Court Opinion

ID: 9591452
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:04:29.042589+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:19:56.397346
License: Public Domain

MOSK, J.
I dissent. In People v. Mattson (1984) 37 Cal.3d 85 [207 Cal.Rptr. 278, 688 P.2d 887] (hereafter Mattson I), this court held that the purported confessions of defendant were invalid as a matter of law. (People v. Pettingill (1978) 21 Cal.3d 231 [145 Cal.Rptr. 861, 578 P.2d 108]; People v. Fioritto (1968) 68 Cal.2d 714 [68 Cal.Rptr. 817, 441 P.2d 625].) Thus the previous decision of this court is the law of the case.
The majority concede that the law of the case is controlling as to the law, but they seem to obliquely hold that we are here considering only new facts and not law. They are in error. We are here concerned with the very same confessions introduced in the first trial. If there were any new confessions offered in this trial, the majority fail to identify them.
Thus the facts in this trial are the same as those in the previous trial— embellished somewhat, changed here and there because of the passage of time and fading memories, somewhat more self-serving by prosecution witnesses, but essentially the same. The only issue, therefore, is the law applicable to those facts. And the law was forthrightly established in Mattson I. We are bound by that law.
The majority strain mightily to find some distinguishing law and to shift constitutional grounds. In Mattson I we relied on article I, section 15, of the *886California Constitution. (37 Cal.3d at pp. 89-92.) But more important, we made it abundantly clear that “It is settled that the introduction of a confession obtained in violation of constitutional guarantees is prejudicial per se and that a conviction based on such a confession must be reversed.” (Id. at p. 91.) That clearly meant any constitutional guaranty.
It is unfortunate that the prosecutor did not get the message of this court’s previous opinion: that he must attempt to convict this defendant without the use of the purported confessions. Instead, with the acquiescence of the trial court, he charged ahead with the same confessions that had been found constitutionally invalid. While courts may change, the Constitution remains the same.
I would reverse the judgment.