Court Opinion

ID: 9584719
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:52:01.771431+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:13:47.566805
License: Public Domain

KENNARD, J., Dissenting.
After the statute of limitations for a criminal offense has run, may the state prosecute an individual for that offense under a new law “reviving” the expired limitations period? According to the majority, the state may do so. I disagree. In the oft-quoted words of Judge Learned Hand: “[T]o revive a prosecution already dead” is contrary to “our instinctive feelings of justice and fair play. For the state to assure a man that he has become safe from its pursuit, and thereafter to withdraw its assurance, seems to most of us unfair and dishonest.” (Falter v. United States (2d Cir. 1928) 23 F.2d 420, 425-426.)
I
On October 21, 1996, the Mendocino County District Attorney filed a complaint in the municipal court charging defendant with one count of child *777molestation (Pen. Code, § 288, subd. (a))1 allegedly committed 12 years earlier, between October 1 and December 31, 1984.
In 1984, prosecution for the crime defined in section 288, subdivision (a), was limited by a six-year statute of limitations. (Former § 800, subd. (b), as amended by Stats. 1982, ch. 583, § 1, pp. 2543-2544.) That period expired in 1990. But in 1994, 10 years after the alleged commission of the offense in this case, and 4 years after the statute of limitations expired, the Legislature extended the statute of limitations indefinitely. It did so by adding subdivision (g) to section 803 (section 803(g)), providing that a complaint alleging a violation of section 288 (or other specified sexual offenses committed against a minor) may be filed within a year after the alleged victim reports the incident to a law enforcement agency; there is no time limitation for making such reports. Two years later, in 1996, the Legislature added subpart (3)(A) to section 803(g), stating that a complaint filed under 803(g) “shall revive any cause of action barred by Section 800 . . . .”
Defendant demurred to the complaint. He argued that the complaint on its face showed that the original six-year statute of limitations had expired long before the Legislature extended the limitations period by enacting section 803(g), and that to charge him with child molestation under the revived statute of limitations violated the ex post facto clauses of the United States and California Constitutions (U.S. Const., art. I, § 10; Cal. Const., art. I, § 9) as well as “the due process clause.” The magistrate sustained the demurrer and dismissed the case, ruling that the prosecution violated the federal Constitutional provision barring ex post facto laws. After an unsuccessful attempt in superior court to reinstate the complaint, the People sought review in the Court of Appeal, which affirmed the judgment.
H
Today, California becomes the only jurisdiction, state or federal, to permit “revival” prosecutions under an extended statute of limitations enacted after the expiration of the original statute of limitations. All other jurisdictions that have addressed the issue have concluded or assumed that these prosecutions violate article I, section 10, clause 1 of the federal Constitution, which provides that “[n]o state shall pass any ... ex post facto law . . . .” (See, e.g., cases cited in maj. opn., ante, at p. 764, fn. 25, and p. 765, fh. 27.) According to the majority, however, the United States Supreme Court’s recent decision in Collins v. Youngblood (1990) 497 U.S. 37 [110 S.Ct. 2715, 111 L.Ed.2d 30], which unlike this case did not involve a statute of limitations, has limited the scope of the ex post facto clause. Therefore, the *778majority holds, revival prosecutions no longer violate the ex post facto clause.
If, as the majority concludes, revival prosecutions do not violate the ex post facto clause, two questions remain: do they violate the due process guarantees of either (1) the federal or (2) the state Constitution? ■ The majority devotes considerable time to answering the first question, concluding there is no federal due process violation. But the majority ignores the state due process question. Because I find the resolution of this question dispositive here, I, unlike the majority, do not decide the federal constitutional issue.
III
In rejecting defendant’s federal due process claim, the majority relies on Chase Securities Corp. v. Donaldson (1945) 325 U.S. 304 [65 S.Ct. 1137, 89 L.Ed. 1628] (Chase Securities). There, the United States Supreme Court held that revival of a civil cause of action did not violate the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the federal Constitution. Forty years earlier, the court had reached the same conclusion in Campbell v. Holt (1885) 115 U.S. 620 [6 S.Ct. 209, 29 L.Ed. 483] (Campbell). In reexamining Campbell, the high court in Chase Securities noted that many state courts had rejected Campbell’s reasoning when construing the due process clauses of their own constitutions: “We are reminded that some state courts have not followed [Campbell] in construing provisions of their constitutions similar to the due process clause. Many have, as they are privileged to do, so interpreted their own easily amendable constitutions . . . .” (Chase Securities, supra, 325 U.S. at p. 312 [65 S.Ct. at pp. 1141-1142], fn. omitted.) Among the many states that did so was California, in Chambers v. Gallagher (1918) 177 Cal. 704 [171 P. 931] (Chambers).
In Chambers, the state Controller sought to collect an inheritance tax under a revived statute of limitations. This court held that the action violated the due process clause of the California Constitution. (Chambers, supra, 177 Cal. at p. 708.) We acknowledged that the United States Supreme Court had reached a contrary conclusion in construing the due process clause of the federal constitution in Campbell, supra, 115 U.S. 620. But we declined to follow Campbell, observing that our conclusion was “supported by the almost universal course of decision in the United States.” (Chambers, supra, 177 Cal. at p. 709.)
Chambers, supra, 177 Cal. 704, is still good law, and the majority makes no attempt to overrule it. It remains squarely within the mainstream of *779modem judicial thought. The majority of courts in other states in which the issue has arisen have declined to follow the United States Supreme Court’s decisions in Chase Securities, supra, 325 U.S. 304, and Campbell, supra, 115 U.S. 620, in constming the due process clauses of their state constitutions, holding that these clauses prohibit a state legislature from reviving time-barred civil actions. As the Rhode Island Supreme Court stated recently: “We are not unmindful that Campbell[, supra, 115 U.S. 620], [William] Danzer [v. Gulf R.R. (1925) 268 U.S. 633 [45 S.Ct. 612, 69 L.Ed. 1126]], and Chase [Securities, supra, 325 U.S. 304] remain the foundation stones for the current general federal rale. The state appellate courts, however, are free to interpret and to construe their own state constitutional due process and equal protection provisions. In so doing, the ‘great preponderance’ of state appellate courts do not apply or follow the general federal rule.” (Kelly v. Marcantonio (R.I. 1996) 678 A.2d 873, 883; see also Wiley v. Roof (Fla. 1994) 641 So.2d 66, 67-69; State of Minn. ex rel. Hove v. Doese (S.D. 1993) 501 N.W.2d 366, 369-370; Starnes v. Cayouette (1992) 244 Va. 202 [419 S.E.2d 669, 671-675]; Johnson v. Lilly (1992) 308 Ark. 201 [823 S.W.2d 883, 885]; Givens v. Anchor Packing, Inc. (1991) 237 Neb. 565 [466 N.W.2d 771, 773-775]; Colony Hill Condo. I Ass’n v. Colony Co. (1984) 70 N.C.App. 390 [320 S.E.2d 273, 276]; Wilson v. All-Steel, Inc. (1981) 87 Ill.2d 28 [56 Ill.Dec. 897, 428 N.E.2d 489, 494-495]; Dobson v. Quinn Freight Lines, Inc. (Me. 1980) 415 A.2d 814, 816; Zitomer v. Slate (1974) 21 Md.App. 709 [321 A.2d 328, 331], revd. other grounds sub nom. Slate v. Zitomer (1975) [275 Md. 534 [341 A.2d 789]; Haase v. Sawicki (1963) 20 Wis.2d 308 [121 N.W.2d 876, 878]; Jackson v. Evans (1940) 284 Ky. 748 [145 S.W.2d 1061, 1062]; In re Swan’s Estate (1938) 95 Utah 408 [79 P.2d 999]; Cathey v. Weaver (1922) 111 Tex. 515 [242 S.W. 447, 453]; see also Orleans Parish School Bd. v. U.S. Gypsum Co. (E.D.La. 1995) 892 F.Supp. 794, 806-807 [federal court applying Louisiana law]; Waller v. Pittsburgh Corning Corp. (D.Kan. 1990) 742 F.Supp. 581, 583-585 [federal court applying Kansas law].)
Six other states have found legislation reviving time-barred civil actions invalid under other provisions of their Constitutions (Johnson v. Garlock, Inc. (Ala. 1996) 682 So.2d 25, 28; Doe v. Roman Catholic Diocese (Mo. 1993) 862 S.W.2d 338, 340-341; Gould v. Concord Hosp. (1985) 126 N.H. 405 [493 A.2d 1193, 1195]; Jefferson Cty. Dept. of Soc. Serv. v. D. A. G. (1980) 199 Colo. 315 [607 P.2d 1004, 1005-1006]; Wright v. Keiser (Okla. 1977) 568 P.2d 1262, 1267; Ford Motor Company v. Moulton (Tenn. 1974) 511 S.W.2d 690, 695-696), while some courts have held that legislation reviving a previously dead claim does not violate due process (see cases cited in Waller v. Pittsburgh Corning Corp., supra, 742 F.Supp. at p. 584).
All of these decisions involved statutes of limitations in civil cases, as did the high court’s decision in Chase Securities, supra, 325 U.S. 304, and this *780court’s decision in Chambers, supra, 177 Cal. 704. I am not aware of any published decision resolving the issue presented here: whether revival of a time-barred criminal prosecution, by legislative extension of the statute of limitations, denies the defendant due process. (See, however, State v. Cookman (1994) 127 Or.App. 283 [873 P.2d 335, 337-338] [opinion of three judges of ten-judge panel of intermediate appellate court hearing matter, concluding that revival prosecutions violate due process clause of Fourteenth Amendment; three other judges agreed with the result on other grounds], affd. on other grounds (1996) 324 Or. 19 [920 P.2d 1086].) Why this dearth of authority? Certainly not because due process protections apply with greater force in the civil than in the criminal context. To the contrary. In criminal prosecutions, due process requirements are frequently more demanding, because a criminal prosecution places the accused’s personal liberty in jeopardy, and, as this court has recognized, “personal liberty is a fundamental interest, second only to life itself, as an interest protected under [the due process clauses of] the California and United States Constitutions.” (People v. Olivas (1976) 17 Cal.3d 236, 251 [131 Cal.Rptr. 55, 551 P.2d 375].) The only reason why until today courts in general have not considered the due process implications of reviving a time-barred criminal prosecution is that, as I have explained (see pp. 777-778, ante), the courts have held or assumed that such a prosecution violates the federal Constitution’s ex post facto clause, thus dispensing with the need to resolve the issue under the due process clause.
Revival of a time-barred criminal prosecution violates the guarantee of “fundamental fairness” that is the essence of the due process protection provided by our state Constitution. (See People v. Ramos (1984) 37 Cal.3d 136, 153 [207 Cal.Rptr. 800, 689 P.2d 430].) As the United States Supreme Court has observed, statutes of limitations “provide predictability by specifying a limit beyond which there is an irrebuttable presumption that a defendant’s right to a fair trial would be prejudiced.” (United States v. Marion (1971) 404 U.S. 307, 322 [92 S.Ct. 455, 464, 30 L.Ed.2d 468].) Statutes of limitations tell people when they no longer need to fear prosecution for crimes which they may or may not have committed. After a statute of limitations for a crime has run, all persons, guilty or innocent, having any reason to anticipate that they might have been subject to prosecution for that crime may throw away documents or other items that might have been useful to support a defense, secure in the belief that prosecution is no longer a possibility. Because the self-incrimination privilege does not survive an expired statute of limitations (Daly v. Superior Court (1977) 19 Cal.3d 132, 149, fn. 13 [137 Cal.Rptr. 14, 560 P.2d 1193]; Ex parte Cohen (1894) 104 Cal. 524, 528 [38 P. 364]; see also Brown v. Walker (1896) 161 U.S. 591, 598 [16 S.Ct. 644, 647, 40 L.Ed. 819]), a person may be forced to testify *781about a crime in civil proceedings held long after the statute of limitations for the crime has expired.2
The State of California has an obligation to deal fairly with its citizens. Once it has made an absolute and irrefutable assurance that it will not initiate a prosecution, it may not renege on that promise years afterwards, when memories may have faded and evidence may have been destroyed.
The majority here acknowledges that statutes of limitations serve similar interests in criminal and civil cases. Those interests “include both societal repose and the protection of individuals whose means of defense might be impaired by the passage of time.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 770.) This court implicitly recognized the importance of those interests in Chambers, supra, 177 Cal. 704, a civil case holding that the state Controller’s action to collect an inheritance tax under a revived statute of limitations violated the due process of the state Constitution. If this is impermissible in a civil case, it should also b¿ impermissible in a criminal prosecution, where the accused’s personal liberty is at stake.
The majority, however, takes a different view. Relegating to a mere footnote its cursory comment on the applicability here of this court’s decision in Chambers, the majority attempts to distinguish that case by observing that it involved a civil tax dispute. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 775, fn. 32.) The majority’s view is untenable. Assume, for instance, that the statute of limitations for bringing a civil suit to collect unpaid taxes and for bringing criminal charges for failing to pay taxes were each five years, and that the Legislature passed laws reviving both statutes of limitations after each had expired. Under the view of the majority, the state’s civil tax action would violate the taxpayer’s due process rights under the state Constitution, but the state’s criminal prosecution of the same taxpayer would not. An odd and unfair result indeed.
The majority also looks to some decisions by our Courts of Appeal as a basis of support for its view here. Those cases upheld the validity of a civil statute of limitations reviving common law causes of action based on childhood sexual abuse, by distinguishing Chambers, supra, 177 Cal. 704, on the ground that Chambers precludes revival only of statutory and not common law causes of action. (See, e.g., Liebig v. Superior Court (1989) 209 Cal.App.3d 828, 835 [257 Cal.Rptr. 574].) This court has never addressed the purported distinction. In any event, those decisions have no bearing on *782the applicability of Chambers in a criminal case, as here: “In California all crimes are statutory and there are no common law crimes.” (In re Brown (1973) 9 Cal.3d 612, 624 [108 Cal.Rptr. 465, 510 P.2d 1017].)
Finally, the high court’s decision in Chase Securities, supra, 325 U.S. 304, on which the majority bases its rejection of defendant’s federal due process claim, provides no basis for us to reconsider our decision in Chambers, supra, 177 Cal. 704. “A change in course by the United States Supreme Court, interpreting the federal Constitution, is no justification for a change in this court’s interpretation of the distinct provisions of our state Constitution. This court should disabuse itself of the notion that in matters of constitutional law and criminal procedure we must always play Ginger Rogers to the high court’s Fred Astaire—always following, never leading. The rights guaranteed by the state Constitution ‘are not dependent on those guaranteed by the United States Constitution.’ (Cal. Const., art. I, § 24; see Raven v. Deukmejian (1990) 52 Cal.3d 336, 351-355 [276 Cal.Rptr. 326, 801 P.2d 1077].) We have the power and the duty to give independent meaning and force to the provisions of our state charter.” (People v. Cahill (1993) 5 Cal.4th 478, 557-558 [20 Cal.Rptr.2d 582, 853 P.2d 1037] (dis. opn. of Kennard, J.).)
IV
Today the majority makes California the first and only jurisdiction in this country to allow the prosecution of time-barred criminal offenses under an extended statute of limitations. I cannot join in this holding.
The State of California has an obligation to deal fairly with those it accuses of crimes. By allowing an existing statute of limitations to expire on an alleged offense, the state gives an assurance, which before today was always unconditional, that it will not prosecute for that offense. In my view, the due process guarantee of our state Constitution does not permit the state to withdraw that assurance years later, when recollections of the relevant events may have faded and exculpatory evidence may have been lost or discarded. Because the offenses of which defendant here is charged became time-barred before the Legislature extended the statute of limitations, I would affirm the Court of Appeal’s judgment upholding the magistrate’s order dismissing the complaint.
Mosk, J., concurred.

A11 subsequent undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code.

Such testimony is particularly likely when the alleged molester is a parent or stepparent. False allegations of child molestation are a not-uncommon phenomenon in bitterly contested child custody proceedings.