Court Opinion

ID: 9847748
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:06:54.239084+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:31.067950
License: Public Domain

NEWMAN, J., Concurring
California Rules of Court, rule 29(a) advises that “hearing in the Supreme Court after decision by a Court of Appeal will be ordered. . . where it appears necessary to secure uniformity of decision or the settlement of important questions of law. . . . ”
*675The issue in this case is whether certain facts constituted probable cause for an arrest. In an unpublished, seven-page opinion the Court of Appeal (with one of the three justices dissenting, also in a seven-page opinion) explained why it found no probable cause.
We now hold, unanimously, that the arrest was legal. By no means am I persuaded that the holding was “necessary to secure uniformity of decision or the settlement of important questions of law. . .. ” Quoting from People v. Harris (1975) 15 Cal.3d 384, 389 [124 Cal.Rptr. 536, 540 P.2d 632], we simply identify another set of facts that “would lead a man of ordinary care and prudence to believe and conscientiously entertain an honest and strong suspicion” that defendant had committed a murder.
In an important case decided by the United States Supreme Court 30 years ago Justice Frankfurter, with the concurrence of all his colleagues, made this comment: “Whether on the record as a whole there is substantial evidence to support agency findings is a question which Congress has placed in the keeping of the Courts of Appeals. This Court will intervene only in what ought to be the rare instance when the standard appears to have been misapprehended or grossly misapplied.” (Universal Camera Corp. v. Labor Bd. (1951) 340 U.S. 474, 491 [95 L.Ed. 456, 469, 71 S.Ct. 456].)
A parallel rule could be applied by this court to issues that involve arguably illegal arrests, arguably illegal searches and seizures, injuries that allegedly arise out of and in the course of employment, and other marginal matters. Does rule 29(a) imply, perhaps, that we should intervene only in the relatively rare cases where a California Court of Appeal appears to have misunderstood or grossly misapplied the basic standard?