Court Opinion

ID: 9547167
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:42:34.786612+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:17:24.608483
License: Public Domain

MOSK, J.
I dissent.
I agree, of course, with the plurality to the extent they reaffirm Ramona R. v. Superior Court (1985) 37 Cal.3d 802 [210 Cal.Rptr. 204, 693 P.2d 789] (hereafter Ramona R.), which I authored, holding that statements made by a juvenile in connection with a fitness hearing have substantive use immunity. But I disagree with the plurality that “Ramona R.’s rationale allows those statements to be used to impeach a minor who voluntarily takes the stand and then testifies inconsistently with them.” (Plur. opn., ante, at p. 753.) Rather, I conclude that Ramona R. ’s rationale prevents them from being so used.
In Ramona R., the People moved to have a minor, accused of murder, declared unfit for juvenile court proceedings. The minor declined to be interviewed or make any statement to the probation officer on the ground that any incriminating statement could be used against her at a subsequent criminal trial. She refused to testify at the fitness hearing on the same ground. The juvenile court entered an order finding her unfit. We caused issuance of a writ of mandate to compel the court to vacate the order.
We held that use immunity for statements by a juvenile in connection with a fitness hearing is essential to the privilege against self-incrimination of California Constitution, article I, section 15. As such, it was preserved through Evidence Code section 940 and falls within the exception of California Constitution, article I, section 28, subdivision (d). (Ramona R., supra, 37 Cal.3d at pp. 808-809.)
We offered three bases for our conclusion.
First, “ ‘the privilege against self-incrimination requires the prosecution in a criminal trial to produce sufficient evidence to establish the defendant’s guilt before he must decide whether to remain silent or to testify in his own behalf.’. . . [I]f the minor’s statements to his probation officer or to the court at [a fitness] hearing can be introduced by the prosecution as substantive evidence in the guilt phase, the prosecution’s burden is impermissibly lightened.” (Ramona R., supra, 37 Cal.3d at p. 809, italics in original.)
*759Second, the use of such statements at trial also undermines another policy underlying the privilege against self-incrimination: our “ ‘ “unwillingness to subject those suspected of crime to the cruel trilemma of self-accusation, perjury or contempt.” ’ ” (Ramona R., supra, 37 Cal.3d at pp. 809-810.) As we explained, although a minor is not faced with contempt if he remains silent, he may well find himself in an analogous predicament. He might seriously incriminate himself if he exercises his right to be heard, particularly where his testimony would consist of a truthful explanation of circumstances relevant to the five criteria of Welfare and Institutions Code, section 707, subdivision (c), surrounding the charged offense. If he remains silent, not only does he lose his opportunity to present a conceivably convincing case for fitness, but he also runs the risk that his silence will be taken as an indication that there are no valid reasons why he should not be found unfit. (Ramona R., supra, 37 Cal.3d at p. 810.) To avoid the adverse effects of the foregoing alternatives, a minor may be tempted to speak falsely in a manner which will not damage his defense at a subsequent criminal trial. If the minor refuses to be interviewed by the probation officer, he prejudices his position because the probation officer must present a report at the fitness hearing. At a minimum, the probation officer will relate the minor’s failure to give his views. Moreover, he may consider the minor to be uncooperative; but even if he does not, it is unlikely he will recommend that the minor be found fit because he cannot determine for himself whether the minor can be rehabilitated. (Ibid.)
Third, “[t]here is a final reason why we hold the California Constitution to require that testimony a minor gives at a fitness hearing or statements he makes to his probation officer may not be used against him at a subsequent trial of the offense. This is because the consequences flowing from his ‘trilemma’ are significant. The result of a fitness hearing is not a final adjudication of guilt; but the certification of a juvenile offender to an adult court has been accurately characterized as ‘the worst punishment the juvenile system is empowered to inflict.’ ” (Ramona R., supra, 37 Cal.3d at p. 810.)
Underlying our decision, then, was our unanimous conclusion that the statements made by a juvenile in connection with a fitness hearing are not voluntary. As we later emphasized, “[o]ur holding [in Ramona R.] was based on the premise that in the circumstances there the minor must be deemed to be subject to ‘a compulsive sanction against the exercise of the self-incrimination privilege.’ ” (People v. Bonin (1989) 47 Cal.3d 808, 853 [254 Cal.Rptr. 298, 765 P.2d 460].)
Although Ramona R., supra, 37 Cal.3d 802, did not specifically address the use of a juvenile’s statements for impeachment, it follows perforce from *760our reasoning therein that they may not be used for that purpose. (Cf. Mincey v. Arizona (1978) 437 U.S. 385, 398 [98 S.Ct. 2408, 2416-2417, 57 L.Ed.2d 290] [involuntary statements are inadmissible, under U.S. Const., Amend. V, for any purpose].)
The plurality’s policy argument, that a criminal defendant does not have the “right” to commit perjury, is, to borrow from my dissenting opinion in People v. May (1988) 44 Cal.3d 309, 334 [243 Cal.Rptr. 369, 748 P.2d 307] (dis. opn. of Mosk, J.), nothing more and nothing less than a “straw man.” “ ‘Of course a defendant has no “right to commit perjury.” . . . Neither does a defendant have the right to commit murder, and yet the Government may not prove that crime by means of an illegally obtained statement.’ ” (Ibid.)
The plurality’s holding will inevitably undermine the integrity and usefulness of fitness hearings. It will impermissibly lighten the burden of the prosecution to prove guilt and place the juvenile in the “cruel trilemma” we described in Ramona R., supra, 37 Cal.3d at page 810, because any inconsistent statement could be used against the juvenile and there is “ ‘considerable potential that a jury, even with the benefit of a limiting instruction, will view prior inculpatory statements as substantive evidence of guilt rather than as merely reflecting on the declarant’s veracity. The theory of a limiting instruction loses meaning in this context. ... To instruct a jury that they are not to consider expressions of complicity in the charged crime as evidence that the speaker in fact committed the charged crime, but only for the purpose of demonstrating that he was probably lying when he denied committing the charged crime, would be to require, in the words of Learned Hand, “a mental gymnastic which is beyond, not only [the jury’s] power, but anybody else’s.” ’ ’’ (People v. May, supra, 44 Cal.3d at p. 329 (dis. opn. of Mosk, J.).)
In this case, as the plurality concede, the jury was not even asked to attempt any such mental gymnastics: It was given no limiting instruction at all. Instead, it was instructed to consider the minor’s statements both for substantive evidence and for impeachment. I would reverse on that ground alone.
Kennard, J., concurred.
Appellant’s petition for a rehearing was denied November 12, 1997. Mosk, J., and Kennard, J., were of the opinion that the petition should be granted.