Court Opinion

ID: 9796885
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 04:07:36.914883+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:51:11.959331
License: Public Domain

CORRIGAN, J., Concurring.
I concur in the judgment, but write separately to emphasize the unique circumstance that gave rise to this conflict for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office (LACDA). Because defendant Andrew Vasquez’s parents were LACDA employees, Prosecutor Patricia Wilkinson expressed concern that decedent’s family might interpret her waiver of a jury trial as an act of favoritism to Vasquez. During tire hearing on Vasquez’s recusal motion, Wilkinson told the court that the decedent’s family was “very concerned that perhaps we were not pursuing things.” She stated, “I wanted to insure that there was no appearance of any impropriety on the part of our office in handling this.”
It is to be expected that families of homicide victims will be acutely concerned about the progress of a defendant’s prosecution. An act of homicide claims a life, but it also profoundly affects the family that is left behind. The desire by these family members for a diligent and vigorous prosecution is understandable. Crime victims have a right to actively follow the case that results from a defendant’s conduct. That they may do so, and may do so with intensity, does not create a conflict, nor should our opinion be read to imply that it does so.
However, a prosecutor speaks not solely for the victim or his family, but for all the People. The body of the “The People” includes the defendant and his family and citizens who know nothing about a particular case. The district attorney is expected to exercise his or her discretionary functions independently in the interests of the entire community.
The line crossed here was a very fine one. It flowed from the particular relationship of Vasquez and his family with the prosecutor’s office itself. Wilkinson’s laudable goal of avoiding the appearance of impropriety created its own irony. Wilkinson sought to make clear that Vasquez was not receiving more lenient treatment because of his parents’ employment. In the process, she appears to have treated him differently because of that relationship. Defendants may legitimately be treated differently for a wide variety of *72reasons. But this particular disparity of treatment, based on Vasquez’s familial ties to the prosecutor’s office, is what gave rise to the conflict here.
I concur with the majority that the trial court’s failure to disqualify the LACDA’s office was a violation only of Penal Code section 1424 and not defendants’ federal and state due process rights. The prosecutor’s refusal to stipulate to a bench trial was harmless. (People v. Watson (1956) 46 Cal.2d 818 [299 P.2d 243].)