Court Opinion

ID: 9730208
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 15:05:10.699425+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:04.927195
License: Public Domain

WORK, Acting P. J., Concurring and Dissenting.—
I
In clear contravention of that practical maxim, which may be paraphrased in street vernacular as “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” a majority of this panel has seen fit to clothe the People in that equitable mantle broadly referred to as “constructive filing.”
A covering which, I submit, is ill-fitting because it is simply not tailored for that purpose. This judicial doctrine, providing an exception to the otherwise rigidly enforced jurisdictional bar to late-filed appeals, has heretofore been confined to convicted criminal defendants under narrowly defined circumstances. While this fact alone is no legal impediment to its expansion, the plain fact is that neither party raised the issue on this appeal. The People expressed no concern about further appeal. Thus, we have raised the issue ourselves in a classic case of needless judicial meddling and, worse, reached a result I perceive to be incorrect.
The doctrine referred to under the rubric of “constructive filing” was discussed at some length in In re Benoit (1973) 10 Cal.3d 72 [109 Cal.Rptr. 785, 514 P.2d 97], where it is described as being developed through a series of cases “dealing mainly with incarcerated prisoners, [in which] the jurisdictional theory has been qualified, and excuses for late filing accepted.” (Wit-kin, Cal. Criminal Procedure (1963) § 696, p. 678.) Here, my two colleagues would expand that narrowly circumscribed doctrine for use against a *496convicted defendant to avoid “slavish adherence to such deadlines [which would violate] more basic justice.” (Castro v. Superior Court (1974) 40 Cal.App.3d 614, 617 [115 Cal.Rptr. 312].) However, their extracontextual extraction of this line from Castro ignores the fact that decision considered and resolved a different question, the effect of a court’s failure to fulfill its duty to advise a defendant of appeal rights at the time of sentencing. Castro did not address the doctrine of ’’constructive filing.” (Id. at p. 618, fn. 4.) They also omit the companion sentence of the paragraph from which this quotation is taken in which the court explains the equitable principles underlying promulgation of the “constructive filing” doctrine to provide relief to convicted defendants. That sentence states, “[e]xperience has shown that persons who have just been convicted of crime are among the most ignorant of litigants, less able than most to communicate with their legal advisors who often fail to perform the most elementary duties one would expect of them.” (Id. at p. 617, italics added.)
Until today, I had discerned no appellate propensity to publicly pronounce such a characterization for prosecutors to provide them the benefit of principles propounded for the “most ignorant of litigants, less able than most to communicate with their legal advisors.” Here the prosecutors are the legal advisors. They have no incarcerated, or likely to be incarcerated, client to whom an essentially unreviewable criminal record will attach for life. Moreover, in the case we address today, the prosecutors have the right to retry this incarcerated defendant who, in any event, is well on the way to completing his sentence, and who likely will have completed it by the time of any retrial. Thus, we do not address a situation as In re Benoit and the cases it cites. In those decisions, the principle has been extended in the “interest of justice” only to convicted persons. (In re Benoit, supra, 10 Cal.3d at p. 86.) Nor, are we addressing a litigant “under sentence and facing the restraint of jail or prison, [who must] rely on his trial counsel for assistance.” (Id. at pp. 86-87.)
My colleagues cite People v. Martin (1963) 60 Cal.2d 615 [35 Cal.Rptr. 769, 387 P.2d 585], which predates Benoit, for their proposition “there was no indication that defendant’s failure timely to file an appeal resulted from his incarceration, or even that he was jailed at the relevant times.” Although a reading of the factual scenario detailed in Martin leaves no doubt that defendant was in fact incarcerated at all relevant times, that single fact seems less than critical. One suspects the doctrine should be available for any recently convicted, “most ignorant of litigants” whose counsel deliberately or inadvertently fails to fulfill a fiduciary obligation to perfect a timely appeal (see, for instance, the egregious, deliberately understated, facts recited in In re Fountain (1977) 74 Cal.App.3d 715 [141 Cal.Rptr. 654]), or who has been adversely finessed by acts of the state.
*497In any event, the issue of incarceration or lack thereof is irrelevant to whether this equitable doctrine created to avoid the draconian application of an undeviating jurisdictional rule designed to promote finality of convictions with reasonable certainty and promptness should be expanded to ameliorate the legal lapses of prosecutors. (See Castro v. Superior Court, supra, 40 Cal.App.3d at p. 617.)
My colleagues’ “sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander” approach would justify late-filed appeals by prosecutors who simply forget to timely file their notices or where the paperwork has been misdirected or misfiled. Thus, the fiction which my colleagues would apply, i.e., that somehow the prosecutors are representing a client who should not be prejudiced by the prosecutor’s failure to know or to follow the law, permits an absurd result.
Moreover, I am convinced that prosecutors would agree they are not “birds of a feather” with convicted criminal defendants and would not likely include themselves with those “most ignorant of litigants” Justice Kaus describes in Castro. Nor has the law seen fit to treat them as if they belonged in the same gaggle as that goose it is their duty to attempt to cook. That is why there is no rule of court, statute or appellate decision requiring the People to be advised of their right to appeal at any stage of the proceedings to which that right attaches. The barons at Runnymede perceived the substantial disparity between the Crown and its prosecutors and those charged with crime when they forced King John to seal the Magna Carta whose guaranties of due process of laws inure today. The same recognition of need to provide equitable relief for individuals accused of crime saw the contemporary origination of Habeas Corpus in English Chancery Court which since at least the mid-14th century, has been so elemental to the Anglo-American justice system as to be constitutionally protected by the Founding Fathers of this nation.1 Although the subject of extensive review in both English and American jurisprudence, I have found no published thought that these rights also should be available to the prosecuting governmental executive because of some perceived lack of parity with those charged and/or convicted of a crime.
Although the lead opinion cursorily discusses the major California cases involving “constructive filing,” it cites none even casually hinting at the possibility of applying it to the prosecution. It relies instead on a perceived necessity to do so because of “fairness.” Fairness is, however, an amorphous characteristic, one found or not in identical circumstances depending upon *498the personal backgrounds, proclivities, and perceptions of trial judges. It becomes then a principle subject to an abuse of discretion test on review, itself a less than precise standard. For instance, I find nothing so unfair in relegating the prosecution here to its statutory remedy of new trial as to justify an expansion of the “constructive filing” doctrine.
After fruitlessly traversing other reported decisions, the lead opinion hoists its banner solely on People v. Martin, supra, 60 Cal.2d 615, and its version of the “constructive filing” principle that was adopted in People v. Hales (1966) 244 Cal.App.2d 507 [53 Cal.Rptr. 161], erroneously stating the facts of those cases are “remarkably similar” to ours. It does so, however, after rejecting contrary holdings of civil cases on our precise facts.2
In People v. Martin, supra, 60 Cal.2d 615, the Supreme Court discussed a criminal defendant’s late-filed notice of appeal acting in propria persona. Had that defendant been represented by counsel who negligently failed to fulfil their fiduciary responsibility, whether “lulled” by the actions of the trial court or otherwise, he would have been entitled to relief under the plain holdings of In re Benoit, supra, 10 Cal.3d 72 and In re Fountain, supra, 74 Cal.App.3d 715. The only “twist” in Martin occurred because the court was forced to overcome the settled legal proposition that defendants representing themselves who suffer some disadvantage due to ignorance of the law are not entitled to relief. (People v. Martin, supra, 60 Cal.2d at p. 619.) After review, it found the principle of “constructive filing” should be available under proper circumstances to unrepresented defendants acting as their own attorneys. The logic of this resolution is apparent. Irrespective of their decision to act personally as their own counsel, lay defendants still generally fall within that class Justice Kaus described as the “most ignorant of litigants” who often fail to understand the most rudimentary substantive and procedural rules of litigation, let alone sophisticated nuances relating to trial court jurisdiction to hear motions for a new trial after judgment. (People v. Martin, supra, 60 Cal.2d at p. 618.)3
Also, in People v. Hales, supra, 244 Cal.App.2d 507, the facts are far from “remarkably similar” to ours. In fact, it is difficult to conceive how they could be more dissimilar. In Hales, the trial court reviewed the People's *499timely appeal following a grant of the defendant’s motion for new trial. (Precisely the avenue of relief available to the People following the entry of judgment in this case.) The appellate court found the motion for new trial had been brought only after judgment had been entered, without the bringing of an application of writ of error coram nobis after final judgment or stating grounds for such relief in the motion to vacate that judgment. Accordingly, the trial court was not legally authorized to set aside the judgment and, because as a matter of law the judgment never had been effectively vacated, the motion for new trial was declared void. Without any discussion or observable analysis, the reviewing court treated the issue of “constructive filing” in toto as follows: “Although the orders must be reversed, the defendant should not be deprived of his right to appeal from the judgment. Under the principles enunciated in People v. Martin, supra, 60 Cal.2d 615, he may be granted to within 10 days [sic] after the termination of the proceedings which have arisen because of the improper assertion of jurisdiction by the trial court.” (.People v. Hales, supra, 244 Cal.App.2d at p. 515.)
Frankly, it is difficult to discern what “principles” derived from Martin the court found factually appropriate to those in Hales. There, the defendant actually had filed a timely notice of appeal the same date judgment was entered and the appellate court obtained jurisdiction on that date. Jurisdiction was not restored to the trial court until after the trial court purported to vacate the judgment and grant a new trial. It was only after the trial court vacated its judgment that the defendant understandably abandoned his appeal. (People v. Hales, supra, 244 Cal.App.2d at p. 512.) It is hardly remarkable the reviewing court, without discussion, permitted Hales to resuscitate his appellate rights. However, that factual, procedural and legal scenario lacks even a cosmetic resemblance to those from which the lead opinion would fashion a totally unnecessary and unwarranted exception to the jurisdictional treatment of untimely filed appeals.
II
 I do, however, concur in the remainder of the lead opinion. The concerns expressed in Justice Benke’s dissent were considered and rejected in People v. Hernandez (1988) 199 Cal.App.3d 768 [245 Cal.Rptr. 156]. Her reliance on (or at least, allusion to) People v. Martin (1926) 199 Cal. 240, 242 [248 P. 908], and People v. Paysen (1932) 123 Cal.App. 396, 399-400 [11 P.2d 431], as purporting to declare a relevant exception to what she characterizes as a “general” rule avoidable in the interest of justice, is misplaced. That it is so, is demonstrated clearly in both People v. Hernandez, supra, 199 Cal.App.3d 768, and People v. Stewart (1988) 202 *500Cal.App.3d 759 [248 Cal.Rptr. 907], the two decisional authorities she uses as a springboard to elevate these atavistic authorities.
In People v. Hernandez, supra, 199 Cal.App.3d 768 (review den. June 22, 1988), the court of appeal emphasized it was bound by the total proscription against multiple new trial motions stated in People v. Martin, supra, 199 Cal. 240, and In re Levi (1952) 39 Cal.2d 41 [244 P.2d 403], It specifically rejected the People’s argument that the exception referred to in Martin and Paysen survive today. For instance, the court observed the “premature or inadvertence” exception noted but rejected in Martin, was based on a civil case, Robson v. Superior Court (1915) 171 Cal. 588 [154 P. 8].4 Martin's jurisdictional rationale was based on a now repealed statute giving criminal defendants the right to appeal from an order denying a motion for new trial. As recognized in People v. Stewart, supra, 202 Cal.App.3d at page 762, legislation has long since eliminated that prejudgment right of appeal.5 It is in the context of a statute no longer affording a defendant the right of prejudgment appeal that Stewart and People v. Risenhoover (1966) 240 Cal.App.2d 233 [49 Cal.Rptr. 526], mull in dicta the continued viability of the Martin/Levi/Lindsey jurisdictional pronouncements. Justice Benke’s dissent overlooks the significance of the fact we address a case in which the People’s statutory right to prejudgment appeal still exists, and they stand before us in the precise procedural posture reviewed by the Supreme Court in Levi and the Court of Appeal in Martin where their position was rejected.

A scholarly discourse on the historical developments of the separate process of Magna Carta and the equitable doctrine of habeas corpus is succinctly expressed by Professor Daniel J. Meador in his treatise, Habeas Corpus and Magna Carta, published in 1966 by the University Press of Virginia.

 See lead opinion footnote 8, discussing the Supreme Court’s decision in Wenzoski v. Central Banking System, Inc. (1987) 43 Cal.3d 539, 542 [237 Cal.Rptr. 167, 736 P.2d 753], and the appellate court decision of Ten Eyck v. Industrial Forklifts (1989) 216 Cal.App.3d 540 [265 Cal.Rptr. 29], Unable to distinguish them on the facts, my colleagues simply dismiss them as civil cases.

 It is surprising neither of my colleagues comment on a remarkable dissimilarity between Martin and this case. In Martin, the People took the position that an order made following a second motion for new trial is a nullity, a view the court adopted. The People argue the exact opposite in this case.

By concurring in the lead opinion, Justice Benke gives no weight to civil decisions on all factual fours with this case when promulgating the novel theory that the “constructive filing” principle should be available to the People.

 Amendment to Penal Code section 1237 (1961).