Opinion ID: 1300630
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Validity of murder convictions.

Text: Defendant first urges, as he did in his prior appeal, that his murder convictions must be reversed because the trial court failed to instruct sua sponte on the defense of unreasonable self-defense. In People v. Flannel (1979) 25 Cal.3d 668 [160 Cal. Rptr. 84, 603 P.2d 1], we held that an honest though unreasonable belief in the need for self-defense is sufficient to negate the existence of malice and reduces a homicide from murder to manslaughter. (Pp. 674-680.) We further ruled that in trials held after the Flannel decision, the trial court must instruct the jury sua sponte on the unreasonable self-defense doctrine when the evidence so warrants, but that this rule would not apply to cases tried before the Flannel decision. (P. 683.) In his first appeal, defendant argued that Flannel should apply to his case even though his trial preceded that decision. We rejected the claim, reasoning that the trial court need instruct sua sponte only on established general principles of law, for it would impose too onerous a burden to require the court to research and expound obscure doctrines not presented by the litigants. In view of the hitherto undeveloped state of the unreasonable self-defense doctrine, we concluded that failure to instruct on it sua sponte was not reversible in cases, like defendant's, that were tried before the Flannel decision was announced. ( Murtishaw I, 29 Cal.3d at p. 760.) (1) Defendant now asserts that he is entitled to the benefit of Flannel under the rule of Griffith v. Kentucky (1987) 479 U.S. 314 [93 L.Ed.2d 649, 107 S.Ct. 708]. He is mistaken. In Griffith, the high court did disavow its prior suggestion (see United States v. Johnson (1982) 457 U.S. 537, 553-554 [73 L.Ed.2d 202, 216-217, 102 S.Ct. 2579]) that new rules of criminal procedure which constitute clear breaks with the past need not be applied retroactively. The Griffith court declared that henceforth, a new rule for the conduct of criminal prosecutions is to be applied retroactively to all cases, state or federal, pending on direct review or not yet final, with no exception for cases in which the new rule constitutes a `clear break' with the past. (479 U.S. at p. 328 [93 L.Ed.2d at p. 661].) Griffith does not undermine defendant's convictions. In the first place, they may well have been final for purposes of Griffith by the time that decision was announced. We had already affirmed them on appeal, and defendant's petition for certiorari had been denied. For this reason alone, Griffith 's application is doubtful. (479 U.S. at p. 321, fn. 6 [93 L.Ed.2d at p. 657]; but see, e.g., People v. Stanworth (1974) 11 Cal.3d 588, 595-596 [114 Cal. Rptr. 250, 522 P.2d 1058]; People v. Ketchel (1966) 63 Cal.2d 859, 865-866 [48 Cal. Rptr. 614, 409 P.2d 694].) In any event, we conclude Griffith applies only to rules based on the federal Constitution, or upon the federal judicial supervisory power. Griffith itself decided the retroactivity of a new federal constitutional rule, that which precludes racially discriminatory use of peremptory challenges. ( Batson v. Kentucky (1986) 476 U.S. 79 [90 L.Ed.2d 69, 106 S.Ct. 1712], overruling Swain v. Alabama (1965) 380 U.S. 202 [13 L.Ed.2d 759, 85 S.Ct. 824].) In Griffith, the court expressly addressed the framework for deciding the retroactivity of new constitutional rules of criminal procedure as developed in Linkletter v. Walker (1965) 381 U.S. 618 [14 L.Ed.2d 601, 85 S.Ct. 1731], and its progeny. (479 U.S. at p. 320 [93 L.Ed.2d at p. 656], italics added.) Griffith 's analysis proceeded on the assumption, among others, that basic norms of constitutional adjudication are violated when courts deny application of a newly declared constitutional rule to all pending litigants save the one whose case was used to announce it. ( Id., at pp. 322-323 [93 L.Ed.2d at pp. 657-658], italics added.) We need not extend this analysis to rules of criminal procedure derived solely from state law. As the United States Supreme Court stated long ago, [t]he federal constitution has no voice upon the subject [of retroactivity of a new rule of state law]. A state in defining the limits of adherence to precedent may make a choice for itself between the principle of forward operation and that of relation backward. ( Gt. Northern Ry. v. Sunburst Co. (1932) 287 U.S. 358, 364 [77 L.Ed. 360, 366, 53 S.Ct. 145, 85 A.L.R. 254].) Defendant urges that the sua sponte instruction rule of Flannel is constitutionally based, and therefore retroactive under Griffith, because he has a due process right to have the jury decide every material issue in the case. However, the rule of unreasonable self-defense clarified in Flannel is one of state common law. (2, 3) (See fn. 2.) Defendant cites no authority, and we are aware of none, that federal due process requires a sua sponte instruction on every conceivable theory of defense raised by the evidence. [2] Nor does this case implicate Griffith's concerns for fairness among litigants. As we explained in Murtishaw I, we [did not hold] that the trial judge in Flannel erred by failing to instruct sua sponte on unreasonable self-defense, [then refuse] to give that holding retroactive effect. In fact, we held that the [ Flannel ] trial judge did not err by failing to give an unreasonable self-defense instruction in the absence of a request, since that theory of manslaughter was so obscure before Flannel that it did not invoke the duty to instruct on established general principles of law. (29 Cal.3d at pp. 760-761, quoted italics in original.) Applying this reasoning, we further held that Flannel himself could not predicate error on the court's failure to instruct sua sponte at his trial. Thus even if we applied Flannel retroactively to the present case, defendant here would be entitled to no greater benefit than that accorded Flannel himself; he would not be entitled to posit error on the trial court's failure to instruct sua sponte.  ( Ibid. ) In our view, Griffith thus has no compulsory effect on this case, and we still find persuasive the prospective-only reasoning of Flannel and Murtishaw I. No basis appears to reopen and reverse the convictions. Accordingly, we turn to defendant's claims arising from his retrial on the issue of penalty.