Court Opinion

ID: 9794521
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:07:26.38772+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:17:12.649672
License: Public Domain

SCHAUER, J.* Dissenting.
In my view the evidence which was properly presented to the jury amply supports the verdicts as to guilt, sanity, and penalty. It must be recognized, however, that under the present status of relevant law as developed in Escobedo v. Illinois (1964) 378 U.S. 478 [84 S.Ct. 1758, 12 L.Ed.2d 977], and People v. Dorado (1965) ante, p. 338 [42 Cal.Rptr. 169, 398 P.2d 361] (and made applicable ex post facto in favor of the accused and against the People), the prosecuting attorney, properly under the old law *802but erroneously under the new, in his argument emphasized the difference between defendant’s fact-statements as given before, and those given after, he had conferred with counsel and thereby “had acquired sophistication of learning that murder isn’t just murder, it is of varying degrees and varying types and varying punishments, . . .’’
The old rule looked with favor on ascertaining the truth; the new rule looks with more favor on giving the illiterate an equal opportunity with the literate to falsify to his own advantage. Thus must police and judicial skills in sorting fact from fiction be developed the more; and thus will the practiced discernment of the trial judge—and of penal boards —probably have better opportunity to correctly recognize basic character and act accordingly. The difference between honesty and cupidity should not be overlooked. Enlightened perjury—or the giving of further opportunity to present it— does not appeal to me as a basis for finding a miscarriage of justice. In the circumstances of this case I am not persuaded that the verdict and judgment work a miscarriage of justice. (See Cal. Const., art. VI, §4%; People v. Watson (1956) 46 Cal.2d 818, 835-836 [299 P.2d 243] [12].)
I must also specifically dissent from the majority’s holding that the trial court erred as a matter of law in ruling that the witness, Richard E. Worthington, Ph.D. (he had taught psychology and treated emotional disturbances) was not qualified to testify helpfully as an expert witness on any material issue of fact then before the court. A trial judge’s discretion in this area should be well-nigh absolute. He is in a position far superior to that of any appellate court to appraise the significance of evidence. An appellate judge can merely read what a transcriber typed from what a phonographic reporter’s notes reflect of what the reporter believed he heard. Perhaps an electronic recording device also recorded on disc or tape the sounds of the courtroom. But human reporter or electronic impression get only sounds; the attentive trial judge sees as well as hears. And as every experienced trial judge knows, that which he sees may well be more truth revealing than that which he hears.
Prom my reading of the record I cannot conclude that the trial judge in his handling of this case was other than fair, competent, careful, patient and sound in all material rulings, including his denial of a motion for a new trial.
Por the reasons above stated I would affirm the judgment.
McComb, J., concurred.