Opinion ID: 1440004
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: conspiracy statute of limitations

Text: (6) The indictment on which defendants were tried was filed on December 15, 1977. As we have seen, Diedrich received $20,000 through the AHI-Rose-Remington pipeline as late as December 31, 1974. Yet both he and Rose argue that the three-year statute of limitations applicable to conspiracy (Pen. Code, § 800, subd. (a)) [16] barred count III as a matter of law. This claim is based on the assumption that the primary object of the conspiracy was Diedrich's March 6, 1974, vote and that, at the very latest, the statute started to run that day. ( People v. Zamora (1976) 18 Cal.3d 538, 546-560 [134 Cal. Rptr. 784, 557 P.2d 75].) We have already exposed the error in defendant's assumption. The March 6, 1974, vote removing Anaheim Hills from the agricultural preserve did not end AHI's concerns with the board. There were potential problems relating to zoning, roads, open space, flood plains and, above all, specification of the acreage subject to the easement. While Rose had been a party to the dealings between Diedrich and AHI from the very beginning, it will be recalled that a few weeks after the March 6 vote Grant declined his professional services. Yet Rose's intensive involvement in the flow of funds from AHI to Diedrich started in the summer of 1974. Something had happened to persuade AHI to pay Rose huge sums for services which AHI did not need and which Rose, in large part, did not render. Clearly the jury could infer that a new inning had started in the summer of 1974 and that the $20,000 Diedrich received in late December 1974 was a bribe for future favors, rather than a late payment or gratuity for the March 6, 1974, vote. In fact, there was no evidence which would have supported the latter theory. (7a) Alternatively, defendants claim that the trial court erred in refusing two instructions  copied below  which, they assert, were essential on the issue of when the conspiracy terminated. [17] There was no error. First, the jury was adequately instructed on the subject of limitations. [18] Second, the proffered instructions are extremely confusing in that they constantly suggest that some unidentified crime  presumably the corrupt official act which, as we have seen, forms no part of the crime of bribery  may be the primary object of a conspiracy to violate section 165. Further, the instructions never identify the mysterious additional significant objectives they mention. Third, the instructions appear to be premised on a legal proposition which is simply wrong  that receipt of payment cannot itself be the primary object of a conspiracy to commit bribery. This fallacy is based on a misreading of three recent cases  People v. Saling (1972) 7 Cal.3d 844, 851-853 [103 Cal. Rptr. 698, 500 P.2d 610], People v. Leach (1975) 15 Cal.3d 419, 428-438 [124 Cal. Rptr. 752, 541 P.2d 296] and People v. Zamora, supra, 18 Cal.3d at pages 546-560  in which we discussed problems relating to the termination of conspiracies. [19] In Saling and Leach the substantive crimes planned by the conspirators were murder, in Zamora they were arson, burning of insured property and grand theft. Receipt of payment for services rendered is not a part of any of these crimes, although it may well be a conspirator's motive. (8) When, however, the conspiracy is one to commit bribery, the receipt of payment is more than a mere motive  it may be the very way in which the bribe-seeker plans to violate section 165. (7b) Yet, if one suggestion pervades the two instructions, it is that payment to a conspirator for his part in the conspiracy is a neutral fact, at least if it is made after the primary object of the conspiracy  whatever it may be  has been attained, even though the conspiracy may still be alive with respect to other significant objectives. What all this is supposed to have conveyed to the jurors is anyone's guess, particularly since the court had correctly defined the primary object of a conspiracy to violate section 165 as asking, receiving or agreeing to receive a bribe. While, as noted, it is difficult to ascertain just what the instructions were supposed to tell the jurors, it seems fairly certain that they had a tremendous potential for unfairly gutting the prosecution's theory of the case, which was that after the March 6, 1974, vote, when AHI thought it was through with Diedrich and Rose, a new conspiracy to commit bribery came into existence sometime during the summer of 1974, when Rose was hired and launched his program of overpaid make-work and that at least one act in pursuance of that conspiracy  Diedrich's receipt of $20,000 on or just after December 31, 1974  took place within the three-year statutory period. Closely read, the instructions just about invited the jury to find that this payment was of no significance, even if it was made before additional significant objects of the conspiracy were accomplished. As already noted, the instructions never told the jury what object or objects might qualify as primary under the law, nor did they suggest what the additional significant objects might be. Their main purpose seems to have been to permit the defense to argue that this payment was, at most, a postperformance payment or gratuity for the March 6, 1974, vote and, thus, under the defense theory on the law, did not qualify as a bribe for future official action. (See fn. 11, ante. ) The difficulty is that, whatever may be the legal merits of that theory, the record contains no evidence whatever that the funds fed to Diedrich through Rose starting in about June 1974 in general, or the December 31, 1974, payment of $20,000 in particular, had anything to do with the vote of the previous March. The judgment as to Diedrich is reversed as to count I. It is affirmed in all other respects. The judgment as to Rose is affirmed.