Opinion ID: 1185789
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Independent State Ground

Text: The majority, while initially arguing in extended fashion that the United States Supreme Court in Harris was not following its own appropriate precedents, finally concede that pursuing this form of analysis is hardly our function, and conclude by invoking the independent state self-incrimination clause contained in article I, section 15, of the California Constitution. While the conclusion appears only in a footnote the independent state ground is absolutely central to the majority's thesis, and leads them to declare that, notwithstanding the near identity of language in the federal and California Constitutions,  Harris is not persuasive authority in any state prosecution in California. It is both readily apparent and significant that the self-incrimination clauses of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution and of article I, section 15, of the state Constitution contain virtually identical language. Also, the Fourth Amendment and article I, section 13, of the state Constitution employ similar language in prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures. The very obvious and substantial identity of phrasing in the two Constitutions strongly suggests to me the wisdom, insofar as possible, of identity of interpretation of those clauses. The same considerations of policy, need for uniformity and avoidance of confusion apply with equal force to the Fourth and Fifth Amendment protections contained in article I of our state Constitution. These important factors of deference and of policy have been recently well expressed in Justice Clark's dissenting opinion in People v. Norman (1975) 14 Cal.3d 929, 940-941 [123 Cal. Rptr. 109, 538 P.2d 237], wherein he quotes the following language from Justice Thompson's Court of Appeal opinion in Norman: `The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and article I, section 19 [now section 13] of the California Constitution are essentially identical in wording. [Fn. omitted.] Decisions of the United States Supreme Court construing constitutional phraseology are highly persuasive. [Citations.] ... The persuasion of the United States Supreme Court decisions is particularly strong in the area of search and seizure and the exclusionary rule. California courts have for years spoken of the basis of the exclusionary rule as the Fourth Amendment. A sudden switch to a California ground to avoid the impact of federal high court decision invites the successful use of the initiative process to overrule the California decision with its concomitant harm to the prestige, influence, and function of the judicial branch of state government.... The more courts feel free to adopt ground rules unpersuaded by contrary decisions of other courts, the greater the likelihood there is of uncertainty in those ground rules. The uncertainty is mitigated if proper deference is paid United States Supreme Court holdings. [¶] `Thus, something more than personal disagreement by a majority of members of a state court with the decision of the United States high tribunal on search and seizure is required if the persuasion of that court is not to be followed.... [T]he state system should accept the interpretation of the United States Supreme Court of language in the federal Constitution as controlling of our interpretation of essentially identical language in the California Constitution unless conditions peculiar to California support a different meaning.' I believe the foregoing reasoning is eminently sound, equally applicable to self-incrimination language that is nearly identical in the two Constitutions, and that no special, unique, or distinctive California conditions exist which justify a departure from a general principle favoring uniformity. In my view, in the absence of very strong countervailing circumstances we should defer to the leadership of the nation's highest court in its interpretation of nearly identical constitutional language, rather than attempt to create a separate echelon of state constitutional interpretations to which we will advert whenever a majority of this court differ from a particular high court interpretation. The reason for the foregoing principle is that it promotes uniformity and harmony in an area of the law which peculiarly and uniquely requires them. The alternative required by the majority must inevitably lead to the growth of a shadow tier of dual constitutional interpretations state by state which, with temporal variances, will add complexity to an already complicated body of law. The vagaries and uncertainties of constitutional interpretations, particularly in the Fourth and Fifth Amendment sectors of our criminal law, are the hard facts of life with which the general public, the courts, and law enforcement officials must grapple daily. This condition necessarily breeds uncertainty, confusion, and doubt. It will not be eased or allayed by a proliferation of multiple judicial interpretations of nearly identical language. The case before us presents a classic example, in my opinion, of the fallacy of the majority approach. Here the majority propose to rely on and encourage development of a separate California self-incrimination privilege notwithstanding the near identity of language in the Fifth Amendment to the federal Constitution and article I, section 15, of the California Constitution. The inevitable result is two rules or standards of interpretation of single constitutional language. Furthermore, the majority blithely ignore what has long been recognized, namely, that the privilege against self-incrimination is. a single common law privilege which existed long before its incorporation into either the United States or California Constitution. (See 8 Wigmore, Evidence (1961) § 2251, p. 295.) On principle, even in situations of varying constitutional expressions of a single common law privilege uniform interpretation should normally be required and expected. As Professor Wigmore put it: The variety of constitutional and statutory phrasing neither enlarges nor narrows the scope of the privilege as developed in the common law.... [T]he detailed rules are to be determined by the historical and logical requirements of the principle regardless of the specific words of the particular constitution, ... ( Id., § 2252, p. 326.) A fortiori, as in the matters before us when constitutional language approaches identity, the compulsion toward uniformity of interpretation should be even greater. That being so, on what basis do the majority hold that the language of our state Constitution should be construed in a different manner than the substantially identical language of the Fifth Amendment privilege as construed in Harris ? What circumstance peculiar to California requires that we do so? I can think of none. The majority have suggested none. The simple fact is that in the instant case there is in reality only one privilege long recognized by the common law, subsequently incorporated in the federal Constitution, and much later adopted in the California Constitution. Nonetheless, under the majority holding notwithstanding the fact that we have but one privilege expressed in almost identical language they insist on multiple interpretations. The logic of this approach totally escapes me. The transient exhilaration drawn from our assertion of an independent California rule in this area will, in my opinion, speedily pass and leave in residue an unnecessary compounding and multiplicity of constitutional rules that should, so far as possible, be simple, uniform, consistent, and cohesive. The majority's approach makes transparently clear that the vigor with which the newly discovered separate and independent state constitutional interpretations are asserted ebbs and flows depending upon the approval or rejection by the majority of the particular constitutional interpretation which, in a given case, emanates from the federal Supreme Court. This accordion-like effect, this divergence and convergence, though in a sense predictable with the shifting winds of judicial policy and personal predeliction, is not calculated to produce that kind of uniformity or harmony conducive to the logical and uniform development of constitutional law. As a device of constitutional interpretation the majority approach is dubious and suspect. As an instrument of judicial policy it is illogical and unnecessary.