Court Opinion

ID: 9631501
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:40:37.220331+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:55.501634
License: Public Domain

MOSK, Acting C. J.—
I concur in the opinion of the court prepared by Justice Baxter.
I write separately to note that, on appeal, I would have reversed, in its entirety, the judgment entered against petitioner Kenneth Earl Gay, including the sentence of death. Even though I was then unable to look beyond the face of the record, I was nevertheless of the opinion that the *831“failings of Gay’s counsel,” the subsequently disbarred Daye Shinn, “were ‘pervasive and serious,’ and ‘resulted in a breakdown of the adversarial process at trial’ that “ ‘that breakdown established] a violation of [Gay’s] . . . right to the effective assistance of counsel’ ” under the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution and article I, section 15 of the California Constitution; and that “ ‘that violation mandate[d] reversal of the judgment even in the absence of a showing of specific prejudice.’ ” (People v. Cummings (1993) 4 Cal.4th 1233, 1344 [18 Cal.Rptr.2d 796, 850 P.2d 1] (dis. opn. of Mosk, J.), quoting People v. Visciotti (1992) 2 Cal.4th 1, 84 [5 Cal.Rptr.2d 495, 825 P.2d 388] (dis. opn. of Mosk, J.).)
Now that I am able to extend my gaze, I am of the same opinion a fortiori. For presently I know what formerly I could only suspect, albeit on the strongest of evidence. As we observe time and again in the opinion of the court, Shinn believed that a verdict of death was a “foregone conclusion.” He acted—or better, failed to act—accordingly.
In view of the above, I fully, and necessarily, agree that we must—at the very least—set aside the sentence of death, and that we must do so because Shinn’s nonperformance was—again at the very least—prejudicially deficient in that regard.