Court Opinion

ID: 9530888
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:04:53.805511+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:16.709733
License: Public Domain

CARTER, J.
I concur in the result reached in the majority opinion inasmuch as it is directly in line with my dissent in In re Kimler (1951), 37 Cal.2d 568, 575 [233 P.2d 902].
In the Kimler ease a judgment of a Missouri court was involved. Kimler was released on habeas corpus by the Missouri court and a majority of this court there said: “The judgment [of habeas corpus] declared that ‘... no sufficient cause for the detention of said petitioner appearing, it is ordered . . . that the Writ of Habeas Corpus be sustained and made permanent, and that the petitioner . . . be . . . discharged from imprisonment and detention for the cause aforesaid.’ (Italics added.)” A majority of this court specifically there held that Kimler’s “discharge in habeas corpus in Missouri is not res judicata in the present proceeding.” In the Kimler case a majority of this court relied upon State v. Hoffmeister, 336 Mo. 682 [80 S.W.2d 195],* in holding that the Missouri discharge of Kimler was not res judicata. The holding in the Hoffmeister case was that the asylum state could not inquire into the guilt or innocence of the accused; that the question presented was for the determination of the demanding state. In the Kimler case it *264was held that the prisoner was entitled to release because no sufficient cause for his detention appeared. But a majority of this court held that the Missouri judgment was not entitled to full faith and credit even though the Missouri court in the Kimler ease must have been well aware of its holding in the Hoffmeister case together with the facts and circumstances involved therein. In other words this court knew better what the Supreme Court of Missouri held than the Supreme Court of Missouri did! (See also Ex parte Messina, 233 Mo.App. 1234 [128 S.W.2d 1082].)
I said in my dissent to the Kimler case (p. 579) : “The discharge of Kimler in Missouri must be treated as res judicata on the issue above mentioned, that is, that there is no longer any basis for California to imprison Kimler arising from his conviction here, and therefore he is entitled to a discharge in this proceeding.” This court, or a majority thereof, held, however, in the Kimler case that Kimler’s discharge on habeas corpus by the Missouri court was not res judicata. This despite the fact that the opinion in that case shows, without a shadow of a doubt, that the merits were adjudicated by the Missouri court. In its holding the majority blithely ignored the full faith and credit clause of both the federal and state Constitutions. Here, however, the majority has, apparently, had a change of heart because we are told that full faith and credit must be accorded a judgment of the federal court; that the doctrine of res judicata prevents the relitigation of issues determined by a final judgment in a prior action between the same parties. In other words— once is enough. With this I wholeheartedly agree. However, this case and the Kimler case were both previously adjudicated on the merits with diametrically opposite results reached by a majority of this court. The only dissimilarity between the two is that here a prior judgment of a federal court is concerned; in the Kimler case a prior judgment of a sister state was concerned. Otherwise there is no difference. The Missouri court in the Kimler case specifically noted that the “facts and circumstances are not sufficient to justify the surrender and extradition of the petitioner to the State of California”; the federal court in the case at bar specifically found that the petitioner was not a “fugitive from justice of the State of California but has been duly discharged and released by the respondents and should be freed from the custody of the agents of said authority.” It is difficult to see how two eases could be more similar inasmuch as this *265court must give full faith and credit to the judgments of the courts of both sister states and the federal government.
Even though I am of the opinion that the conclusion reached here is in conflict with that reached in the Kimler case, I am happy to concur in the result reached herein because it is sound law.
Respondent’s petition for a rehearing was denied November 28, 1956. Traynor, J., Schauer, J., and Spence, J., were of the opinion that the petition should be granted.

This case was decided by the Supreme Court of Missouri in 1935.