Opinion ID: 1375029
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Double Jeopardy and Collateral Estoppel Issues

Text: At the prior trial, the court found defendant guilty of first degree murder for Carter's killing, and found true a special circumstance of multiple murder under the 1977 death penalty statute, but found not true a special circumstance of felony murder under the same law. To find true the felony-murder special circumstance under the 1977 death penalty law, the court had to determine that Carter's murder was willful, deliberate, and premeditated and was committed during the commission or attempted commission of a lewd or lascivious act upon the person of a child under the age of 14 years in violation of Section 288. (Stats. 1977, ch. 316, § 9, subd. (c)(3), p. 1258.) By finding the special circumstance not true, the court may have decided that there was no premeditation, or that there was no attempted or completed lewd act  we do not know. It could not have decided that both theories failed, however, because at the same time, by finding defendant guilty of first degree murder, it determined either that defendant killed Carter with premeditation and deliberation, or while committing or attempting to commit a violation of section 288. (Pen. Code, § 189; unlabeled statutory references are to this code.) The prosecution did not reallege the felony-murder special circumstance, but did try the case under a theory that defendant was guilty of first degree murder by reason of felony murder or premeditation and deliberation, or both. The jury was instructed on both theories. The jury found defendant guilty of first degree murder for killing Carter. He asked that the jury be polled to discover the legal basis for each vote. The court denied the motion. (5a) Defendant first contends that the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, as applied to the states through the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and that of article I, section 15, of the California Constitution, barred his retrial on charges that he murdered Carter under theories of felony murder or premeditated and deliberate murder. He premises this contention on an argument that the court must have rejected one of those theories when it found the felony-murder special circumstance not true, and therefore he should not have been retried on either theory. We disagree. Preliminarily, we note that among the pleas that defendant might have entered are [a] former judgment of conviction or acquittal of the offense charged (§ 1016, subd. 4) and [o]nce in jeopardy ( id., subd. 5; see also § 1023). (6) Not only may former jeopardy be affirmatively pleaded, but it must be, or any claim on that ground is not preserved for review. ( People v. Belcher (1974) 11 Cal.3d 91, 96 [113 Cal. Rptr. 1, 520 P.2d 385].) (5b) Defendant did not enter a plea of former jeopardy. Rather, when he was arraigned on the amended information, he refused to enter a plea at all, demanding instead to be returned to San Quentin prison. The court entered a plea of not guilty on his behalf. At oral argument defendant contended that if we decide the double jeopardy question adversely to him on the ground that he did not enter the proper plea on retrial, he did not receive the effective assistance of counsel. Without agreeing that any such claim would persuade us, we do agree that we should decide the issue on the merits. The double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that no person shall be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.... Defendant was convicted of Carter's murder at his first trial. Retrying him on a charge of murder did not place him twice in jeopardy for that offense. (7) `It has long been settled ... that the Double Jeopardy Clause's general prohibition against successive prosecutions does not prevent the government from retrying a defendant who succeeds in getting his first conviction set aside, through direct appeal or collateral attack, because of some error in the proceedings leading to conviction.' [Citations.] `[T]o require a criminal defendant to stand trial again after he has successfully invoked a statutory right of appeal to upset his first conviction is not an act of governmental oppression of the sort against which the Double Jeopardy Clause was intended to protect.' [Citation.] ( People v. Santamaria (1994) 8 Cal.4th 903, 910-911 [35 Cal. Rptr.2d 624, 884 P.2d 81].) (5c) Defendant next contends that collateral estoppel bars relitigation of the killing of Carter on a first degree murder theory. In his view, when the court at the prior trial found not true the felony-murder special circumstance, it necessarily determined either that there was no felony murder or that there was no premeditated and deliberate murder, and therefore retrial of the murder on either theory was barred by collateral estoppel. It is questionable whether the doctrine of collateral estoppel even applies to further proceedings in the same litigation. ( People v. Santamaria, supra, 8 Cal.4th at pp. 913-916.) Even if it does, at most it would bar retrial of the felony-murder special circumstance, which was not realleged. (See id. at p. 914 [collateral estoppel would, at most, bar retrial of an enhancement allegation, not an offense of which the defendant was found guilty].) We are not persuaded by defendant's contention, advanced at oral argument, that Santamaria is distinguishable because the prior trial therein was by jury, whereas the prior trial herein was by the court. Therefore defendant's collateral estoppel contention must be rejected. So must his ancillary contention that this court's remand of his case without delimiting the proper scope of charges for which appellant could be retried violated rights he discerns in the Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. This assertion rests on a view that a combination of errors requires the reversal of his conviction for the murder of Carter. The asserted errors are that we declined, in Memro I, supra, 38 Cal.3d 658, to decide the adequacy of the evidence to prove a premeditated and deliberate murder, leaving open the theories on which he could be retried, and that the court failed to preclude the prosecution from proceeding on at least one theory of first degree murder or to require that the jury identify the theory on which it found him guilty of that crime. Defendant did not seek rehearing or modification of our decision in Memro I, supra, 38 Cal.3d 658, on the ground complained of. We find his assertion unavailing. The court's ruling on the felony-murder special-circumstance allegation required at most that the special circumstance not be realleged at the second trial. It was not. Nothing more could have been required. There was no violation of any constitutional right in retrying defendant on a charge that he murdered Carter on a theory of first degree murder.