Opinion ID: 1385351
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The trial court had jurisdiction to hear Corona's section 1538.5 motion on the validity of the search warrants.

Text: (1a) Petitioner contends that in view of the earlier (1972) proceedings the trial court lacked jurisdiction to hear a full-blown section 1538.5 motion on the validity of the warrants. Petitioner relies on People v. Brooks (1980) 26 Cal.3d 471 [162 Cal. Rptr. 177, 605 P.2d 1306]; Madril v. Superior Court (1975) 15 Cal.3d 73 [123 Cal. Rptr. 465, 539 P.2d 33]; People v. Williams (1979) 93 Cal. App.3d 40 [155 Cal. Rptr. 414] and People v. Superior Court ( Green ) (1970) 10 Cal. App.3d 477 [89 Cal. Rptr. 316]. In Brooks, the court held that a trial court has jurisdiction to hear a second section 1538.5 motion on the grounds presented in the first motion but not reached by the trial court when it granted the motion on other grounds. (26 Cal.3d at p. 474.) It based its decision on defendant's lack of opportunity for a full determination of the merits of his motion as originally made and noticed. In Madril, the court held that section 1538.5 does not confer jurisdiction upon a trial court, having once granted a defendant's suppression motion, to reconsider it prior to trial. (15 Cal.3d at p. 75.) Green was to the same effect, and its reasoning was approved in Madril. ( Id., at p. 77.) Brooks distinguished both Madril and Green as presenting situations in which a party ... sought review or reconsideration of an adverse ruling rendered after a complete hearing on the search and seizure issues. (26 Cal.3d at p. 478.) In both cases, the court noted, the second hearings were properly characterized as relitigation of matters that the parties had opportunity to fully air in the first hearings. ( Ibid. ) None of the cases cited by either party involved a trial court's jurisdiction to entertain a second suppression hearing after a conviction is reversed on grounds of constitutional denial of effective counsel. (Cf. People v. Dorsey (1973) 34 Cal. App.3d 70, 73 [109 Cal. Rptr. 712] [overruled on other grounds, Bunnell v. Superior Court (1975) 13 Cal.3d 592, 602 (119 Cal. Rptr. 302, 531 P.2d 1086)].) It seems obvious, however, that if the ineffectiveness of counsel infected the first suppression hearing, the defendant cannot be said to have had opportunity for full determination within the meaning of Brooks. (2) As Justice Kane's opinion noted ( People v. Corona, supra, 80 Cal. App.3d at p. 720), the constitutional right to effective counsel includes the requirement that the services of the attorney be devoted solely to the interest of his client undiminished by conflicting considerations. [Citations.] And, as that opinion observed, some cases take the view that a conflict of interest is so inherently conducive to divided loyalties as to amount to a denial of the right to effective representation as a matter of law. ( Ibid. ) (1b) By that view the conflict of interest found to exist on the part of Corona's original counsel necessarily involved denial of the right to effective representation in all of the original proceedings, not just the trial itself, and by itself would warrant the determination that Corona should be entitled to assert anew his new constitutional rights under section 1538.5. Justice Kane's opinion also noted an alternative view, that the defendant must affirmatively establish that he has suffered some actual prejudice resulting from the conflict ( ibid. ), but refrained from deciding which view was correct. Rather, the opinion stated that the case met both criteria ( ibid. ), and went on to discuss specific examples of prejudice as demonstrated by the record. While trial counsel's performance at the suppression hearing was not among the examples given, that omission is perhaps explainable by the fact (as the court noted) that no transcript of the suppression hearing was available. [We need not here resolve the question whether actual prejudice must be shown in a conflict of interest situation such as occurred here. That question has been neither briefed nor argued in the present case.] If there is a general requirement that prejudice be shown from conflict in interest, perhaps that requirement ought not to apply in a situation such as this where the defendant is hampered in presenting evidence as to what occurred in the original proceeding by the absence of any transcript thereof. Justice Kane in his opinion makes reference to unsuccessful efforts by the court to acquire this important transcript, and to the consequent impossibility of determining whether denial of a hearing on defendant's Theodor motion constituted prejudicial error. ( People v. Corona, supra, 80 Cal. App.3d at pp. 728-729.) We can only speculate as to the reasons for the absence of such a transcript, [1] but whatever the reason the result is defendant is deprived of the best evidence as to what actually occurred. But assuming that a finding of prejudice is necessary, it was in fact made. Judge Patton expressly determined in the proceedings after remand that Corona's trial counsel had not fully and adequately represented [Corona] in reference to the search warrants and that the entire matter should be reviewed. Moreover, the finding was amply supported under all the circumstances. The nature of trial counsel's conflict of interest was such that his economic interests were likely to be served by proceeding to trial with all the lurid evidence that the prosecutor could produce, rather than attempt to exclude legally inadmissible evidence on the basis of technical assertions of constitutional right. [2] The hearing on the original suppression motion together with hearing on various discovery motions lasted only a total of 4 hours and 35 minutes, and the points and authorities filed by original counsel for Corona did not address themselves to the particular issues which were advanced at the second hearing and which formed the basis for the rulings complained of. [3] Judge Patton, of course, was in a position to know what occurred at the first hearing, since he conducted it; and while it would have been preferable from the standpoint of appellate review for the record to reflect more precisely the basis for his determination that Corona's interests were not then fully and adequately represented, the constitutional rights at stake require that we give considerable weight to his view of the matter. We conclude that the trial court had jurisdiction to hear Corona's section 1538.5 motion on the validity of the search warrants due to the effective denial of any meaningful opportunity for a full determination of the merits. We conclude also that Judge Patton did not abuse his discretion in deciding to hear the matter fully, a decision grounded  in part  upon considerations of fundamental fairness with which we agree. [4]