Court Opinion

ID: 9549965
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:27:00.64048+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:21:06.321675
License: Public Domain

MOSK, J.
I dissent.
I cannot conclude that defendant validly waived his right to appeal his sentence on the effective ground that it is disproportionate to his personal responsibility and moral culpability in violation of the cruel and unusual punishments clause of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution, as applied to the states under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and the cruel or unusual punishment clause of article I, section 17, of the California Constitution. (See People v. Marshall (1990) 50 Cal.3d 907, 937-938 [269 Cal.Rptr. 269, 790 P.2d 676].) The Court of Appeal rejected this claim on the merits. So would I.
Convicted defendants generally enjoy a right of appeal under state law. (Pen. Code, § 1237.) If they can waive this right at all, they must do so “knowing[ly], intelligently] and voluntar[il]y.” (People v. Vargas (1993) 13 Cal.App.4th 1653, 1657, 1659 [17 Cal.Rptr.2d 445].) Defendant seems not to have made his purported waiver knowingly. His claim of disproportionality depends in part on the sentences meted out to his codefendants. It appears that he was not aware of such sentences at the time of his purported waiver. (See People v. Vargas, supra, 13 Cal.App.4th at pp. 1662-1663.)
Second, I question whether certain types of claims, including one that the sentence violates certain constitutional norms, may be waived. “For example, a defendant could not be said to have waived his right to appellate review of a sentence imposed in excess of the maximum penalty provided by statute or based on a constitutionally impermissible factor such as race.” (U.S. v. Marin (4th Cir. 1992) 961 F.2d 493, 496.)
Third, I cannot countenance the use of this written form to enter defendant’s various pleas. In my concurring and dissenting opinion in In re Ibarra (1983) 34 Cal.3d 277, 291 [193 Cal.Rptr. 538, 666 P.2d 980], joined by two other justices, I expressed “grave reservations about the use of waiver forms in a felony context.” Most problematic here, the waiver of the right to appeal is buried at the end of the form, amid a panoply of disparate clauses. Evidently the subject of waiving appeal was of little importance to the form drafter. And although defendant was carefully examined about his understanding of the rights he was waiving, appeal was not mentioned. I am not *91convinced that he realized the implications of signing the obscure provision waiving his right to appeal, notwithstanding his ritualized oral declaration that he understood the form’s provisions.
I would affirm the Court of Appeal’s judgment.