Court Opinion

ID: 9720211
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 08:20:49.730795+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:14.239408
License: Public Domain

WOOLPERT, J.
I respectfully dissent.
In this case the CALJIC No. 17.01 instruction should have been given if for no reason other than when in doubt, it is usually harmless to give it and may avoid reversal. However, I disagree with the majority conclusion that reversal is required because of its absence. Initially, the evidence and arguments presented at trial did not mandate a 17.01 instruction. First, the “other acts” evidence went to the question of defendant’s intent, not his commission of separate and distinct criminal acts. Second, if indeed attendance at the Mott and Vasquez preliminary hearing and statement to Investigator Anderson constituted separate felonies, then those repeat crimes fell under the “continuous conduct exception” to the requirement of giving CALJIC No. 17.01. Finally, even if the trial court was required to give CALJIC No. 17.01, its absence here did not prejudice defendant.
Before addressing the instructional issue I note my concurrence with the majority that the dismissal of charges against Mott and Vasquez did not invalidate the completed trial and conviction of appellant. Penal Code section 972 survives defendant’s due process challenge. Also, more pragmatic observations support defendant’s conviction.
*566However purposeful, the three defendants below outmaneuvered the prosecution with “Onion Field” type pretrial moves. The appellant was last to be arrested, the least involved defendant, yet the first to be tried. Over protest by the district attorney, the court severed the previously combined trials. Appellant announced he was willing to go to trial while the two far more serious offenders sought and received a continuance which the prosecution unsuccessfully opposed.
During the prosecution of appellant, the victim was required to undergo an extraordinary number of hours of demanding testimony of an exceptionally sordid and demeaning character. Because of her condition at the time of the events, as well as the number of acts involved, the jury accepted the conflicts between her pretrial and trial testimony. The mixing of the sequence of the events and participants concerned the crimes committed by the other defendants. When it came to the postassault threat, appearance at the preliminary hearing and statement to the investigator, the evidence was clear and presented the jury two versions, one clearly pointing to guilt and the other to innocence. The jurors, having found the victim to be credible, faced only one task: To determine whether there had been a false imprisonment as well as the threat. The result was entirely consistent with all parts of the victim’s testimony.
The majority reversed in this case because of the trial court’s refusal to give the CALJIC No. 17.01 instruction. See People v. Bottger (1983) 142 Cal.App.3d 974, 983-984 [191 Cal.Rptr. 408], in which the result is probably incompatible with the result in this case.
Attorneys, judges and jurors alike will acquiesce in the general proposition that all 12 jurors must agree upon the ultimate facts which overcome reasonable doubt. However, when the testimony is of acts disconnected in time, and sometimes in place, the “CALJIC No. 17.01 Problem” arises. Is the instruction required to remind the jurors of a principle which ordinarily seems obvious? Do we have a “continuous conduct” case? We are hearing far too many appeals in which this is the troublesome issue. Often in unpublished opinions we rationalize whether there was harmless error in not giving the instruction. The 1984 Annual Supplement to Shepard’s California Citations discloses no other instruction is more often cited in published opinions.
After engaging in the typical mental gymnastics these cases require, I conclude the jurors could not have divided in believing which act or acts constituted the crime. Therefore, assuming the instruction should have been given, the failure to do so was harmless error beyond a reasonable doubt. *567(Cf. People v. Deletto (1983) 147 Cal.App.3d 458, 465-475 [195 Cal.Rptr. 233].)
In People v. Diedrich (1982) 31 Cal.3d 263, 281 [182 Cal.Rptr. 354, 643 P.2d 971], the court, in noting the failure of the prosecution to elect between separate violations, and the need for unanimous approval of the crime selected, added: “There simply is no escape from the fact that two separate violations of [Pen. Code] section 165 were proved under the umbrella of count I . . . .” Herein lies the problem for trial judges. When is a crime completed? When are pieces of evidence mere evidence of an overall crime rather than of individual crimes charged under one umbrella? Does an information charging one crime committed on or about a certain date make all continuing criminal activity on remote dates separate, uncharged crimes?
It appears the trial court resolved the above questions on the basis that defendant was charged with a single crime against the same person (the state) and the proof was of a course of conduct which provided sufficient evidence of the necessary intent. “ ‘The test of an accessory after the fact is that, he renders his principal some personal help to elude punishment,— the kind of help being unimportant. ’ (1 Bishop’s Criminal Law, 500, § 695.)” (People v. Duty (1969) 269 Cal.App.2d 97, 104 [74 Cal.Rptr. 606].) Also, “[i]n determining the knowledge and intent of the aider, the jury may consider such factors as his possible presence at the crime or other means of knowledge of its commission, as well as his companionship and relationship with the principal before and after the offense.” (Ibid.)
Thus the conduct is that of protection, the purpose of which may be revealed only by a study of the acts performed. One act may be of doubtful significance and a second may be necessary to qualify the first. It is in that sense in which the case was tried and argued.
Because of the uncertain, open-ended character of the crime charged, it is not surprising that the trial court rejected the instruction. However, the refusal was dangerous and unnecessary. The instruction would have enlightened the jury, if nothing else. No confusion would have arisen in this case if the jury had been so instructed.
Penal Code section 654 cases use analogous legal concepts to avoid multiple punishment for conduct directed to a single objective. It has been held that Penal Code section 266h, prohibiting pimping, relates to continuous criminal activity. For example, four counts were limited to the “single offense of pimping.” (People v. Lewis (1978) 77 Cal.App.3d 455, 461 [143 Cal.Rptr. 587, 3 A.L.R.4th 1185].) The court noted an analogous line of theft cases which reached a similar conclusion that when the objective of *568numerous small thefts was to obtain money or property pursuant to one plan, there was a single, greater crime. The observation was made that in the single crime case the jury is concerned with the end result rather than the means, an idea which may apply to the charge of harboring a fugitive or helping a friend avoid arrest and conviction. (Ibid.)
Would a grand theft analysis be a safe one to follow in deciding whether to give CALJIC No. 17.01? In People v. Bailey (1961) 55 Cal.2d 514 [11 Cal.Rptr. 543, 360 P.2d 39], the court was concerned with the cumulation of a series of thefts into the single crime charged of grand theft. “Whether a series of wrongful acts constitutes a single offense or multiple offenses depends upon the facts of each case, and a defendant may be properly convicted upon separate counts charging grand theft from the same person if the evidence shows that the offenses are separate and distinct and were not committed pursuant to one intention, one general impulse, and one plan.” (Id., at p. 519.)
The foregoing multiple conviction language lends support to the idea that repetitious activity which culminates in a legislatively declared prohibited status, or achieves the single objective of the offender, may be charged and proved as a single crime.
Having considerable doubt that this was ever a multiple crime prosecution, or that the jurors ever thought of it as such, the mere possibility of more than one violation having been presented the jurors requires discussion of the “continuous conduct exception” to the use of CALJIC No. 17.01. The “continuous conduct exception” relieves the court of the necessity to give No. 17.01 when two or more offenses occurred “so closely connected in time that they formed part of one transaction” or it was the “type of offense which, in itself, consists of a continuous course of conduct. [Citations.]” (People v. Diedrich, supra, 31 Cal.3d 263, 282.) The “continuous conduct exception” is limited and not favored. (Ibid.; People v. Madden (1981) 116 Cal.App.3d 212, 218 [171 Cal.Rptr. 897].)
The Diedrich opinion refers to People v. Lowell (1946) 77 Cal.App.2d 341 [175 Cal.Rptr. 846], for the “contributing” continuous conduct exception. In Lowell two boys were involved in sexual conduct which took place over three years. The court held that the district attorney could not be forced to elect as to the act on which to rely, nor need the jury be given a unanimity instruction as to any particular act. (Id., at p. 347.) The apparent rationale was that the information did not charge the defendant with a specific sexual crime, but instead only with “contributing to delinquency.”
It has been said that when “any one of several different acts could constitute the offense” a unanimity instruction must be given. (People v. Ewing *569(1977) 72 Cal.App.3d 714, 717 [140 Cal.Rptr. 299].) In Ewing, a child abuse case (Pen. Code, § 273a), the court noted that the statute could be violated by a single act, or repetitive acts, as was true in the Lowell “contributing” case. Because the information charged the violation took place between two designated dates, “[t]he issue before the jury was whether the accused was guilty of the course of conduct, not whether he had committed a particular act on a particular day.” (People v. Ewing, supra, at p. 717.)
Thus, in Ewing and Lowell, the jurors were permitted to disagree on which act or acts were proved. Therefore it was possible no act had been proved by the usual standard to the satisfaction of all jurors. Logic may question the legal position that proof which fails to establish the acts which are the basis of the charge may nevertheless sufficiently support the conviction. When only one criminal act is offered in evidence to prove the charge, it requires the usual standard of proof and unanimity. Why then, when charging numerous supporting acts, does the requirement of unanimity diminish?
If the “continuous conduct exception” has any justification, it should apply to this “avoiding prosecution” conduct which is directed to aiding another person to remain free from successful prosecution, and not to the specific act or acts which were intended to make that possible. Breaking down the “help” into its parts, the separate crime approach may become an instructional nightmare. When a mother helps her delinquent son escape arrest by hiding him during the day while he leaves at night to commit burglaries, is there a separate accessory-after-the-fact crime committed each time the son returns? Must the jurors unanimously agree that this happened over a period of days or must they all agree to particular days? Would the result be different if the son stayed away for several days before returning or his mother took him elsewhere to hide? Would the significant cutoff date be the son’s apprehension or the cessation of the mother’s help? Should the information charge numerous counts or just one count alleging either “on or about” or “between ________and ________”? In the comparable child abuse cases the answer has been the “continuous conduct exception.”
In People v. Diedrich, supra, 31 Cal.3d 263, after rejecting application of the “continuous conduct exception,” the court considered whether the failure to give CALJIC No. 17.01 was prejudicial error, saying: “We feel bound to hold that it was. This is not a case where the jury’s verdict implies that it did not believe the only defense offered. Diedrich’s defenses differed: . . .” (Id., at p. 283.) Here the only defense was that the victim was lying to cover her sexual abberations which would embarrass her if she did not lie. The jury heard the sordid account of a prolonged sexual assault on a stranger in an unfamiliar setting under unusual circumstances. The victim *570did not await rumor of her sexual proclivities, but instead immediately reported the crime and stood ready to be an embarrassed witness in whatever the law would require of her.
The defense wasted much time trying to show there was a potential avenue of escape. Also, assertions were made that she paraded in the nude within the sight of the club members, a version directly conflicting with her account of being assaulted in her car and pushed naked into the building. The jurors carefully asked for a rereading of testimony relating to a false imprisonment count and acquitted defendant on that charge. This is consistent with the victim’s testimony of defendant appearing to be a mere “prospect” striking for membership in the club and not able to help her resist the sexual assaults which the jury unanimously agreed took place. The threat made in the presence of club members as the victim left was consistent with that role of trying to make a favorable impression on his friends. Only the victim testified to the threat; the contrary evidence came before the jury only as a part of defendant’s statement to the investigator. Either the victim was to be believed or, through the investigator, the defense version would prevail. It is inconceivable that the jurors were able to unanimously agree on the underlying felonies, and then would have to put together split votes on the subsequent conduct.
Receiving CALJIC No. 2.91, the jurors were instructed that “[t]he burden is on the State to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is the person who committed the offense with which he is charged.” The information was read to the jury. Count two alleged the offense took place on or about February 19, 1981, the day of the threat. No charge was made in reference to the events much later when defendant talked to the investigator. The verdict of guilty ended with these words: “as charged in Count Two of the Information filed herein.”
If there was no direct instruction on the effect of the statement to the investigator, there was one which should have kept the jurors from splitting votes. The jurors, under CALJIC No. 2.03, were instructed: “If you find that before this trial the defendant made false or deliberately misleading statements concerning the charge upon which he is now being tried, you may consider such statements as a circumstance tending to prove a consciousness of guilt but it is not sufficient of itself to prove guilt.” The average juror would understand this to mean that the statement was not to be isolated from the other proof of the threat. If so understood, the two significant acts would stand or fall together.
Defendant’s appearance at the other defendants’ preliminary hearing prompted his arrest. His presence at the hearing supported the verdict only *571as a part of defendant’s “companionship and relationship with the principal before and after the offense.” (People v. Duty, supra, 269 Cal.App.2d 97, 104.) The prosecutor, even in her most energetic and imaginative moments, did not suggest that attending a friend’s preliminary hearing constituted a separate crime.
We should not speculate that the jurors, in whole or in part, considered the subsequent events other than as mere confirmatory evidence of intent. If we must speculate, we should assume that all of the jurors heard and applied the foregoing instructions and meant what they said in their verdict.
Finding defendant’s additional appellate contentions without merit, I would affirm the judgment.