Opinion ID: 1172193
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: double jeopardy under 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].)
When double jeopardy principles are involved, history shows we have not felt compelled to walk in the footprints left by United States Supreme Court precedent. For example, in Cardenas v. Superior Court (1961) 56 Cal.2d 273 [14 Cal. Rptr. 657, 363 P.2d 889, 100 A.L.R.2d 371], we held double jeopardy would preclude retrial following a mistrial granted over the defendant's objection. Although a retrial would have been allowed under the federal Constitution ( Gori v. United States (1961) 367 U.S. 364 [81 S.Ct. 1523, 6 L.Ed.2d 901]), we simply stated: [the federal] holding [in Gori ] does not accord with the uniform construction placed by this court upon the jeopardy provision of the California Constitution.... ( Cardenas, supra, at p. 276.) We explicitly reaffirmed Cardenas in Curry v. Superior Court (1970) 2 Cal.3d 707, 715-716 [87 Cal. Rptr. 361, 470 P.2d 345]. People v. Henderson (1963) 60 Cal.2d 482 [35 Cal. Rptr. 77, 386 P.2d 677] (hereafter Henderson ) is similar. In Henderson, the defendant was convicted, on his plea of guilty, of first degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. On appeal, the court reversed for trial court error in permitting the defendant to withdraw his original plea of not guilty. On remand, the defendant was again convicted; this time, he was sentenced to suffer the death penalty. On appeal in this court, the defendant argued imposition of the death penalty on retrial violated his right against double jeopardy as set forth in article I, then section 13 of the state Constitution. This court agreed. Noting that in Stroud, supra, 251 U.S. 15, the Supreme Court held the federal double jeopardy clause did not prohibit imposition of the death penalty after a retrial for a defendant originally sentenced to life imprisonment, this court found the state Constitution marked out a different path: A defendant's right of appeal from an erroneous judgment is unreasonably impaired when he is required to risk his life to invoke that right. Since the state has no interest in preserving erroneous judgments, it has no interest in foreclosing appeals therefrom by imposing unreasonable conditions on the right to appeal. ( Henderson, supra, 60 Cal.2d at p. 497.) The Supreme Court followed Stroud with North Carolina v. Pearce, supra, 395 U.S. 711, a 1969 noncapital case, holding a greater sentence after a retrial does not violate the federal due process clause. We again followed our own path, applying to noncapital cases the state constitutional double jeopardy rule set forth in Henderson, supra, 60 Cal.2d 482. ( People v. Hood (1969) 1 Cal.3d 444, 459 [82 Cal. Rptr. 618, 462 P.2d 370] [following Henderson but not mentioning Pearce ].) As one Court of Appeal observed: Although presented with ... the opportunity to [overrule Henderson ] ..., the court has never retreated from the rationale or holding of Henderson.  ( People v. Superior Court ( Harris ) (1990) 217 Cal. App.3d 1332, 1337 [266 Cal. Rptr. 563], citing inter alia, People v. Collins (1978) 21 Cal.3d 208, 216-217 [145 Cal. Rptr. 686, 577 P.2d 1026]; People v. White (1976) 16 Cal.3d 791, 802 [129 Cal. Rptr. 769, 549 P.2d 537]; People v. Serrato (1973) 9 Cal.3d 753, 763-764 [109 Cal. Rptr. 65, 512 P.2d 289], disapproved on other grounds in People v. Fosselman (1983) 33 Cal.3d 572, 583, fn. 1 [189 Cal. Rptr. 855, 659 P.2d 1144]; Curry v. Superior Court, supra, 2 Cal.3d at pp. 716-717; People v. Hood, supra, 1 Cal.3d at p. 459.) In People v. Comingore (1977) 20 Cal.3d 142 [141 Cal. Rptr. 542, 570 P.2d 723], the defendant, who had stolen a car in California and driven it to Oregon, was convicted in Oregon of unauthorized use of a vehicle. Upon his release, he was prosecuted in California for grand theft auto based on essentially the same acts that gave rise to the Oregon conviction. Although the California prosecution would have been permissible under the high court's interpretation of the Fifth Amendment double jeopardy clause (see Abbate v. United States (1959) 359 U.S. 187 [79 S.Ct. 666, 3 L.Ed.2d 729]), we held Penal Code section 793, a statute implementing double jeopardy principles, prohibited the California trial as it was predicated on the same facts that formed the basis of the Oregon trial. We did not expressly mention the state Constitution, but merely stated the rule in Abbate does not preclude a state from providing greater double jeopardy protection than is provided by the federal Constitution.... ( Comingore, supra, 20 Cal.3d at p. 145.) Although Comingore is not unequivocally a state constitutional (as opposed to state statutory ) case, the principles at work seem congruent, especially because Penal Code section 793 merely implements the state constitutional double jeopardy guarantee. In light of this court's strong history of relying on the state Constitution as a document of independent force in the double jeopardy area, I would rely on that document to resolve this case.
As the lead opinion concedes, we recently determined double jeopardy principles precluded retrial of a firearm use enhancement allegation, charged pursuant to Penal Code section 12022.5, where the defendant's jury had previously found the allegation not true. ( People v. Superior Court ( Marks ) (1991) 1 Cal.4th 56, 78, fn. 22 [2 Cal. Rptr.2d 389, 820 P.2d 613] (hereafter Marks ); cf. People v. Santamaria (1994) 8 Cal.4th 903, 910 [35 Cal. Rptr.2d 624, 884 P.2d 81] [The parties agree(d) that the jury's `not true' finding on the knife-use enhancement allegation precludes retrial of that allegation].) Noting the jury had found the allegation the defendant personally used a firearm not true, we held [t]he jury's rejection constituted an express acquittal on the enhancement and forecloses any retrial. ( Marks, supra, 1 Cal.4th at p. 78, fn. 22.) Because Marks is but a few years old and applied double jeopardy principles to a finding on a sentence enhancement, one might assume it provides relevant authority to decide this case. The lead opinion, however, posits two reasons why it believes Marks is irrelevant to the proper resolution of this case. First, the lead opinion opines that Marks relies on a line of cases that are based on a state constitutional rule of double jeopardy that precludes penalizing a defendant with a longer sentence following a successful appeal of his or her conviction. (Lead opn., ante, at p. 843.) [5] Second, the lead opinion asserts that because Marks included no analysis of the complex issues we address in this case, we think a narrow reading of Marks is appropriate. ( Ibid. ) The lead opinion's attempt to cabin the rationale in Marks founders because it fails to account for the Marks decision's emphasis on the fact the jury in that case found the enhancement allegation not true, and Marks 's characterization of this finding as an acquittal. The concept of an acquittal clearly implicates the historic constitutional double jeopardy bar to retrial. Indeed, if the federal double jeopardy clause protects against anything, it protects against a second prosecution for the same offense after acquittal.  ( North Carolina v. Pearce, supra, 395 U.S. 711, 717 [89 S.Ct. 2072, 2076], italics added, fn. omitted.) [I]t has long been settled under the Fifth Amendment that a verdict of acquittal is final, ending a defendant's jeopardy.... ( Green v. United States, supra, 355 U.S. at p. 188 [78 S.Ct. at pp. 223-224], italics added.) By emphasizing the jury found the enhancement allegation not true and characterizing the finding as an acquittal, the Marks court was clearly invoking this long-settled constitutional doctrine. Moreover, the Henderson-Collins-Hood line of cases (see fn. 5, ante ) cited in Marks, does not prohibit any retrial at all, but merely limits the aggregate sentence to no more than was achieved in the first trial. Thus, in Henderson, supra, 60 Cal.2d 482, where the defendant was sentenced to life imprisonment following his first trial, we did not purport to prevent any retrial whatsoever; we merely held he could not be given the greater sentence of the death penalty following retrial. Invoking the same rule in People v. Hood, supra, 1 Cal.3d 444, we permitted a retrial but limited the aggregate sentence to that achieved in the first trial. ( Id. at p. 459.) If, as suggested by the lead opinion, Marks was based solely on the state constitutional right against imposition of a greater sentence on retrial following a successful appeal, the Marks opinion should have permitted a retrial. Instead, Marks concluded [t]he jury's rejection [of the enhancement] constituted an express acquittal on the enhancement and forecloses any retrial.  ( Marks, supra, 1 Cal.4th at p. 78, fn. 22, italics added.) The lead opinion's belated attempt to redefine the meaning of Marks is thus unpersuasive. Moreover, the lead opinion's restrictive reading of the double jeopardy clause of the California Constitution fails to address the following authorities, which pose analogous sentence enhancements and conclude double jeopardy applies: People v. Brookins (1989) 215 Cal. App.3d 1297, 1309 [264 Cal. Rptr. 240] (double jeopardy precludes retrial of Penal Code section 667.7 habitual offender enhancement because it was reversed for insufficient evidence); People v. Pettaway, supra, 206 Cal. App.3d at page 1332, reversed on other grounds sub nom., Pettaway v. Plummer (9th Cir.1991) 943 F.2d 1041 (state constitutional double jeopardy provision prohibits retrial of Penal Code section 12022.5 [personal firearm use] and Penal Code section 12022.7 [personal infliction of great bodily injury] enhancements following jury verdict enhancements were not true as to murder charge); People v. Jones (1988) 203 Cal. App.3d 456, 460 [249 Cal. Rptr. 840], disapproved on another point, People v. Tenner, supra, 6 Cal.4th at page 566, footnote 2 (double jeopardy precludes retrial of Penal Code section 667.5 prior felony conviction enhancement); People v. Raby (1986) 179 Cal. App.3d 577, 591 [224 Cal. Rptr. 576] (double jeopardy precludes retrial of prior felony enhancement); and People v. Bonner (1979) 97 Cal. App.3d 573, 575 [158 Cal. Rptr. 821] (double jeopardy prohibits reprosecution of narcotics weight enhancement allegation following appellate reversal for insufficient evidence); see also People v. Guillen (1994) 25 Cal. App.4th 756 [31 Cal. Rptr.2d 653] (reaffirming Bonner, but finding mistrial on weight enhancement does not preclude retrial); People v. Reynolds (1989) 211 Cal. App.3d 382, 390 [259 Cal. Rptr. 352] (double jeopardy does not prevent retrial of serious felony enhancement under Penal Code section 667 because it was reversed for trial error and not for insufficient evidence). It bears repeating that the double jeopardy clause is no mere `technicality'; it is an integral part of `the framework of procedural protections which the Constitution establishes for the conduct of a criminal trial.' ( United States v. Jorn [(1971)] 400 U.S. [470,] 479 [91 S.Ct. 547, 554, 27 L.Ed.2d 543, 553] (plur. opn.).) Effectuating the spirit as well as the letter of its liberality, courts have `disparaged rigid, mechanical rules in [its] interpretation.... [Citation.]' ( Serfass v. United States [(1975)] 420 U.S. [377,] 390 [95 S.Ct. 1055, 1063-1064, 43 L.Ed.2d 265, 267].) In animating our own independent `vital safeguard,' we have expressly refused to perpetuate `spurious distinction[s]' at the risk of `giving our constitutional prohibition against twice in jeopardy a narrow, grudging application unsupported by either logic or reason.' ( Gomez v. Superior Court [(1958)] 50 Cal.2d [640,] 649 [328 P.2d 976]....) ( Marks, supra, 1 Cal.4th at pp. 78-79.) Perhaps a bit uncomfortable with its decision  understandably, since the specter of a defendant being retried innumerable times on the same allegations until the People finally succeed in proving them true is indeed disturbing  the lead opinion concludes by detailing a long list of what it is not deciding. It explains that although the People are not prohibited by double jeopardy principles from retrying the prior felony conviction enhancement, other limits might curtail the ability of the People on retrial to obtain a true finding. The lead opinion opines, for example, that on retrial the People cannot rely solely on the same evidence as initially presented, for even if the bedrock principle of double jeopardy does not apply to bar retrial, the more amorphous prudential principles of law of the case will apply. The lead opinion, although it declines to elaborate, also suggests unspecified limitations might restrict such required additional evidence. Similarly, the lead opinion hints there may be due process limits in such a retrial. (Lead opn., ante, at p. 845.) One can only guess what these intimations mean for future cases; what is clear is that for this defendant, on the facts of this particular case, retrial following acquittal is permitted. Such legal contortions are unnecessary. Not only does this court have a long history of relying on the state constitutional double jeopardy clause rather than its federal counterpart, there is in this state an unbroken line of cases applying the double jeopardy principles to noncapital sentence enhancement allegations. The majority breaks from this history without persuasive reasons for doing so. Accordingly, I would find the Court of Appeal's decision that the People adduced insufficient evidence to prove the enhancement alleged pursuant to Penal Code sections 667, subdivisions (b)-(i) and 1170.12, subdivisions (a)-(d), prohibits retrial of the same enhancement allegation pursuant to article I, section 15 of the California Constitution. The People having had one good chance to prove the truth of the prior conviction allegation, they should now be barred by the state constitutional double jeopardy clause from a second chance to prove the same charge.