Court Opinion

ID: 9616843
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:50:22.072262+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:04:03.042684
License: Public Domain

Manoukian, J.,
concurring:
Although I concur in the result of the opinion of the court, I disagree that the prosecutorial tactics involving the plea bargaining with the defendant Chism, violated his codefendants’ *807rights to due process. Here, during the trial, the state offered Chism the opportunity to plead guilty to one count of second degree murder. Although the plea was entered prior to the trial’s progressing any further, and the remaining count, which also charged open murder, was dismissed, the several other charges of attempted murder were left in abeyance pending completion of Chism’s testimony. The majority terms this a violation of Franklin v. State, 94 Nev. 220, 557 P.2d 860 (1978). I would not assign error to that issue. My basis for disagreement is two-fold.
First, I believe that Franklin, a near carbon copy of People v. Medina, 116 Cal.Rptr. 133 (Cal.App. 1974), represents bad precedent as well as an unreasonable intrusion into legitimate prosecutorial prerogatives. I am no more disposed today than I was in Franklin, “to establish yet another technicality in criminal procedure hitherto unknown to Nevada Criminal jurisprudence. . . .” Franklin v. State, 94 Nev. at 228, 577 P.2d at 865 (Manoukian, J., dissenting). Indeed, not only is Medina a product of a California district appeals court, but there were no other reported judicial opinions in the United States or Canada, that went to the liberal extreme of Medina, fact for fact. See Rex v. Robinson, 70 D.L.R. 755, 30 B.C. 369 (1921).
Second, reluctantly recognizing the precedential viability of Franklin, there is no showing in the instant case that Chism did not “render a full, fair, and accurate account of the facts out of which the charge arose.” Franklin, 94 Nev. at 223, 577 P.2d at 862.
I believe that the Chism plea bargaining issue is controlled by the principles established in LaPena v. State, 92 Nev. 1, 6, 544 P.2d 1187, 1190 (1970), where we held that although the accomplice’s “participation in the crimes may have warranted a more serious charge than second degree murder, plea bargaining is permissible.” It is clear that until Franklin, grants of immunity generally remained permissible “[u]ntil legislatively [or otherwise] forbidden.” LaPena v. State, 92 Nev. at 6, 544 P.2d at 1190. See also Santobello v. New York, 404 U.S. 257 (1971). This is not a case for such limitation.
Although I join in the affirmance, I believe it to be unnecessary for the majority to find error, harmless or otherwise, incidental to Chism’s bargained for testimony.