Court Opinion

ID: 9726756
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:06:55.05134+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:30.393407
License: Public Domain

RATTIGAN, Acting P. J.
I dissent. The terminal holding in Henderson supports the trial court’s order striking the allegations of special circumstances. This holding reads in full as follows: “A defendant’s right of appeal is unreasonably impaired when he is required to risk his life to invoke that right. Since the state has no interest in preserving erroneous judgments, it has no interest in foreclosing appeals therefrom by imposing unreasonable conditions on the right to appeal.” (People v. Henderson (1963) 60 Cal.2d 482, 497 [35 Cal.Rptr. 77, 386 P.2d 677].)
The judgment of conviction which initially imposed the bargained life sentence on this defendant (real party in interest) was reversed in an unpublished opinion by Division One of this court in People v. Garcia (1980) 1 Crim. 19630. The opinion records the following material facts: Defendant entered the bargained plea of guilty to the murder charge on March 23, 1978. When the case was called for sentencing one week later, he informed the court that he wanted to withdraw the plea. His original attorney declared a conflict of interest and was relieved. On April 10, new counsel was appointed to evaluate the request for withdrawal of the plea. In June, the new attorney formally moved for leave to withdraw the plea on the grounds (among others) that defendant had entered it under “stress and pressure” and that he had been “pressured” by his former attorney to enter it.
*261The motion was denied, and defendant was sentenced to life imprisonment pursuant to the bargain. He appealed from the judgment of conviction, claiming a prejudicial abuse of discretion in the denial of the motion. The appellate court agreed, holding that defendant had established in the trial court that “his mental stress was such that it affected his free and clear judgment” when he bargained the plea and entered it. The court thereupon reversed the judgment and directed the trial court to permit defendant to withdraw the plea and enter a plea of not guilty.
Defendant thus established in this court that his initial conviction was an “erroneous judgment,” within the meaning of the Henderson holding quoted above, because it was based on a plea which he was incompetent to bargain and enter. Having prevailed on the appeal from the erroneous judgment, he is now facing the death penalty. This prospect is reached and precluded by the Henderson holding.
The effect of the Henderson holding cannot reasonably be avoided by citing distinctions between the jeopardy backgrounds of that case and this one. The holding was made on the ground of double jeopardy because the defendant in Henderson asserted only that ground in challenging a death sentence imposed on him after he had prevailed on an appeal from a previous judgment sentencing him to life imprisonment. (People v. Henderson, supra, 60 Cal.2d 482 at p. 495; see Van Alstyne, In Gideon's Wake: Harsher Penalties and the “Successful" Criminal Appellant (1965) 74 Yale L.J. 606, 634.) His contention made Henderson a jeopardy decision, but this did not operate to limit the holding to the facts of the case or to jeopardy situations. The holding itself was not so limited, and it established the unqualified policy that “a defendant is not required to risk his life to invoke his right to appeal from an erroneous judgment imposing a life sentence.” (People v. Ali (1967) 66 Cal.2d 277, 281 [57 Cal.Rptr. 348, 424 P.2d 932].) The policy has been established and enforced on a variety of grounds, of which double jeopardy is only one. (See Comment The Constitutionality of Reindicting Successful Plea-Bargain Appellants on the Original, Higher Charges (1974) 62 Cal.L.Rev. 258, 259, 261, 271-272 et seq., 279 et seq.) The broad language of the Henderson holding applies, regardless of the ground, because it addresses life-and-death reality regardless of theory.
Contrary to the express terms of the Henderson holding, the majority opinion in this case will have the effect of “foreclosing appeals” from “erroneous judgments” by retroactively “imposing unreasonable condi*262tians on the right to appeal” which was successfully exercised by this defendant. I would stand on the holding and deny the petition.