Court Opinion

ID: 9602458
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:55:15.93786+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:03.721828
License: Public Domain

NEWMAN, X, Dissenting.—I
concur in the dissent of the Chief Justice except to the extent it may imply that the Fifth Amendment’s privilege is identical to that set forth in article I, section 15 of the California Constitution. My position is that the trial court here violated commands of the California Constitution, which is all we need decide. Compare O’Brien, The Fifth Amendment: Fox Hunters, Old Women, Hermits, and the Burger Court (1978) 54 Notre Dame Law. 26.
*151Occasionally a jury trial may appear a little like a circus. When incarceration of allegedly dangerous persons is sought, however, courts should countenance neither witting nor unwitting attempts by prosecutors to exploit possible “freak show” prejudices. I cannot agree with the majority’s conclusion that “any erroneous questioning of the appellant was harmless beyond all reasonable doubt.” Nor can I agree that he properly was “required to respond to nondiscriminatory questioning which may have revealed his mental condition . . . .” What was done to him here seems cruel and degrading.1
We learn from the majority opinion that, in “understandable words . . . not always the same as those repeated by the interpreter .... Tyars admitted several acts of violence including the throwing of chairs, ‘breaking someone’s head wide open,’ and striking a hospital technician; he also named victims of other assaults and batteries and illustrated his testimony by swinging his arms in descriptive punching motions.”
That sad demonstration—in major part testimonial—was not, I believe, authorized by the precedents that appear to permit voice or handwriting identification, as well as requiring defendants “to stand, wear clothing, hold items . . . .” The potentially prejudicial impact of what was done to Mr. Tyars here seems incalculably greater.
Finally, I have found no evidence suggesting that, in proceedings like these, “[t]he Legislature has not elected to authorize consideration of the factors of medication . . . .”
Appellant’s petition for a rehearing was denied February 21, 1979, and the opinion was modified to read as printed above. Bird, C. 1, was of the opinion that the petition should be granted.

See article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “No one shall be subjected to . . . cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. . .”; compare my concurring opinion in People v. Levins (1978) 22 Cal.3d 620 [150 Cal.Rptr. 458, 586 P.2d 939].