Court Opinion

ID: 9731690
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 15:54:33.989286+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:20.393062
License: Public Domain

GARDNER, P. J.
I concur:
Under the facts of this case, the order recusing the entire district attorney’s office was clearly an abuse of discretion. I can add nothing to Justice Kaufman’s analysis of the legal issues involved. However, I do have some purely pragmatic observations to make.
The ever expanding list of pretrial motions in criminal cases is becoming something of a judicial scandal. The order made in this case, if upheld, will simply add one more arrow for the bows of defense attorneys and the air is already full of such arrows. The citizens of Orange County were recently exposed to the spectacle of almost a solid year of pretrial motions on the part of a well-heeled criminal defendant—after which he *213promptly pled guilty. Sometime ago, I wrote an opinion {People v. Huffman, 71 Cal.App.3d 63 [139 Cal.Rptr. 264]) in which the defendant had complained that his attorney had not made enough “motions.” Just off the top of my head, I made up a list of all of the motions I could think of. That list came to 17 motions. I was a piker. I recently saw an ad for a lecture course entitled “Motions in Criminal Practice” which listed 36 such motions and I note that list omits 7 which appeared on my list. If the order' of the trial court were allowed to stand, we would be adding Rabaca to such well known household names as Eleazer, Beagle, Aranda, Ballard, Hitch, Murgia, Johnson, Rost and Kellett.
The district attorney has the peculiar opportunity to put himself in a position in which, under Comden v. Superior Court, 20 Cal.3d 906 [145 Cal.Rptr. 9, 576 P.2d 971], he “ought” to be called as a witness.1 Quite often a deputy district attorney will—quite properly—take a confession from a defendant or a statement from a witness who later becomes hostile. This puts that deputy in a position in which—quite properly—he should be recused. But not the whole office!
The dissent appears to bottom its case on the concept of the avoidance of the appearance of evil. It’s a little hard to argue against that concept. It has a rich ring to it. It’s in the same category as motherhood and apple pie. Nevertheless, such a concept should not be elevated into a mindless code of rigid etiquette or a frozen formalism, devoid of substance. I fear that if the order of the trial court were upheld, it will add to the public’s concept that we have developed a judicial world of needless refinements and distinctions in which signs and symbols are all important. When balancing the possibility of the appearance of evil against the probability of serious damage to the judicial system, commonsense, reason and experience tell me that the position taken by the dissent is simply wrong.
I concur in the judgment reversing the trial court.

Although I must say that I thought the dissent had much the better part of the argument in Comden.