Opinion ID: 478419
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: reasonable reliance on the 1971 order

Text: 43 In his opening brief, Newton contends that [d]ue process forbids the state from voiding a citizen's felony conviction and, then, after the citizen has relied on that judicial ruling, reversing itself, without notice, and imprisoning the citizen because of his reliance on the state's assurances. This argument falsely assumes that an order striking a sentence enhancing allegation has the effect of voiding a judgment of conviction. As noted above, under California law, the striking of a sentence enhancing allegation does not vacate the underlying conviction. Sumstine, 36 Cal.3d at 920, 687 P.2d at 911, 206 Cal.Rptr. at 714. 44 Newton's reliance on Raley v. Ohio, 360 U.S. 423, 79 S.Ct. 1257, 3 L.Ed.2d 1344 (1959) and Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 536, 85 S.Ct. 453, 13 L.Ed.2d 471 (1965) is also misplaced. In Raley, the Chairman of the Ohio Un-American Activities Commission expressly informed the defendants that they could assert their privilege against self-incrimination. 360 U.S. at 428-30, 79 S.Ct. at 1261-62. The defendants were convicted of contempt for failure to answer questions before the Committee after asserting the privilege against self-incrimination. Id. at 424, 79 S.Ct. at 1259. The Commission Chairman did not tell the defendants that an Ohio immunity law deprived them of the protection of the privilege. Id. at 438-39, 79 S.Ct. at 1266-67. The Supreme Court reversed the conviction, holding that to do otherwise would be to sanction the most indefensible sort of entrapment by the State--convicting a citizen for exercising a privilege which the State clearly had told him was available to him.... Id. 45 In Cox, city officials told Cox, the leader of a civil rights demonstration, that the demonstrators could meet on the sidewalk across the street from the courthouse steps to picket. 379 U.S. at 541, 570-71, 85 S.Ct. at 457, 483-84. Cox was arrested for picketing across the street from the courthouse in violation of a statute which prohibited picketing near a courthouse. Id. at 538, 560, 85 S.Ct. at 455, 478. The Supreme Court reversed, relying on its decision in Raley. Id. at 571, 85 S.Ct. at 484. 46 Judge Cook ordered that the charge of a prior conviction must be stricken from the indictment. He did not inform Newton that the prior judgment had been vacated, that he was now entitled to possess a weapon, or that he was no longer subject to the legal restrictions imposed upon a convicted felon by the State of California. Thus, the state trial court did not mislead or entrap Newton into violating the law.