prior felony convictions. On March 30, 1955, he was convicted of violating section 503 of the Vehicle Code, and on March 21, 1957, of violating section 11500 of the Health and Safety Code. After these convictions, he was committed to the California Youth Authority. Section 17 of the Penal Code then provided in part: "Where a court commits a defendant to the California Youth Authority upon conviction of a crime punishable by imprisonment in the state prison or fine or imprisonment in a county jail, in the discretion of the court, the crime shall be deemed a felony until and unless the court, after the person ... has been discharged ... makes an order determining that the crime of which he was convicted was a misdemeanor." Aranda does not contend that, after his discharge from the Youth Authority, he made application for or obtained court orders determining that the crimes of which he had been convicted were misdemeanors. In 1959, section 17 was amended (Stats. 1959, ch. 532, at p. 2499) so that it now reads: "Where a court commits a defendant to the Youth Authority upon conviction of a crime punishable, in the discretion of the court, by imprisonment in the state prison or fine or imprisonment in a county jail, the crime shall be deemed a misdemeanor."
There is no merit in Aranda's contention that this amendment must be given a retroactive application and that if it is only applied prospectively, he will be deprived of due [63 Cal. 2d 532] process of law and of the equal protection of the law. Section 3 of the Penal Code provides that "No part of it is retroactive, unless expressly so declared." (See also Douglas Aircraft Co. v. Cranston, 58 Cal. 2d 462, 465 [24 Cal. Rptr. 851, 374 P.2d 819]; Corning Hospital Dist. v. Superior Court, 57 Cal. 2d 488, 494 [20 Cal. Rptr. 621, 370 P.2d 325].) The amendment to section 17 does not so declare. (See People v. Zaccaria, 216 Cal. App. 2d 787 [31 Cal. Rptr. 383]; People v. Gotham, 185 Cal. App. 2d 47 [8 Cal. Rptr. 20].)  A refusal to apply a statute retroactively does not violate the Fourteenth Amendment.
Since other questions raised are not likely to arise on retrial, we need not decide them here.
Peters, J., Tobriner, J., Peek, J., Burke, J., and White, J., fn. * concurred.
I concur in the reversal of the judgment as to defendant Martinez. I would affirm the judgment as to defendant Aranda.
FN 1. At the trial, Officer Becker related his conversation with Martinez as follows: "He stated that on the day of the robbery, that on the 10th of July 1962, that he and Chop Chop, meaning defendant Aranda had either been working some place or had been looking for work. That they were on their way home and all of a sudden decided to rob a jewelry store there at North Main, Luna's Jewelry Store. He said that after the robbery they had ran [sic] down to Chaleco's Bar where they had sat for some time. I asked him if he could recover any of the property, any of the jewelry or the watches or money or the gun. He said no, that as far as he knew, the jewelry had been sold to some fence in East L.A. and that the gun had been sold to an unknown male at Chaleco's Bar. I asked him if he knew why the twine or the rope that was used to tie Mr. Luna had a sweet smell to it and he said that it was because Chop Chop used to carry his shaving equipment in his lunch box along with the rope and that at one time the shaving lotion had leaked out and made the rope smell. He then requested not to let Chop Chop know that he had admitted the robbery."
FN 2. Some doubt was cast upon these identifications on cross-examination. It appeared that no electric lights were on in the store during the robbery. The witnesses in the police report had described the man holding the gun as younger and heavier than Aranda actually was. They had also identified him in the report as wearing sun glasses and a hat. At trial, both Luna and Salgado were not at all certain whether the man they had seen during the robbery had or had not worn a hat or sun glasses.
FN 3. Officer Howard Friar corroborated a part of Aranda's testimony. He stated that he had seen Aranda and Miss Holbrook on the corner adjacent to the jewelry store. Later in the evening he had spoken to Luna. Officer Friar was not asked about any conversation he had with Aranda or whether he had seen Aranda with Luna. Miss Holbrook was not called by either side. The prosecution claimed that it was useless for it to call her, since she had stated that she was unable to identify either of the men who had entered Luna's store. Counsel for Aranda said that she had not been called because he was unable to locate her.
FN 5. After contending that the case against Aranda based on identifications, the finding of cartridges in his home, and his false statement to the police, was a strong one, the prosecutor stated that "we have one other thing. We have a statement made by Mr. Martinez, a statement made by Mr. Martinez relating to Chaleco's Bar; a statement relating to how the robbery occurred, how they went in there, how he was involved." Later the prosecutor stated that in terms of credibility "basically it is going to boil down to a police officer, Officer Becker, and the two defendants here." This was repeated when he said, "Now, if you wish to believe the defendants, you must also--I urge you to consider this as your credibility. You are saying that the officer is not telling the truth; you are saying that the officer is lying and these two defendants are the ones who are telling the truth." The jury was told that "we have a confession or an admission on the part of one of the defendants--that the officer said that Mr. Martinez stated that on the way home they decided to rob Luna's store. Afterward--that they robbed the store, and afterward they ran to Chaleco's Bar." Finally, to give relevance to Luna's testimony about the odor of the rope used to bind him, the prosecution stated that Martinez had admitted that "the reason it had a sweet smell is because Chop Chop carried it in his shaving kit." In view of this summation, it is highly unlikely that the jury could have disregarded Martinez's confession when it decided the question of defendant Aranda's guilt or innocence.
FN 6. Defendant Aranda, both in discovery proceedings and on a motion for a new trial, contended that he was entitled to see any memoranda that the police had of extrajudicial statements made by Martinez. Although the record is unclear as to the actual existence of such memoranda, the trial court erred in holding that, in any event, Aranda was not entitled to discover statements made by Martinez. [6b] As a preliminary to a joint trial, one defendant is entitled to the statements made to the police by any codefendant. (See generally People v. Garner, 57 Cal. 2d 135, 142 [18 Cal. Rptr. 40, 367 P.2d 680]; Funk v. Superior Court, 52 Cal. 2d 423, 424 [340 P.2d 593].) Without such information, a defendant, such as Aranda, would be unable to take the steps needed to insure that the confessions of his codefendants would be used only to incriminate those who made the statements.
FN 8. In Pointer v. Texas, 380 U.S. 400 [85 S. Ct. 1065, 13 L. Ed. 2d 923], the Supreme Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment made the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of a defendant's right "to be confronted with the witnesses against him" including the right to cross-examine these witnesses applicable to the states. More specifically, it found that when the prosecution in a criminal trial introduced the prior testimony of a witness who had not been subject to effective cross-examination at a preliminary hearing where this testimony was taken, defendant's constitutional right of confrontation was violated. The court quoted with approval from Turner v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 466, 472-473 [85 S. Ct. 546, 13 L.Ed.2d 424]: "In the constitutional sense, trial by jury in a criminal case necessarily implies at the very least that the 'evidence developed' against a defendant shall come from the witness stand in a public courtroom where there is full judicial protection of the defendant's right of confrontation, of cross-examination and of counsel." In reaching its decision that the Sixth Amendment's right of confrontation applies to trials in state courts, the court noted that any statements to the contrary in West v. Louisiana, 194 U.S. 258, 264 [24 S. Ct. 650, 43 L. Ed. 965], and in Stein v. New York, 346 U.S. 156, 195-196 [73 S. Ct. 1077, 97 L. Ed. 1522], could no longer be regarded as law. In Stein, the court found that the right of confrontation was not binding on the states and affirmed the conviction of a defendant who had been implicated by the confessions of his codefendants. The confessions had been admitted with the instruction that they were to be considered only against their respective declarants.
FN 10. The rules governing the cases in which deletion would be a permissible alternative cannot be set out fully. Use of the procedure would depend on the evidence linking the defendants together before and after the crime and on the actual statements made by the declarant defendant.
In the present case, deletion would have been an effective solution to the joint trial problem. All that Martinez's confession added to the case against Aranda was Aranda's identity. No evidence linked the two together at any other time relevant to the commission of the robbery. Deleting all references to Aranda would not have prejudiced Martinez and what remained would have prejudiced Aranda no more than if Martinez had in fact said that "I was one of the persons who robbed the store but I will tell you nothing more."

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