Court Opinion

ID: 9575382
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:13:24.186707+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:48:09.644548
License: Public Domain

MOSK, J., Concurring and Dissenting.
I concur in part III of the majority opinion and the result, i.e., that the judgment of contempt is defective on its face and must be set aside for that reason.
I dissent, however, from part II of that opinion and the conclusion that Penal Code section 1054.1 et seq. authorized the trial court to order petitioner to obtain the address of a prospective defense witness and disclose it to the prosecution. In my view, that was not a lawful order. It offends the privilege against self-incrimitiation granted to all criminal defendants, including petitioner’s client, by article I, section 15 of the California Constitution. Therefore, petitioner’s refusal to obey the order was not an act of contempt.
A loose dictum in Justice Traynor’s opinion for the majority in Jones v. Superior Court (1962) 58 Cal.2d 56 [22 Cal.Rptr. 879, 372 P.2d 919, 96 A.L.R.2d 1213] appears to have led to the problem being improperly resolved ever since. He wrote, in one ill-conceived sentence, that discovery “should not be a one-way street.” (Id. at p. 60.) The phrase has given rise to an assumption that the contestants in a criminal case somehow compete on a basis of equality. But under principles of American jurisprudence recognized since the founding of the republic, the prosecution and the defense do not travel equally on a mythical two-way street. The prosecution has the burden of proving the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The defendant is clothed with a presumption of innocence. He cannot be compelled to incriminate himself, and, therefore, he may stand mute and in no manner be required to aid the prosecution in proving his guilt.
Justice Peters, in his concurring and dissenting opinion in Jones, reasoned that “[i]t is the constitutional right of the defendant, who is presumed to be innocent, to stand silent while the state attempts to meet its burden of proof, that is, to prove the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The defendant, up until now, did not have to take an active part in the ascertainment of the facts. The majority opinion does not merely enlarge a simple judicial principle of pretrial procedure, it fundamentally alters our concepts *141of the rights of the accused, and forces him to come forward with information before the prosecution has presented a case against him.” (Jones v. Superior Court, supra, 58 Cal.2d at pp. 64-65 (conc. & dis. opn. of Peters, J.).) I find that reasoning irrefutable.
Justice Dooling, also concurring and dissenting in Jones, was prescient. The deviation was relatively minor in that case, he declared, but he was “fearful as a matter of policy of the future outcome of even so small an initial court-created inroad upon the heretofore unquestioned right of a defendant in a criminal case to remain silent, if he chooses, at every stage of the proceeding against him.” (Jones v. Superior Court, supra, 58 Cal.2d at p. 69 (conc. & dis. opn. of Dooling, J.).)
Justice Dooling’s fears were realized with the promotion of Proposition 115 and the decision in Izazaga v. Superior Court (1991) 54 Cal.3d 356 [285 Cal.Rptr. 231, 815 P.2d 304]. The promoters of the measure and the Izazaga majority overlooked all the foregoing principles.
The majority herein sugarcoat their cyanide pill by ordering the contempt judgment in this case set aside. That is helpful to petitioner personally, but only for the moment. He and other criminal defense counsel in the future will be unable to properly protect defendants who may choose to assert their constitutional right to remain silent and to give no assistance to the prosecutors who are attempting to convict them. Indeed, the majority would approve of a court order requiring defense counsel to affirmatively seek information not previously divulged—e.g., addresses—in order to pass it on to aid the prosecution. At that point defense counsel, acting under compulsion, will no longer be permitted to serve the avowed interests of his client. He will become an arm of the prosecution itself.
The fundamental issue in this case was discussed at length in Izazaga. I adhere to the views I expressed in my dissenting opinion. (Izazaga v. Superior Court, supra, 54 Cal.3d at pp. 387-402 (dis. opn. of Mosk, J.).)