Court Opinion

ID: 9537332
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:16:03.494731+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:56:27.251036
License: Public Domain

ELLETT, Justice
(dissenting) :
I dissent. Defendant was convicted of the crime of burglary in the second degree. There is no contention made that he was innocent or that there was any error in the trial of his case. The only reason the court gave for arresting judgment and setting the defendant free was that the court had accepted a plea of guilty from the co-defendant to a lesser charge.
If there is any miscarriage of justice, it would seem to be on the part of the court in accepting a plea from the co-defendant and thus allowing a burglar to escape his just desserts — not in the conviction of the defendant.
The case of Cuzick v. State, 4 Ariz.App. 455, 421 P.2d 537, 538 (1966), is in point. There, two brothers were equally guilty. The appellant in that case entered a plea of guilty to the crime charged. Thereafter his brother was permitted to plead to a lesser, included offense. The defendant then sought this freedom by way of a writ of habeas corpus claiming that he had been denied equal protection of law. In affirming a denial of the writ by the trial court, the appellate court said:
The appellant could not complain (1) if the prosecutor failed to prosecute his brother, or (2) if a jury convicted him and acquitted his brother, or (3) if identical sentences were not imposed on both. Therefore, he cannot successfully urge denial of equal protection of the laws in his present situation.
Section 77-31-7, U.C.A.1953, permits the court to discharge one of two equally guilty parties in order that he may be a witness for the state, and it has never been held that this would cause a denial of equal protection of the law. Section 77-31-8, U.C.A.1953, also permits one to be discharged in order to testify for a co-defendant under certain circumstances, and when *55the statute is followed, the discharge is a bar to further prosecution for the offense.
It thus would appear that a discharge of a defendant from a felony charge prior to the beginning of trial would not be a discharge to another charge unless it is by the court in order to allow the discharged defendant to testify.
In this case there was no discharge pursuant to the statute; and if the trial court felt that it was error to convict the one and not the other, it seems to me that he should order a prosecution of the other instead of discharging the one.
I would reverse the order of the trial court arresting judgment and direct the court to proceed with the case.