Opinion ID: 2508357
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The People's Bad Faith Use of Inconsistent Theories Deprived Sakarias of Due Process, Requiring Vacation of His Death Sentence

Text: Petitioners both claim Ipsen's inconsistent attribution of the three hatchet-blade blows deprived them of due process. The Attorney General contends the use of inconsistent arguments at separate trials is permissible provided a prosecutor does not argue something that the prosecutor knows to be false. For reasons explained below, we conclude that fundamental fairness does not permit the People, without a good faith justification, to attribute to two defendants, in separate trials, a criminal act only one defendant could have committed. By doing so, the state necessarily urges conviction or an increase in culpability in one of the cases on a false factual basis, a result inconsistent with the goal of the criminal trial as a search for truth. At least where, as in Sakarias's case, the change in theories between the two trials is achieved partly through deliberate manipulation of the evidence put before the jury, the use of such inconsistent and irreconcilable theories impermissibly undermines the reliability of the convictions or sentences thereby obtained. In short, in the absence of a good faith justification, [c]ausing two defendants to be sentenced to death by presenting inconsistent arguments in separate proceedings ... undermines the fairness of the judicial process and may precipitate inappropriate results. (Poulin, Prosecutorial Inconsistency, Estoppel, and Due Process: Making the Prosecution Get Its Story Straight (2001) 89 Cal. L.Rev. 1423, 1425 (hereafter Prosecutorial Inconsistency ).) We also conclude, however, that where, as here, the available evidence points clearly to the truth of one theory and the falsity of the other, only the defendant against whom the false theory was used can show constitutionally significant prejudice. For that reason, we conclude that Sakarias, but not Waidla, is entitled to relief on his petition.