Court Opinion

ID: 9745252
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 22:43:42.095678+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:58.137016
License: Public Domain

SIMS, J., Dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
I agree the trial court erred in failing to follow the directive of our remittitur and to give defendant a sentencing trial.
I also agree that the doctrine of law of the case did not apply in the trial court. But it applies in this court. However, the doctrine is subject to an exception. Here, the controlling rule of law with respect to sentencing trials has been altered or clarified by a decision intervening between defendant Dutra’s first appeal and this one. (See People v. Stanley (1995) 10 Cal.4th 764, 787 [42 Cal.Rptr.2d 543, 897 P.2d 481].) The new decision is People v. Black (2005) 35 Cal.4th 1238 [29 Cal.Rptr.3d 740, 113 P.3d 534]. Under Black, defendant Dutra is not entitled to a sentencing trial. (Id. at p. 1244.)
The California Constitution commands that we may set aside a judgment “for any error as to any matter of procedure” only if we are of the opinion “that the error complained of has resulted in a miscarriage of justice.” (Cal. Const., art. VI, § 13.)
*1370There is no miscarriage of justice here. Under current law, defendant Dutra is not entitled to a sentencing trial. Indeed, the majority give her a procedural right not available to the vast majority of defendants. There is an unfairness here, but it is not to Ms. Dutra. Rather, it is to the prosecutor and the trial court, who must give Ms. Dutra a trial to which she is not entitled.
I dissent.