Opinion ID: 1172193
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Double Jeopardy Under the State Constitution

Text: When double jeopardy principles are involved, history shows we have not felt compelled to walk in the footprints left by United States Supreme Court precedent. For example, in Cardenas v. Superior Court (1961) 56 Cal.2d 273 [14 Cal. Rptr. 657, 363 P.2d 889, 100 A.L.R.2d 371], we held double jeopardy would preclude retrial following a mistrial granted over the defendant's objection. Although a retrial would have been allowed under the federal Constitution ( Gori v. United States (1961) 367 U.S. 364 [81 S.Ct. 1523, 6 L.Ed.2d 901]), we simply stated: [the federal] holding [in Gori ] does not accord with the uniform construction placed by this court upon the jeopardy provision of the California Constitution.... ( Cardenas, supra, at p. 276.) We explicitly reaffirmed Cardenas in Curry v. Superior Court (1970) 2 Cal.3d 707, 715-716 [87 Cal. Rptr. 361, 470 P.2d 345]. People v. Henderson (1963) 60 Cal.2d 482 [35 Cal. Rptr. 77, 386 P.2d 677] (hereafter Henderson ) is similar. In Henderson, the defendant was convicted, on his plea of guilty, of first degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. On appeal, the court reversed for trial court error in permitting the defendant to withdraw his original plea of not guilty. On remand, the defendant was again convicted; this time, he was sentenced to suffer the death penalty. On appeal in this court, the defendant argued imposition of the death penalty on retrial violated his right against double jeopardy as set forth in article I, then section 13 of the state Constitution. This court agreed. Noting that in Stroud, supra, 251 U.S. 15, the Supreme Court held the federal double jeopardy clause did not prohibit imposition of the death penalty after a retrial for a defendant originally sentenced to life imprisonment, this court found the state Constitution marked out a different path: A defendant's right of appeal from an erroneous judgment is unreasonably impaired when he is required to risk his life to invoke that right. Since the state has no interest in preserving erroneous judgments, it has no interest in foreclosing appeals therefrom by imposing unreasonable conditions on the right to appeal. ( Henderson, supra, 60 Cal.2d at p. 497.) The Supreme Court followed Stroud with North Carolina v. Pearce, supra, 395 U.S. 711, a 1969 noncapital case, holding a greater sentence after a retrial does not violate the federal due process clause. We again followed our own path, applying to noncapital cases the state constitutional double jeopardy rule set forth in Henderson, supra, 60 Cal.2d 482. ( People v. Hood (1969) 1 Cal.3d 444, 459 [82 Cal. Rptr. 618, 462 P.2d 370] [following Henderson but not mentioning Pearce ].) As one Court of Appeal observed: Although presented with ... the opportunity to [overrule Henderson ] ..., the court has never retreated from the rationale or holding of Henderson.  ( People v. Superior Court ( Harris ) (1990) 217 Cal. App.3d 1332, 1337 [266 Cal. Rptr. 563], citing inter alia, People v. Collins (1978) 21 Cal.3d 208, 216-217 [145 Cal. Rptr. 686, 577 P.2d 1026]; People v. White (1976) 16 Cal.3d 791, 802 [129 Cal. Rptr. 769, 549 P.2d 537]; People v. Serrato (1973) 9 Cal.3d 753, 763-764 [109 Cal. Rptr. 65, 512 P.2d 289], disapproved on other grounds in People v. Fosselman (1983) 33 Cal.3d 572, 583, fn. 1 [189 Cal. Rptr. 855, 659 P.2d 1144]; Curry v. Superior Court, supra, 2 Cal.3d at pp. 716-717; People v. Hood, supra, 1 Cal.3d at p. 459.) In People v. Comingore (1977) 20 Cal.3d 142 [141 Cal. Rptr. 542, 570 P.2d 723], the defendant, who had stolen a car in California and driven it to Oregon, was convicted in Oregon of unauthorized use of a vehicle. Upon his release, he was prosecuted in California for grand theft auto based on essentially the same acts that gave rise to the Oregon conviction. Although the California prosecution would have been permissible under the high court's interpretation of the Fifth Amendment double jeopardy clause (see Abbate v. United States (1959) 359 U.S. 187 [79 S.Ct. 666, 3 L.Ed.2d 729]), we held Penal Code section 793, a statute implementing double jeopardy principles, prohibited the California trial as it was predicated on the same facts that formed the basis of the Oregon trial. We did not expressly mention the state Constitution, but merely stated the rule in Abbate does not preclude a state from providing greater double jeopardy protection than is provided by the federal Constitution.... ( Comingore, supra, 20 Cal.3d at p. 145.) Although Comingore is not unequivocally a state constitutional (as opposed to state statutory ) case, the principles at work seem congruent, especially because Penal Code section 793 merely implements the state constitutional double jeopardy guarantee. In light of this court's strong history of relying on the state Constitution as a document of independent force in the double jeopardy area, I would rely on that document to resolve this case.