Court Opinion

ID: 9732336
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 16:16:29.793375+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:22:40.758932
License: Public Domain

COMPTON, J.
I dissent. The majority concludes, and I think correctly, that the case against the defendant was a strong one. Thus, even if the statements of the prosecutor and the single jury instruction are considered to be error, a point which I do not concede, the majority opinion needlessly erodes the harmless error rule. We have yet to reach the day in which a totally error-free record can be expected and with the volume of cases that are presently clogging our courts, the wisdom of California Constitution, article VI, section 13, is especially apparent and its efficacy is vital.
Here is a case in which the evidence which is completely unchallenged, discloses that the defendant has twice molested young boys. A jury of 12 citizens has unanimously agreed on defendant’s guilt. Yet because of this reversal there must be still another trial.
Inherent in the majority opinion is the assumption that the 12 jurors in this case were so irresponsible and unintelligent as to be swept away by what the majority considers to be inflammatory remarks by a prosecutor.
I am a firm believer in the jury system and abhor what I perceive to be a tendency of the courts to treat jurors as persons lacking in intelligence or common sense. Anyone with any experience in the trial of criminal cases knows that jurors conscientiously perform their duties and are not prone *728to convict individuals of crime on the basis of flimsy evidence simply because of statements made by the prosecuting attorney. I submit that the supposed influence on jurors of statements of attorneys or newspaper publicity or the myriad of other things of which jurors are sought to be insulated exists more in the imagination of judges than in reality.
The majority opinion here apparently attributes to the jury a considerable sophistication when they conclude that it could have been misled by the insertion of the two words “by itself” in an instruction which overall very forcefully states the law concerning the defendant’s right not to testify.
A jury that attentive to the instructions and that analytical could certainly be expected to abide by the additional instructions which they were given not to consider as evidence any statement made by counsel and to base their verdict solely on the evidence received.
I see nothing particularly inflammatory about the remarks which the prosecutor made to the jury. All of her statements were factually correct. After all the prosecutor is an advocate and as such is not confined in- argument to a sterile, lack-luster recital of the evidence.
The prosecutor’s reference to the instruction that a charge such as this is easily made and once made difficult to disprove was accurate and it takes very strained reasoning to view this as a circumvention of the rule of Griffin v. California [380 U.S. 609 (14 L.Ed.2d 106, 85 S.Ct. 1229)].
The majority quotes the prosecutor’s statement out of context in at least one instance. True, she did commence a statement that a “child molestation case, that is 288 of the Penal Code, requires very little evidence.” That statement, however, was interrupted by objection from defense counsel and was not completed. Upon resumption of argument the prosecutor expanded on her remarks to the effect that the elements of the offense were few in number and that very little touching of the child was required to constitute the offense. These statements were true and were a far cry from the interpretation placed on them by the majority, to wit, that less evidence was required to convict in this offense than in any other criminal charge.
The prosecutor’s exhortation to the jury “to take Mr. Mendoza off the streets” was nothing more than a plea to the jury to render a verdict of guilty. The jury was instructed that the subject of penalty and punishment was not to be considered by them and it is to be presumed that they followed that instruction. As a practical matter I suspect that most, if not all, jurors feel that a verdict of guilty for a charge such as this will result in *729incarceration. I find it very difficult to see how such a statement by the prosecutor could influence the jury’s view of the evidence.
Even though the one questioned instruction was found technically to be in error in People v. Vargas, 9 Cal.3d 470 [108 Cal.Rptr. 15, 509 P.2d 959], I would further follow the Supreme Court’s lead in that case by finding that error harmless beyond any reasonable doubt.
It is not a proper function of the appellate courts to reprimand attorneys for statements that might offend our sensibilities. The penalty for such reprimand here is paid not by the prosecutor but by the public. That penalty is the creation of a risk of this degenerate going unpunished not to mention the costs of retrial. Our proper function is to guard against a miscarriage of justice. No such miscarriage occurred here. I would affirm the judgment.
Respondent’s petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied May 1, 1974.