Court Opinion

ID: 9719953
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 08:10:30.932517+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:11.587952
License: Public Domain

FRIEDMAN, J.
I concur. The court’s opinion cogently demonstrates the significance of the missing jury instruction. Significance is not enough; the error must be prejudicial in the sense that it caused a miscarriage of justice. (Cal. Const., art. VI, § 13.) In appraising prejudice, reviewing judges habitually turn to the test announced in People v. Watson, 46 Cal.2d 818, 836 [299 P.2d 243]—the judgment should be *244reversed only if, after reviewing the entire record, the court finds a “reasonable probability” of a defense verdict had the error not occurred.
Here the evidence was characterized by sharp conflict. I have examined the record and find no reasonable probability of an acquittal absent the error. I find nothing but a toss-up. There was no cross-examination or rebuttal vitiating the polygraph experts’ high opinion of their own technique. Standing alone, the omitted instruction would have done little to deprecate the two experts. Applying the Watson test as the sole criterion of prejudice, I would vote to affirm the conviction despite the error.
The purity of the Watson test has been alloyed by later emendations. Appellate judges are no longer safe to follow Watson as the sole standard of reversibility. The Supreme Court has approved a formula which it terms a “corollary” of the Watson rule although it is really a marked divergence. The formula is expressed as follows: “Where the evidence, though sufficient to sustain the verdict, is extremely close, ‘any substantial error tending to discredit the defense, or to corroborate the prosecution, must be considered as prejudicial.’ ” (People v. Gonzales, 66 Cal.2d 482, 493-494 [58 Cal.Rptr. 361, 426 P.2d 929]; People v. Briggs, 58 Cal.2d 385, 407 [24 Cal.Rptr. 417, 374 P.2d 257].)
Not in obedience to People v. Watson, but in deference to the Gonzales-Briggs formula, I conclude that the error requires reversal.