Court Opinion

ID: 9793258
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:45:15.983647+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:04:10.376294
License: Public Domain

*1132MOSK, J.
I concur in the judgment.
I agree with the majority that the judgment of the Court of Appeal must be reversed insofar as it sets aside defendant’s conviction on the jury’s general verdict finding him guilty of the sale or transportation of cocaine.
The Court of Appeal overturned the conviction under the rule of People v. Green (1980) 27 Cal.3d 1, 69 [164 Cal.Rptr. 1, 609 P.2d 468] (Green): “when the prosecution presents its case to the jury on alternate theories, some of which are legally correct and others legally incorrect, and the reviewing court cannot determine from the record on which theory the ensuing general verdict of guilt rested, the conviction cannot stand.” The court concluded that the ‘transporting” theory was correct. It came to the opposite conclusion as to the “selling” theory, finding insufficient evidence in support. Here it erred. True, the evidence that defendant actually sold cocaine was circumstantial and required various inferences. But, after viewing this evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, I believe that a rational trier of fact could have found defendant guilty of selling cocaine beyond a reasonable doubt.
At this point, my analysis ends. So should the majority’s. I simply cannot agree that we should attempt to “harmonize” the sound rule of Green and the dubious one of Griffin v. United States (1991) 502 U.S.__[116 L.Ed.2d 371, 112 S.Ct. 466] (Griffin), in order to limit reversals to cases of “legal inadequacy” and to allow affirmances in situations of “factual inadequacy.”
On a general level, the majority’s “harmonization” of Green and Griffin is based on the illegitimate use of a legitimate assumption, viz., that any given jury is “reasonable.” Since the very question to be determined involves the “reasonableness” vel non of a specific jury, to proceed as stated is to engage in petitio principii.
More specifically, the majority’s “harmonization” of Green and Griffin is based on the illegitimate use of an illegitimate assumption, viz., that any given jury infallibly recognizes insufficient evidence as such. The use is illegitimate because, as explained above, it amounts to petitio principii. The assumption is illegitimate for the following reasons. First, the premise of jury “infallibility” is unsupported. Jurors may be “well equipped” to determine pure questions of fact. But their expertise does not extend to mixed questions of law and fact—which include the sufficiency of the evidence. Second, the premise of jury “infallibility” is subversive. If it obtained, we would be compelled to dismiss at the very threshold each and every insufficient-evidence claim raised against any verdict of guilt. For we would then *1133be required to conclude that if the evidence had indeed been lacking, the jury would necessarily have discerned the deficiency and could not possibly have rendered a guilty verdict. Thus, the bare fact of the verdict would establish the sufficiency of the evidence as a matter of law. I recognize that the foregoing “principle” seems to underlie the insufficient-evidence “analysis” in a number of recent decisions. (See, e.g., People v. Thomas (1992) 2 Cal.4th 489 [7 Cal.Rptr.2d 199, 828 P.2d 101]; People v. Perez (1992) 2 Cal.4th 1117 [9 Cal.Rptr.2d 577, 831 P.2d 1159].) All the same, it is not, and cannot be, the law.
Because I agree with the majority as to disposition only, I concur in the judgment but not in their opinion.