Court Opinion

ID: 9855359
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:23:25.371013+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:54.386982
License: Public Domain

SCHAUER, J.*, Concurring and Dissenting.
In concur in affirmance of the judgments of conviction, but the reversal of the penalty judgments appears to me to (1) exceed the granted jurisdiction of this court and (2) transgress the limitation upon the court’s exercise of such jurisdiction as is granted. I am therefore compelled to dissent from the reversal of such penalty judgments.
California’s Constitution (art. VI, §§ 4 and 4%)—the sole source of the court’s relevant power—specifies both the power granted and the unequivocal delimitation upon its exercise as follows: 1 ‘ See. 4. The Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction... on questions of law alone, in all criminal cases where judgment of death has been rendered;... The said court shall also have power to issue writs of ... habeas corpus, J >
“See. 4%. No judgment shall be set aside, or new trial granted, in any case, on the ground of misdirection of the jury, or of the improper admission or rejection of evidence, or for any error as to any matter of pleading, or for any error as to any matter of procedure, unless, after an examination of the entire cause, including the evidence, the court shall be of the opinion that the error complained of has resulted in a miscarriage of justice.”
People v. Morse (1964) 60 Cal.2d 631 [36 Cal.Rptr. 201, 388 P.2d 33], relied on by the majority, does not support reversal in the case at bench; it does not hold that the subject sections of the Constitution were beyond the power of the people of California to adopt for the very purpose of forbidding this court to reverse death penalty judgments on technical reasons; neither does Morse or any other decision of which I am aware hold that obedience to sections 4 and 4% of California’s Constitution would violate any federally protected right of these defendants.
*691In Morse the court, at least inferentially, recognized that it could not reverse the judgment imposing the death penalty unless it found, 1 ‘ after an examination of the entire cause, including the evidence,... that the error complained of... resulted in a miscarriage of justice. ’ ’ In the cited case (Morse at pp. 652-653) the court, obviously in recognition of, and deference to, the constitutional mandate, delineated at length the errors found and the totality of the circumstances wherein those errors were intermeshed. It was only as illumined and activated by those circumstances that a basis constitutionally permitting reversal of the judgment was found. And it was only upon such particularized recitals and the inferences it deemed warrantable that the court said (60 Cal.2d at p. 652) : “We have no doubt that these errors in directing the attention of the jury to the roles of Adult Authority, judge, and Governor, by means of argument, evidence and instruction in the instant case, prejudicially influenced the jury. Moreover, after deliberating for one day, the jury specifically asked ‘to hear again the court’s instructions re the third phase, in clarification of reference to possible consequences. ’ The court then reread the above-mentioned instruction. The jury then asked additional questions relating to the alternative death or life sentences. Thus the jury, while deliberating upon the death penalty, was aware of, and had repeated to it, the facts concerning the roles of the Adult Authority, the trial judge and the Governor. Furthermore, the trial court affirmatively instructed the jury that it could consider these facts. Whatever the reasons this court might have found in the record in Linden ‘to avoid an otherwise indicated reversal,’ we find in the record here no justification for concluding that the error was not prejudicial insofar as concerns the fixing of penalty. To the contrary, after examination of the entire cause, including the evidence, we are of the opinion that it is reasonably probable that a result more favorable to defendant as to penalty would have been reached in the absence of the error. ’ ’ By contrast with the above quoted holding, the majority do not find on the record now before us “that it is reasonably probable that a result more favorable to defendant as to penalty would have been reached in the absence of the error. ” Neither do they declare that they are of the opinion that any error or errors, or the judgments of the trial court (or any of them), constitute or evidence or result in or from “a miscarriage of justice.” (See People v. Watson (1956) 46 Cal.2d 818, 835-838 [12, 13] [299 P.2d 243].) I cannot construe *692People, v. Hines (1964) 61 Cal.2d 164 [37 Cal.Rptr. 622, 390 P.2d 398], cited by the majority, as efficacious either to limit the reach of article VI, section 4%, of the California Constitution, or as authorizing this court to read an exception into the. clear language which the people wrote into the Constitution.
On the record now here, after examination of the entire cause including the evidence, and assuming any and all errors declared by the majority, I am of the opinion that the judgments rendered by the trial court are amply supported; that no finding of a miscarriage of justice is tenable; that the petition for habeas corpus, should be denied; and that the judgments as rendered should be allowed to stand. Thus could justice for the people of this state, as ordained by them —although grievously delayed—be vindicated.