Court Opinion

ID: 9721441
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 08:59:24.428637+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:25.922672
License: Public Domain

POCHÉ, J.
I concur in the judgments.
With respect to the conviction of appellant Piper for the felony of shooting at an occupied vehicle (Pen. Code, § 246) my concurrence is premised solely on the ground, not reached by the majority, that any error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Even if one assumes that counsel was inadequate, that inadequacy at most resulted in admission in evidence of a gun which was identified by a ballistics expert as having fired the bullet found in the victim’s car. While that would in most cases involving this type of crime be the key to a verdict of guilty, here it was merely cumulative. Using his citizens’ band radio the victim sent a description of the crime in progress and a contemporaneous, detailed description of the car from which the shots were made. As a result, quick acting highway patrol officers were able almost immediately to *114respond and to stop a vehicle that matched precisely the description given, including two distinctive taillights mounted on the trunk. Inside the car in plain view was a holster on the front seat and a .38-caliber cartridge on the floor. Another .38-caliber cartridge was found on Piper’s clothing and a .38-caliber slug was found in the battery box on the victim’s truck. To contend that the error in this case is not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt would be to trifle with reality.
With respect to appellant Piper’s conviction for possession of a concealable firearm by a felon (Pen. Code, § 12021) I concur in the result solely on the basis that appellant has not sustained his burden of showing incompetency of trial counsel. For all that I can discern from this record, the reason counsel did not make a motion to suppress may have had nothing to do with the extremely intricate case law discussed by the majority but may have been that consent was given for the search of the locked glove compartment. The claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel is more appropriately made in a petition for habeas corpus especially where the record is silent—as it is here—on the reasons why no motion to suppress was made. (People v. Pope (1979) 23 Cal.3d 412, 425 [152 Cal.Rptr. 732, 590 P.2d 859].) This case is but another sad example of “the difficulty an appellate court is likely to encounter in deciding a competency of counsel claim on appeal in the absence (at least) of some opportunity for allegedly incompetent counsel to respond and explain.” (See Justice Grodin's conc. opn. in People v. Russell (1980) 101 Cal.App.3d 665 at pp. 670-672 [161 Cal.Rptr. 735], and In re Lower (1980) 100 Cal.App.3d 144, 152-153 [161 Cal.Rptr. 24].)
With respect to appellant Starks, who does not raise or join in Pope-like claims, I concur in the judgment and in the reasoning of the majority opinion.
Petitions for a rehearing were denied March 28, 1980, and appellants’ petitions for a hearing by the Supreme Court were denied June 5, 1980. Tobriner, J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted.