Court Opinion

ID: 9722307
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:24:37.636492+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:33.763507
License: Public Domain

*8KLINE, P. J., Concurring.
Reiterating what we said in People v. Thomas (1988) 206 Cal.App.3d 689 [254 Cal.Rptr. 15], the majority states that all People v. Castro (1985) 38 Cal.3d 301 [211 Cal.Rptr. 719, 696 P.2d 111] should be taken to require “ ‘is that from the elements of the offense alone— without regard to the facts of the particular violation—one can reasonably infer the presence of moral turpitude.’ ” (Maj. opn., ante, at pp. 6-7, italics added, quoting People v. Thomas, supra, at p. 698.) This test, I think it must forthrightly be acknowledged, is difficult to square with the idea that “a witness’ prior conviction should only be admissible for impeachment if the least adjudicated elements of the conviction necessarily involve moral turpitude” (Castro, supra, at p. 317, italics added) which is the principle for which Castro is widely understood to stand.
I accept the “reasonable inference” twist to the Castro test because, as we explained in Thomas, the least adjudicated elements analysis cannot be applied literally without producing a reductio ad absurdum.1 Appellant’s contention that the least adjudicated elements of felony hit-and-run do not necessarily involve moral turpitude—which, unlike the majority, I think is correct—is not dispositive under the analysis we adopted in Thomas. The standard prescribed in Castro is so manifestly unworkable that it cannot be taken seriously by the trial and appellate courts of this state, which have, in effect, revised the test. (See, e.g., People v. Coad (1986) 181 Cal.App.3d 1094 [226 Cal.Rptr. 386].) Practical considerations and the futility of resistance persuade me to join in that enterprise.2
Considering that a person cannot be convicted of felony hit-and-run without knowledge on his part that an accident has occurred resulting in injury to another (Garabedian v. Superior Court (1963) 59 Cal.2d 124, 127 [28 Cal.Rptr. 318, 378 P.2d 590]; People v. Hamilton (1978) 80 Cal.App.3d 124, 132 [145 Cal.Rptr. 429]), the inference that the offender intended to deceive, though not compelled, is certainly reasonable. Such an inference supports the conclusion that a person convicted of this felony is more likely to testify falsely than a witness about whom no such thing is known. It is on *9this basis that I agree with my colleagues that appellant’s credibility was properly impeached and concur in the judgment.

 “[S]ince the conviction of any crime does not necessarily negate the possibility that the defendant acted with a genuine but unreasonable belief which, if the belief had been reasonable, would have rendered the conduct lawful, the commission of [numerous] offenses universally recognized as proper subjects of impeachment[ ] cannot be said ‘necessarily’ to establish moral turpitude.” (People v. Thomas, supra, 202 Cal.App.3d 689, 697.)

In my dissenting opinion in People v. Coad, supra, 181 Cal.App.3d at pages 1114-1130, (dis. opn. of Kline, P. J.) I took the position that the offense of voluntary manslaughter does not necessarily involve “moral turpitude” within the meaning of People v. Castro, supra. Though, in my view, this conclusion is the proper result of strict application of the Castro test, it is not warranted by the reformulation of Castro we fashioned in People v. Thomas, supra. Though, for this reason, I abandon the position I took in Coad, I continue to believe that the incorporation into the criminal law of the moral turpitude standard will corrupt, not clarify, the criminal law of this state. (Coad, supra, at p. 1130, dis. opn. of Kline, P. J.)