Opinion ID: 1172193
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Relying on the California Constitution

Text: Irrespective of whether the majority is correct regarding the nonapplicability of the federal double jeopardy clause to this case, I conclude retrial of the prior felony conviction allegation is prohibited by the state constitutional double jeopardy clause. (Cal. Const., art. I, § 15.) Our state counterpart to the federal double jeopardy clause first appeared in the California Constitution of 1849, article I, section 8, where the language tracked the federal guarantee. The provision was moved essentially unchanged to article I, section 13 in the California Constitution of 1879, and finally came to rest in article I, section 15, of the present California Constitution; it provides: Persons may not twice be put in jeopardy for the same offense.... Article I, section 24 of the state charter, added by popular vote in 1974, is also relevant to our discussion; it provides: Rights guaranteed by this Constitution are not dependent on those guaranteed by the United States Constitution. That section was amended by Proposition 115 to state the following qualification: In criminal cases the rights of a defendant to ... not be placed twice in jeopardy for the same offense ... shall be construed by the courts of this state in a manner consistent with the Constitution of the United States. This [state] Constitution shall not be construed by the courts to afford greater rights to criminal defendants than those afforded by the Constitution of the United States.... This latter provision was invalidated, however, in Raven v. Deukmejian (1990) 52 Cal.3d 336 [276 Cal. Rptr. 326, 801 P.2d 1077] (hereafter Raven ), as an improper revision of the state Constitution. In light of the holding in Raven we remain free to continue our long-standing and constitutionally authorized practice, in appropriate situations, of interpreting our state Constitution to grant greater protection to state residents than would be afforded by the high court under the federal Constitution. It is true, as the lead opinion notes, that we have previously explained there must be `cogent reasons ... before a state court in construing a provision of the state Constitution will depart from the construction placed by the Supreme Court of the United States on a similar provision in the federal Constitution.' ( Raven, supra, 52 Cal.3d at p. 353, quoting Gabrielli v. Knickerbocker (1938) 12 Cal.2d 85, 89 [82 P.2d 391].) This admonishment finds no application here, however, for, as explained, ante, the Supreme Court has never ruled on the question whether the federal double jeopardy clause applies to noncapital sentence enhancements. There is thus no federal construction from which to depart. Significantly, we most recently faced this federal versus state Constitution question in a case specifically posing a double jeopardy question; there, we reaffirmed that the California Constitution is a document of independent force and effect that may be interpreted in a manner more protective of defendants' rights than that extended by the federal Constitution. ( People v. Fields (1996) 13 Cal.4th 289, 298 [52 Cal. Rptr.2d 282, 914 P.2d 832].) Indeed, good reasons exist to rely on our state Constitution even before we consider whether the federal Constitution applies here. It is hornbook law that at the time the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791, and until the 1920's, the Bill of Rights was not understood to apply against the states at all. ( Barron v. Baltimore (1833) 32 U.S. (7 Pet.) 243 [8 L.Ed. 672].) Due to the selective nature of the incorporation doctrine, which arose in this century (see generally, Nowak & Rotunda, Constitutional Law (5th ed. 1995) § 10.2, pp. 339-342), application to the states of the various portions of the Bill of Rights was addressed judicially in a sequential manner. The federal constitutional guarantee not to be placed twice in jeopardy was not held applicable to state prosecutions until 1969. ( Benton v. Maryland, supra, 395 U.S. 784.) Until that year, we had always relied solely on our own state Constitution to protect our residents from being placed twice in jeopardy. Moreover, other than the rather obscure provisions in article I, section 10 of the federal Constitution (prohibitions of ex post facto laws, bills of attainder, interference with contracts), the Constitution placed no limitation on states in the area of personal liberties until ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, almost two decades after California was granted statehood. From this bit of history, we can draw two conclusions. First, [f]or most of the life of this nation the Federal Constitution offered no protection for the personal, religious, intellectual and political rights of its citizens in their relations with state and local government. In California those protections were provided by the Declaration of Rights  Article I of the California constitution  which contains provisions much like those of the Federal Bill of Rights. (Falk, The Supreme Court of California 1971-1972, Foreword, The State Constitution: A More Than Adequate Nonfederal Ground (1973) 61 Cal.L.Rev. 273, 274, original capitalization (hereafter Falk article).) Second, and more important for our purposes, for the majority of this state's political life, it has been the state, not federal, Constitution that protected the personal liberties  specifically the right to not be placed twice in jeopardy  of Californians. If we go back even further in history, we find that state constitutional protections of individual liberties are not even derived from the Bill of Rights; rather, the reverse is true. The lesson of history is otherwise; indeed, the drafters of the federal Bill of Rights drew upon corresponding provisions in the various state constitutions. Prior to the adoption of the federal Constitution, each of the rights eventually recognized in the federal Bill of Rights had previously been protected in one or more state constitutions. (Brennan, State Constitutions and the Protection of Individual Rights (1977) 90 Harv. L.Rev. 489, 501.) When drafting the Declaration of Rights in our state Constitution, first in 1849 and again in 1879, the drafters largely looked to the constitutions of the other states, rather than the federal Constitution, as potential models. ( Raven, supra, 52 Cal.3d at p. 353.) There is thus good reason to look first to our state Constitution for guidance. In interpreting the extent of various rights of personal liberty, this court has in the past eschewed the federal document and relied on the state Constitution in two distinct situations. First, we sometimes relied on our state Constitution to diverge from the high court's interpretation of an analogous federal constitutional provision when we concluded the high court did not provide sufficient protection for individual liberties. For example, we held in People v. Brisendine (1975) 13 Cal.3d 528, 545-552 [119 Cal. Rptr. 315, 531 P.2d 1099] that a search incident to a lawful arrest must be justified by a rule of reasonableness, contrary to the Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Robinson (1973) 414 U.S. 260 [94 S.Ct. 494, 38 L.Ed.2d 427], which held a search incident to a lawful arrest was per se reasonable. [4] (See cases collected at Raven, supra, 52 Cal.3d at p. 354; see generally, Grodin et al., The California State Constitution (1993) pp. 21-26 & accompanying notes; Falk article, supra, 61 Cal.L.Rev. at pp. 277-280 & accompanying notes.) Although we invalidated in Raven that portion of Proposition 115 tying state constitutional interpretation to the federal Constitution, we nonetheless remain cognizant the electorate expressed displeasure with state constitutional interpretations that granted criminal defendants greater procedural rights than are required under the federal Constitution. Accordingly, although we remain free, in light of Raven, to continue to interpret the state Constitution more expansively than its federal counterpart, we have declared there must be `cogent reasons' to do so. ( Raven, supra, 52 Cal.3d at p. 353.) Here, however, we are not presented with such a situation because, as explained, ante, the United States Supreme Court has never ruled on the precise issue before us. We are, rather, presented with the second type of situation in which we historically have interpreted the state Constitution to provide protection of individual liberties, namely, when no United States Supreme Court authority had yet emerged. For example, in an opinion by Justice Mosk, we held the California Constitution guaranteed the right to counsel for persons charged with misdemeanors. ( In re Johnson (1965) 62 Cal.2d 325, 329 [42 Cal. Rptr. 228, 398 P.2d 420].) At the time, no federal constitutional rule had yet emerged. Seven years later, the Supreme Court found a federal constitutional right to counsel in misdemeanor cases, at least where imprisonment was a possibility. ( Argersinger v. Hamlin (1972) 407 U.S. 25 [92 S.Ct. 2006, 32 L.Ed.2d 530].) In the absence of federal constitutional authority binding us, we clearly are free to look to our state Constitution. Indeed, reliance on the state Constitution is preferable here, for not only has the United States Supreme Court never specifically ruled on the applicability of the federal double jeopardy clause to noncapital sentencing proceedings or sentence enhancements, it has had several opportunities to address the issue and has declined each time. ( Caspari, supra, 510 U.S. 383, Lockhart v. Nelson, supra, 488 U.S. 33; Hunt v. New York, supra, 502 U.S. 964 (opn. of White, J., dis. from denial of cert.); see also Carpenter v. Chapleau, supra, 72 F.3d 1269, cert. den. ___ U.S. ___ [117 S.Ct. 108, 136 L.Ed.2d 61] (1996); Wilmer, supra, 30 F.3d 451, cert. den. 513 U.S. 970 [115 S.Ct. 439, 130 L.Ed.2d 350] (1994); Denton, supra, 873 F.2d 144, cert. den. 493 U.S. 941 [110 S.Ct. 341, 107 L.Ed.2d 330] (1989); Durosko v. Lewis, supra, 882 F.2d 357, cert. den. 495 U.S. 907 [110 S.Ct. 1930, 109 L.Ed.2d 294] (1990); Linam v. Griffin, supra, 685 F.2d 369, cert. den. 459 U.S. 1211 [103 S.Ct. 1207, 75 L.Ed.2d 447] (1983); People v. Levin, supra, 623 N.E.2d 317, cert. den. sub nom. Levin v. Illinois, 513 U.S. 826 [115 S.Ct. 94, 130 L.Ed.2d 44] (1994); People v. Sailor, supra, 491 N.Y.S.2d 112 [480 N.E.2d 701, cert. den. sub nom. Sailor v. New York, 474 U.S. 982 [106 S.Ct. 387, 88 L.Ed.2d 340] (1985).) Not only, therefore, are we left with no definitive holding from the high court, we cannot anticipate that court will soon resolve the question. This uncertain state of affairs provides `cogent reasons' ( Raven, supra, 52 Cal.3d at p. 353), were they needed, for us to rely on our state Constitution. (See Ex Parte Augusta, supra, 639 S.W.2d at p. 485 [applying double jeopardy under Texas Constitution to noncapital sentencing proceeding]; DeBussi v. State, supra, 453 So.2d 1030, 1032-1033 [applying a Bullington -type analysis to conclude double jeopardy under the Mississippi Constitution barred retrial of habitual offender allegation].)