Court Opinion

ID: 9601401
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:43:05.361735+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:50:08.328939
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Frantz
dissenting:
I entertain the view that the action of the trial court in ordering a mistrial on the motion of the People, under the circumstances of this case, constituted an acquittal of the offense charged, and thus bars a further prosecution for the same offense. It is not within the power of the trial court, by its act of declaring a mistrial because of the death of the complaining witness in the course of a trial to the court, to deprive the defendant of the constitutional benefit prohibiting a person from being put twice in jeopardy for the same offense.
The defendant had waived her right to a trial by *122jury of the issue raised by her plea of not guilty to the charge of assault with intent to murder. Trial to the court had commenced. Opening statements were made. The first witness called by the People was the person alleged to have been thus assaulted. He was sworn and, after answering a few questions, slumped in the witness-box. It was ascertained that he had died while he had been testifying.
After the ensuing recess, the People moved for a mistrial. The motion was granted against the objection and over the protest of the defendant. Counsel for the defendant warned the trial court that his client had been in jeopardy. In resisting a setting of the case for trial, defendant formally maintained that she had previously been put in jeopardy. Having sustained an adverse ruling, she is here in original proceedings, seeking to have the trial court prohibited from further proceeding on the theory of former jeopardy.
It is ordained by our state Bill of Rights, Article II, Section 18, that no person shall “be twice put in jeopardy for the same offense. If the jury disagree, or if the judgment be arrested after the. verdict, or. if the judgment be reversed for error in law, the accused shall not be deemed to have been in jeopardy.”
At what stage of a criminal proceeding, to be tried to the court without a jury, does jeopardy set in? This court has accepted the almost universal rule, as it is stated in former 22 C.J.S., Criminal Law, § 241, from which we quoted with approval in Markiewicz v. Black, 138 Colo. 128, 330 P.2d 539, 75 A.L.R.2d 678, the following:
“* * * In a case submitted to the court without a jury, jeopardy begins after accused has been indicted, arraigned, and has pleaded, and the court has begun to hear 'the evidente....”
In the Markiewicz case we also cited the following language from State v. Pittsburg Paving Brick Co., 117 Kan. 192, 230 Pac. 1035, to support our holding therein:
*123“So far as jeopardy is concerned, the commencement of a trial without a jury must be deemed the equivalent of one begun with a jury. The peril of jeopardy arises before a judge acting alone under the same circumstances as before a judge and jury.”
Admittedly, the commencement of testimony in the present case ushered in jeopardy.
Could the trial court declare a mistrial, in a case tried without a jury, under the circumstances of this case? What effect did the declaration of a mistrial have upon a subsequent trial of the case? These are the critical questions which must be answered.
So far as I can ascertain, the device of a mistrial has application only to jury trials. See 23A C.J.S., Criminal Law, §§ 1382-1385. Indeed, mistrial and discharge of a jury are interchangeable judicial acts. I can conceive of no matter arising in the course of a trial to a court which would warrant that court to declare a mistrial. That “it is impossible to proceed without manifest injustice to the public, or to the defendant himself” is basic to the lawful declaration of a mistrial. People v. Barrett, 2 Cai. R. (N.Y.) 304, 2 Am. Dec. 239.
It was noted in the case of Brown v. People, 132 Colo. 561, 291 P.2d 680, that a mistrial should not be granted and a jury discharged unless there was “legal justification” for such action. See Kelly v. People, 121 Colo. 243, 215 P.2d 336. Legal justification “need only be such as could affect, or might in some way or manner be considered as interfering with, retarding, or influencing, to even a slight degree, the administration of honest, fair, even-handed justice to either, both, or any of the parties to the proceeding.” Brown v. People, supra.
Can “legal justification” be made applicable to a court as the trier of the facts? Can it be said that the judge would be more just on a retrial? May we assume that the event which caused him to declare a mistrial will, in some manner, by a lapse of time, make him more amenable to render “even-handed justice to” the *124parties on the commencement of the second trial, more so than if he had continued the case on his own motion for resumption of the trial at a later date? The very content of these questions indicates negative answers.
Reasons for using mistrial procedures in non-jury cases being non-existent, mistrials in such cases are improper and unwarranted. Ratio legis est anima legis — The reason of law is the soul of law. Rains v. Rains, 97 Colo. 19, 46 P.2d 740. Accordingly, a mistrial should not have been declared.
What effect did the declaration of a mistrial have on jeopardy? The common law rule against placing an accused twice in jeopardy still prevails in Colorado. Common law double jeopardy bars a second conviction or acquittal for the same offense. Davidson v. People, 64 Colo. 281, 170 Pac. 962. Autrefois acquit, where there had been an acquittal, and autrefois convict, where there had been a conviction, were the pleas known to the common law. Unknown to the common law was the plea of double jeopardy as such. Miller, “The Plea of Double Jeopardy in Missouri,” 22 Mo. L.R. 162, 165-166 (1957).
It would appear that double jeopardy, in the constitutional sense, has some broader implications than come within the ancient common law concept. In this sense, a trial to acquittal or conviction is not contemplated. Markiewicz v. People, supra. If such had been the intention of the framers of our Constitution, they could have prescribed, as did the State of Mississippi, that “there must be an actual acquittal or conviction on the merits to bar another prosecution.” Art. 3, § 22, Const, of Miss. See Art. 1, § 12, Const. of Iowa.
How should the Court construe that part of Article II, Section 18, of the Colorado constitution which provides that “if the jury disagree, or if the judgment be arrested after the verdict, or if the judgment be reversed for error in law, the accused shall not be deemed *125to have been in jeopardy”? Research reveals no answer to the question.
From structure and content of this constitutional provision, it could be judiciously argued that the framers intended to carve out of the whole three specific situations which would not constitute double jeopardy. As the present case does not come within the scope of any of the three specifically mentioned situations, by the process of exclusion it must follow logically that it does constitute jeopardy. Although the maxim, “Expressio unius est exclusio alterius,” should be resorted to cautiously in the construction of constitutional provisions, there are times when its application comports with the apparent intention of the framers. Such appears to be the case here. Whitney v. Bolin, 85 Ariz. 44, 330 P.2d 1003.
It is my conviction that the mention of the three exceptions to the application of the constitutional doctrine of double jeopardy excludes any other exceptions. The question on this matter is still open to resolution in this state. Nevertheless, it is my considered judgment that, on the basis of decisions of this state recognizing the doctrine of “manifest necessity,” there would be no grounds for a mistrial in this case. Assuming that this Court knowledgeably engrafted on Article II, Section 18, of our Constitution the rule of manifest necessity, as avoiding jeopardy, this case does not come within the rule.
This Court did take unto itself in Brown v. People, supra, language from the opinion of Mr. Justice Story in the case of United States v. Perez, 22 U.S. (9 Wheat.) 579, reading as follows:
“We think that in all cases of this nature, the law has invested courts of justice with the authority to discharge a jury from giving any verdict, whenever in their opinion, taking all the circumstances into consideration, there is a manifest necessity for the act, or the ends of public justice would be defeated. They are to *126exercise a sound discretion on the subject; and it is impossible to define all the circumstances which would render it proper to interfere. To be sure, the power ought to be used with greatest caution, under urgent circumstances, and for very plain and obvious causes; and in capital cases especially courts should be extremely careful how they interfere with any of the chances of life in favor of the prisoner.” (Emphasis supplied.)
Courts invoking the doctrine of manifest necessity as rendering jeopardy inapplicable rationalize thus:
“Jeopardy, as such, becomes dependent upon the presumption that the tribunal will continue legally organized, with the accused being charged, to the end of the trial, and in the end, pronounce a valid judgment — dither for or against the accused.” “The Pleas of Double Jeopardy in Missouri,” supra, 265.
But in a trial to the court without a jury, the tribunal continues legally organized. Where the jury is part of the court, an unexpected event may disrupt the organization of the court by making it questionable whether the jury will be available at a later date.
Hence, manifest necessity, in order to achieve justice, has some bearing on a jury trial. The availability of the jury at a later date, the convenence of the individual members of the jury, the possibility that certain jurors may be absent from the city or may be required to undergo medical or surgical treatment, and a myriad of other unforeseen circumstances, may make it necessary to declare a mistrial rather than continue the cause because of some untoward event creating an emergency in the trial of a case. But the judge who hears a criminal case without a jury can always postpone the hearing of it until some future time expeditiously convenient to himself and the parties involved.
The court could have continued the criminal case in question for further hearing at some later date. There was not a manifest necessity for a mistrial under the *127present circumstances. Justice would have been better served by adjourning the hearing to a later date, at which time the court would take up the trial of the cause at that point where it had been brought to a halt by reason of the death of the witness.
It follows that the ends of justice were not furthered when the court declared a mistrial, especially when there was no manifest necessity for doing so. A mistrial, not within the compass of the manifest necessity doctrine, put the accused in the position of effectively pleading that she has been put twice in jeopardy, and that the prosecution is barred from further proceeding against her on the charge. Cornero v. United States, 48 F.2d 69.