Court Opinion

ID: 9545217
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:08:24.947248+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:14:19.383575
License: Public Domain

*486RICHARDSON, J.
I concur in the judgment and in that portion of the majority opinion which denied appellant augmentation of the record with a transcription of a tape recording which was played during his trial but which directed that the tape recording itself be included as an exhibit on appeal.
However, I am unable to join in that portion of the opinion which approves augmentation of the record with a transcript of closing argument by counsel.
I believe that the majority improperly reduces the showing which has previously been required of an indigent appellant who requests augmentation of the record on appeal in a criminal case. As the opinion properly observes, the applicable test regarding augmentation of the record was described by us in People v. Hill (1967) 67 Cal.2d 105, 124 [60 Cal.Rptr. 234, 429 P.2d 586], in the following words: “All that is required ... is that [the defendant] signify, with some certainty how materials not included in the normal transcript may be useful to him on appeal.” (P. 124, italics added.) We required that defendant should designate “with ... a modicum of specificity . . . any errors which transcript of argument would help him prove .... [Citation.]” (Id., at p. 123, fn. 11.) In Hill we held that defendant’s broad conclusory allegation that transcripts were needed “because of errors or mistakes” constituted an insufficient showing of a need for augmentation. Reading the case as a whole, I believe that Hill stands for the proposition that before augmentation of the record is ordered, defendant must make some colorable showing of need for a complete transcript. (Cf. March v. Municipal Court (1972) 7 Cal.3d 422, 428 [102 Cal.Rptr. 597, 498 P.2d 437, 66 A.L.R.3d 945].)
By focusing on selected language in Hill, the majority unduly expands the principles of Hill and fashions a standard so lax as to constitute virtually no test at all. The majority now will require only that defendant assert how a complete transcript might be useful to him. Under the majority’s test, the requisite showing would be made by any speculative, conclusory allegation that, for example, an augmented transcript might provide evidence of prosecutorial misconduct or might disclose that jury instructions were misread. It seems to me self-evident that such showings would be no more probative of possible error than the conclusory allegations of “need” or “error” rejected in Hill. It is further evident that the practical consequences of the majority holding will differ little, if at all, from those which would have followed from the adoption of the test which we rejected in Hill It would be a particularly unimaginative or *487inept attorney who could not conceive of some possible benefit which a transcript of juiy instructions or closing argument might provide.
It seems to me that the practical results of the majority’s ruling is that augmentation of the record will be routinely granted, at substantial expense to the taxpayers of the state and with subsequent delays in the processing of appeals. It is readily apparent that the majority view is not consistent with the California Rules of Court, because rule 33(a)(2) specifically provides that the reporter’s transcript on appeal “shall normally exclude proceedings on the voir dire examination of jurors, opening statements, and arguments to the jury.”
In accordance with the general tenor of rules 12(a) and 33(a)(2) and People v. Hill, supra, I respectfully suggest that before augmentation of the record is granted, it is not unreasonable to require that the moving party set forth some facts indicating a reasonable possibility that error will be revealed in the augmented record. It is not too much to require that a defendant designate, in at least summary fashion, what he expects to find and something of what he knows, remembers, or suspects the requested record may reveal by way of error. Such a standard does not necessarily require that defendant articulate specific facts, which will be found in the requested transcript, but rather does require something more substantial than the merest speculation. While this test would not be amenable to mechanical application, its augmentation would rest in the sound judgment and discretion of the appellate courts, which it seems to me is clearly contemplated by present rule 12(a) providing that “the reviewing court, on such terms as it deems proper, may order that. . . portions of the oral proceedings be transcribed .. . and transmitted ... .” (Italics added.)
I conclude that appellant, in the matter before us, under a reasonable interpretation of Hill, made a sufficient showing to justify augmentation of the record. Appellant contends that a transcript of closing arguments is necessary to determine (1) the prejudicial effect of the admission in evidence of allegedly improper testimony by a deputy sheriff; (2) the basis for the trial court’s determination that appellant harbored malice (the trial record contained uncontradicted testimony by a psychiatrist that he did not harbor malice); and (3) the existence of, and the basis for, an argument by the prosecutor that appellant had killed because he had “had enough” of the victim. Defendant has alleged with sufficient specificity what he expects to find in the record and why he believes the record will be helpful. Indeed, I suggest that the foregoing showing *488furnishes a good example of a proper demonstration of need for an augmented transcript. Accordingly, I concur in the judgment.
Clark, J., concurred.