Court Opinion

ID: 9751692
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 16:50:16.988651+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:26:57.155617
License: Public Domain

JOHNSON, J., Concurring.
I concur in the judgment but write separately to explain some independent reasons for finding what I regard as extremely serious error to have been harmless in this case and also to emphasize trial courts should not misread this decision as evidencing a lax attitude toward failures to explain reasonable doubt or the presumption of innocence.
In criminal trials, among the most critical and most difficult concepts the trial judge must convey to the jury are, first, the defendant enters the courtroom an innocent person and, second, the defendant can only be convicted if the prosecution produces evidence of guilt so overwhelming it exceeds an extremely high threshold—erasing all reasonable doubt.
These twin concepts are critical because they are the best, indeed often the only, protection against the punishment of innocent people by jurors who otherwise might be tempted to convict those the authorities have charged with crimes merely because they are so charged or on the basis of evidence that only establishes a bare probability of guilt. These concepts are also difficult, because for most jurors they are counter to their ordinary decisionmaking processes. In their daily lives, those serving on juries typically assess options and make decisions on the basis of probabilities (or sometimes just hunches). They are accustomed to electing the choice that seems probably correct even if only slightly more so than the competing option. In reaching many of those decisions, they also rely on probability assessments they receive from experts and authority figures—doctors, teachers, and the like.
When entering a criminal courtroom, however, jurors are asked to suspend their ordinary ways of thinking. They are to disregard completely the *557self-evident fact the experts and authority figures in this field—the police and district attorney—have evaluated the evidence and concluded the defendant is probably guilty. Instead they are to treat that defendant as completely innocent. Then, when they have heard all the evidence and are asked to decide between a guilty and not guilty verdict they are expected to vote for the not guilty option even if their own appraisal of the evidence leads them to conclude the defendant probably committed the crime—if there remains any “reasonable doubt” about the defendant’s guilt.
Anyone who has gone through the voir dire process in a criminal case, whether as the trial judge or trial counsel conducting the voir dire, or as a prospective juror, can testify these concepts often confound most jurors and indeed tend to meet the most resistance from some of those jurors.1 The only way a judge can hope to produce a jury likely to decide guilt properly is by pounding home the twin themes—the defendant enters the courtroom an innocent person and when weighing the evidence you hear during the trial you must choose the not guilty option even if you believe the defendant is probably guilty unless that probability is so high as to leave you with no reasonable doubt about the defendant’s guilt.
In this case we affirm a conviction despite the fact the trial judge failed to give the instruction explaining these critical and difficult concepts at any time after the jury was selected. The court did, however, give that instruction to the prospective jurors before commencing the voir dire examination. This alone would not have been sufficient to overcome the error in failing to deliver the instruction closer to the time the chosen jurors began deliberating.2 Nor am I as confident as my colleagues this error was rendered harmless by the collateral instructions mentioning proof beyond a reasonable doubt was required, although they helped.
What is more persuasive to me is the repeated emphasis the trial judge placed on the presumption of innocence and proof beyond a reasonable doubt during the voir dire process itself. Both with groups of jurors and in querying individual jurors, the trial judge indeed did “pound home” the concept *558defendant entered the courtroom an innocent man.3 The court did the same with the concept the jurors were bound to acquit defendant if they had a reasonable doubt of his guilt after hearing the evidence.4 During his voir dire, the defense counsel reinforced this lesson, one-on-one with at least 20 individual jurors and the prosecutor did so with at least three.5
All in all, it is difficult to imagine any juror subjected to this intensive indoctrination during jury selection could have entered the jury room unaware of the obligation to deviate from his or her usual thinking pattern and instead to accept the initial innocence of defendant and the prosecution’s duty to prove defendant not only probably guilty but guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. In the absence of that intensive and focused indoctrination, however, I would have been unwilling to find harmless the trial judge’s twin errors, inadvertent as they obviously were, in failing to instruct about the presumption of innocence and to define reasonable doubt before sending those jurors off to decide defendant’s fate.
*559I do not mean to suggest a vigorous voir dire is a suitable alternative to delivering a proper instruction when the jury is about to begin deliberating. The failure to give instructions at the appropriate time which define reasonable doubt and explain the presumption of innocence remains error, serious error to my mind. Nonetheless, in my view, the instructions the trial judge did deliver and the heavy emphasis on these concepts during voir dire combine to render that error harmless in this particular case. Accordingly, I concur in the judgment and, because of the high quality and dedication of the trial bench in this county, I am confident nothing in either of our opinions will encourage any trial judge to become careless about instructing on reasonable doubt and the presumption of innocence in future cases.
Appellant’s petition for review by the Supreme Court was denied October 11, 2006, S145277. Kennard, J., and Corrigan, J., were of the opinion that the petition should be granted.

Sometimes this resistance is voiced by a juror during voir dire, as happened in this trial. Shortly after hearing the trial judge remind another juror about the presumption of innocence, Juror No. 10 said: “I don’t believe the person would be arrested and be in court if he wasn’t guilty

People v. Vann (1974) 12 Cal.3d 220, 226 [115 Cal.Rptr. 352, 524 P.2d 824]; People v. Elguera (1992) 8 Cal.App.4th 1214, 1220 [10 Cal.Rptr.2d 910]; People v. Crawford (1997) 58 Cal.App.4th 815, 820 [68 Cal.Rptr.2d 546].

For instance, in an open exchange with Juror No. 14 before the entire panel of prospective jurors, the trial judge said: “Well, you understand what I said about Mr. Mayo. Right now he’s presumed innocent. Right now you heard nothing and you have to presume him innocent of these charges. Are you going to be able to give him the presumption of innocence?” Later with Juror No. 11, the judge engaged in a longer exchange, again in front of all the prospective jurors. “THE COURT: And you can’t speculate as to anything where there is no evidence in front of you, so you are not willing to give Mr. Mayo that presumption of innocence? PROSPECTIVE JUROR 11:1 can give him that presumption, yes. THE COURT: And right now he’s innocent. PROSPECTIVE JUROR 11: Yes.”

For instance, in explaining to the full panel it could not hold it against defendant if he failed to testify, the court began by reminding them again of the prosecution’s burden to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. “One of the things I told you, ladies and gentleman, at the beginning of our discussion yesterday was that the people have the burden of proof in this case. And they have to prove this case to you beyond a reasonable doubt. HQ ...[]□ As we grow up we always hear the expression there are two sides to every story. Well, in a court of law there is only one side and that is the prosecution. And if they don’t prove their case to you beyond a reasonable doubt, even though you may have a curiosity as to what the defendant might have to say, you may wonder why don’t we hear from him, you have to set that aside. ... So if the people haven’t proven their case, you have to find the defendant not guilty.” “Now, if ... by the end of the whole case you haven’t heard enough evidence to convince you beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Mayo is guilty of the crime charged, you have to come back with a verdict of not guilty. It’s a little difficult for people to understand if they haven’t been involved in the criminal justice system in the past. H] Do you understand that the burden remains on the people?”

Although he was more expansive in his questioning of some jurors a typical exchange was Juror No. 5. “DEFENSE COUNSEL: Juror number 5, how about you, do you have any feeling about whether you can be fair or not? PROSPECTIVE JUROR 5: I can be fair. DEFENSE COUNSEL: Can you presume Mr. Mayo to be innocent as he sits here right now? PROSPECTIVE JUROR 5: Yes. DEFENSE COUNSEL: And if after hearing all of the evidence you are suspicious of him, but you have a reasonable doubt as to his guilt, any problem in voting not guilty? PROSPECTIVE JUROR 5: No problem.”