Opinion ID: 1421847
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Controlling Authority of Prior Judicial Construction

Text: The result I reach is mandated by a further principle of statutory and constitutional construction: `where the legislature uses terms already judicially construed, the presumption is almost irresistible that it used them in the precise and technical sense which had been placed upon them by the courts.' ( People v. Curtis (1969) 70 Cal.2d 347, 355 [74 Cal. Rptr. 713, 450 P.2d 33], quoting from City of Long Beach v. Marshall (1938) 11 Cal.2d 609, 620 [82 P.2d 362]; accord, Marina Point, Ltd. v. Wolfson, supra, 30 Cal.3d 721, 734; In re Jeanice D. (1980) 28 Cal.3d 210, 216 [168 Cal. Rptr. 455, 617 P.2d 1087]; Buchwald v. Katz, supra, 8 Cal.3d 493, 502.) Thus we must presume that the drafters were aware of judicial decisions construing the language used in section 28(d), and that they intended a construction consistent with those decisions. ( Palos Verdes Faculty Assn. v. Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified Sch. Dist. (1978) 21 Cal.3d 650, 659 [147 Cal. Rptr. 359, 580 P.2d 1155]; Stafford v. Realty Bond Service Corp. (1952) 39 Cal.2d 797, 805 [249 P.2d 241].) In Kaplan v. Superior Court, supra, 6 Cal.3d 150, we addressed a challenge substantially similar to that presented here. In Kaplan, a police officer had seen a car speeding. As he turned on his red light to signal the driver to stop, the officer observed a passenger hide something in his coat from under the front seat. On the theory that the something was a weapon, the officer ordered the passenger from the car and subjected him to a patdown search. In the course of the search, the officer felt a lump he was pretty sure ... was not a weapon, but having an idea it was pills, placed the passenger under arrest and reached inside his shirt pocket. The lump consisted of a number of LSD tablets in a plastic bag. In exchange for a promise of immunity, the passenger testified that the defendant, another passenger, had sold him the pills. Under Martin the defendant would have had standing to challenge the search pursuant to the vicarious exclusionary rule; under federal law he would not. ( Alderman v. United States, supra, 394 U.S. 165, 171-176 [22 L.Ed.2d 176, 185-188].) All parties conceded that the search was unlawful. The issue was whether then newly enacted Evidence Code section 351, stating that Except as otherwise provided by statute, all relevant evidence is admissible, repealed the Martin rule. We held that it did not. After reviewing the history of the vicarious standing rule, and emphasizing how deeply embedded it was in the law of California, we concluded that `We do not believe that such a firmly established and fundamental rule of the criminal law of years' standing was overruled by any vague and indecisive provision in the Evidence Code  nor do we believe that the Legislature so intended.' (6 Cal.3d at p. 161, quoting People v. Starr (1970) 11 Cal. App.3d 574, 583 [89 Cal. Rptr. 906].) The Attorney General argues that Kaplan is distinguishable because our holding there was assertedly based on legislative intent. Section 351 was part of a massive revision of California evidence law into an Evidence Code that would leave some rules intact while overhauling others. We stressed that whenever the drafters meant to repeal or change existing law, they spelled out in their official comments the precise consequences of their action and the statutes or case law it affected. ( Id. at p. 158.) We concluded that In view of the commission's painstaking analysis of many evidentiary rules that are of less importance and notoriety than Martin, its deafening silence on this point cannot be deemed the product of oversight. It can only mean the commission did not intend  and the code therefore does not accomplish  a change in the Martin rule. ( Id. at p. 159.) The Attorney General's reasoning that Kaplan is inapposite misses the point. It is not how we reached our conclusion in Kaplan that is decisive in the case at bar; the determinative factor for purposes of statutory construction is that we did reach that conclusion  i.e., that the language used was incapable of effecting the result in question. [7] In section 28(d) the drafters of Proposition 8 chose to use language that is the mirror image of Evidence Code section 351: while section 351 provides that all relevant evidence is admissible, section 28(d) states that relevant evidence shall not be excluded. Accordingly, I believe we are compelled to interpret section 28(d) in light of the Kaplan decision, and we must assume that the framers of the section chose its language with knowledge of Kaplan. In light of the deafening silence of a contrary intent, as discussed above, it must therefore be concluded that they did not intend section 28(d) to abrogate the rule of vicarious standing or other independent state grounds for the exclusion of evidence.