Opinion ID: 1122500
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the boykin-tahl requirement

Text: The Supreme Court held in Boykin, supra, 395 U.S. 238, that it would not presume from a silent record that in pleading guilty a defendant in a state criminal trial had validly waived his rights to jury trial, against compulsory incrimination, and to confront his accusers. It did so in recognition that a guilty plea is more than a confession which admits that the accused did various acts; it is itself a conviction; nothing remains but to give judgment and determine punishment. ( Id., at p. 242 [23 L.Ed.2d at p. 279].) The court further observed: What is at stake for an accused facing death or imprisonment demands the utmost solicitude of which courts are capable in canvassing the matter with the accused to make sure he has a full understanding of what the plea connotes and of its consequence. When the judge discharges that function, he leaves a record adequate for any review that may be later sought [citations], and forestalls the spin-off of collateral proceedings that seek to probe murky memories. (395 U.S. at pp. 243-244 [23 L.Ed.2d at pp. 279-280], fns. omitted.) In Tahl, supra, 1 Cal.3d 122, we concluded that, since the Supreme Court had emphasized the failure of the record in Boykin, supra, 395 U.S. 238, to reflect the defendant's understanding of the constitutional rights he was foregoing, Boykin required, in every case in which a guilty plea was entered, direct evidence on the face of the record that a guilty pleading defendant was aware, or made aware, of his right to confrontation, to a jury trial and against self-incrimination, as well as the nature of the charge and the consequences of his plea. Each must be enumerated and responses elicited from the person of the defendant. (1 Cal.3d at p. 132.) We added a requirement that the court obtain express waivers of the right to confrontation and privilege against self-incrimination, noting that an express waiver of jury trial was already required in this state. ( Id., at pp. 132-133.) At a minimum Boykin required a specific and express enumeration and waiver by the accused of the three constitutional rights surrendered by a guilty plea.... ( People v. Rizer (1971) 5 Cal.3d 35, 42 [95 Cal. Rptr. 23, 484 P.2d 1367].) If the record did not reflect compliance with this mandate, the error in entering judgment on the defendant's plea of guilty was error that was reversible per se. [5] (1) The prophylactic Boykin-Tahl requirements are not limited to pleas of guilty, however. A defendant's agreement to submit the case on the record of the preliminary hearing in circumstances tantamount to a plea of guilty is also subject to those requirements ( People v. Levey (1973) 8 Cal.3d 648 [105 Cal. Rptr. 516, 504 P.2d 452]; In re Mosley (1970) 1 Cal.3d 913, 927 [83 Cal. Rptr. 809, 464 P.2d 473]) as is an admission of an allegation made in the information or indictment for the purpose of increasing the punishment otherwise applicable to the offense. ( Yurko, supra, 10 Cal.3d 857, 860.) Yurko, supra, was the first case in which this court was called upon to consider the applicability of the Boykin-Tahl requirements to a defendant's plea to an allegation other than one charging commission of a criminal offense. There, a defendant charged with burglary (§ 459) admitted allegations that he had suffered three prior felony convictions. That admission led to an adjudication that he was an habitual criminal and to a sentence of imprisonment for life under former section 644, rather than to the imposition of sentence for the burglary of which the jury had convicted him. We held that henceforth an accused must be advised of (1) specific constitutional protections waived by an admission of the truth of an allegation of prior felony convictions, and (2) those penalties and other sanctions imposed as a consequence of a finding of the truth of the allegation. ( Yurko, supra, 10 Cal.3d 857, 860, italics added.) In Yurko, supra, we recognized that guilt of a substantive crime was not at stake, but reasoned that the practical aspects of a finding of prior convictions may well impose upon a defendant additional penalties and sanctions which may be even more severe than those imposed upon a finding of guilty without the defendant having suffered the prior convictions. (10 Cal.3d at p. 862.) Since the Legislature had provided for a trial on allegations of prior convictions, thereby giving the defendant a right to jury trial and proof beyond a reasonable doubt, we accepted the petitioner's argument that the procedure leading to imposition of the added penalties was protected by specific constitutional provisions which could not be waived unless the defendant had knowledge of the rights and understood the impact of his plea on those rights. Because of the significant rights at stake in obtaining an admission of the truth of allegations of prior convictions, which rights are often of the same magnitude as in the case of a plea of guilty, courts must exercise a comparable solicitude in extracting an admission of the truth of alleged prior convictions. Although the issue was not before the Supreme Court in Boykin nor before us in Tahl, it is nevertheless manifest that an accused is entitled to be advised of those constitutional rights waived by him in making such an admission. As an accused is entitled to a trial on the factual issues raised by a denial of the allegation of prior convictions, an admission of the truth of the allegation necessitates a waiver of the same constitutional rights as in the case of a plea of guilty. ( Yurko, supra, 10 Cal.3d 857, 863, italics added.) In no case, however, did we hold, or even intimate, that a defendant's admission of evidentiary facts which did not admit every element necessary to conviction of an offense or to imposition of punishment on a charged enhancement, as opposed to an admission of guilt of a criminal charge or of the truth of an enhancing allegation where nothing more was prerequisite to imposition of punishment except conviction of the underlying offense, was subject to the Boykin-Tahl or Yurko requirements. That question was not presented. When the question of evidentiary stipulation has been presented in other contexts, however, we have held that such admissions or stipulations need not be preceded by such advice and waiver of rights, and advice regarding the penalty consequences of the admission. In People v. Hovey (1988) 44 Cal.3d 543 [244 Cal. Rptr. 121, 749 P.2d 776], the defendant, charged with murder with a kidnapping special circumstance (§ 187; former § 190.2, subd. (c)(3)(ii)), stipulated to his identity as the kidnapper and that he had done the act that led to the death of the victim. On appeal he claimed that he had, in effect, admitted the commission of second degree murder and that the trial court should have explained the potential penal consequences to him. We rejected the claim on the ground that the stipulation was not the legal equivalent of a guilty plea or other admission that necessarily would have definite penal consequences. (44 Cal.3d at p. 567; see also People v. Lang (1989) 49 Cal.3d 991, 1038 [264 Cal. Rptr. 386, 782 P.2d 627].) Then, in People v. Ramirez (1990) 50 Cal.3d 1158, 1184 [270 Cal. Rptr. 286, 791 P.2d 965], noting that our observation in People v. Hall (1980) 28 Cal.3d 143, 157, footnote 9 [167 Cal. Rptr. 844, 616 P.2d 826], that the admission of ex-felon status was analogous to admission of a prior in the context of Yurko, supra, 10 Cal.3d 857, was dictum, we rejected a claim that a waiver of rights was required when a defendant admits he has suffered prior convictions where the prior convictions were simply penalty phase aggravating evidence.