Court Opinion

ID: 9883685
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 02:11:13.620382+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:48:28.946988
License: Public Domain

Coot?ohd, P. J. A. D.,
Temporarily Assigned, concurring. The trial judge refused to give defendant the benefit of the ruling adverse to the State on Sanchez’s motion to suppress solely for the reason that the rule of collateral estoppel requires mutuality of estoppel, i. e., identity of parties in both proceedings. I agree with the majority holding that the mutuality principle should not have prevented the application of collateral estoppel in this case. In my view, moreover, since the Court has already, and quite soundly, abandoned the per se mutuality principle in civil cases, United Rental Equip. Co. v. Aetna Life & Cas. Co., 74 N. J. 92, 101 (1977), there is no reason for its survival in criminal cases generally. The basic policy considerations of conservation of judicial resources and the appearance of fairness in the judicial system are as applicable in criminal as in eiviP cases. Cf. People v. Taylor, 12 Cal. 3d 686, 117 Cal. Rptr. 70, 76-77, 527 P. 2d 622, 628-629 (Sup. Ct. 1974).
I believe it unnecessary in this case to catalogue the various kinds of situations in which collateral estoppel should not be made available to a criminal defendant based on determinations of issues in a former criminal case to which he was not a party. There is a broad range of situations in which collateral estoppel will not apply even in civil cases between the same parties. See Restatement, Judgments, 2d, § 68.1 at 27-48 (Tent. Dr. No. 4, 1977). The American Law Institute, in tentatively adopting the modern view discarding the straitjacket of mutuality in civil cases, yet finds six specific exceptions and one omnibus exception to the general applicability of collateral estoppel notwithstanding absence of mutuality. Restatement, Judgments, 2d, § 88 at 90-91 (Tent. Dr. No. 2, 1975). (See, supra, pp. 189-190.). To these, the Institute would add all the exceptions set forth in § 68.1, supra.
Broadly speaking, tentative Sections 68.1 and 88 of Restatement, Judgments, 2d, although speaking to civil litiga*198tion,1 seem to me to constitute a useful provisional working basis for governing application of the doctrine of collateral estoppel to issues decided against the State as against a different criminal defendant. Particularly useful is category (7) under Section 88:
Other circumstances make it appropriate that the party [here the State] be permitted to relitigate the issue.2
Beyond the foregoing, I would let the law in this largely uncharted area develop on a case by case basis.
Justice Mountain and Justice Clifford join in this opinion.
Mountain and Clifford, JJ., and Conford, P. J. A. D., concurring in the result.
For reversal and remandment — Uhief Justice Hughes, Justices Mountain, Sullivan, Pashman, Clifford and Schreiber and Judge Conford — 7.
For affirmance — Hone.

 The American Law Institute, in the current development of Restatement, Judgments, 2d, has not yet addressed its attention specifically to preclusion of litigation of issues in successive criminal proceedings.

For example, note the case where there has been a former jury acquittal of a different defendant as to the same alleged criminal transaction. I believe it wise to express a reservation as to this case. Although preclusion in such an instance ought not be ruled out automatically on mutuality grounds, there might be circumstances otherwise militating against preclusion in the broad public interest. Such a situation might be presented, for example, if it appeared probable that the jury in the first case decided for acquittal in the exercise of its “nullification” authority in the face of strong incriminating evidence. See Schefiin, “Jury Nullification —The Right to Say No,” 45 So. Cal. L. Rev. 168 (1972); United States v. Spock, 416 F. 2d 165, 180-182 (1st Cir. 1969). Cf. § 88 (5), (7) of proposed Restatement, Judgments, 2d, quoted in note 2 above. I would leave this and cognate situations to cases requiring their resolution.