Court Opinion

ID: 9790240
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:49:26.048716+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:47:12.710074
License: Public Domain

RICHARDSON, J., Dissenting.
I have no quarrel with the efforts of my colleagues of the majority as they seek to articulate a broad rule which would permit counsel “to ask questions reasonably designed to assist in the intelligent exercise of peremptory challenges ...” (ante, *415p. 407), and to preserve considerable discretion of “the trial court to contain voir dire within reasonable limits.” (Ibid.) Similarly, I agree with my colleague of the concurrence who points to the lack of specificity of the proposed new standard and the broad generality of the analysis and test advanced in extended fashion by the majority. I take no issue with my colleague’s efforts in this direction because it is my belief and observation that this is exactly what trial courts in the area of voir dire examination have been doing for years.
I respectfully dissent, however, from the majority’s conclusion that, assuming the trial court erred in unduly restricting the voir dire questioning, such error was so prejudicial as to warrant a reversal of the judgment.
The majority attempts to justify its reversal of the judgment by relying upon cases wherein the defendant has been deprived of an impartial jury. (E.g., People v. Wheeler (1978) 22 Cal.3d 258, 283 [148 Cal.Rptr. 890, 583 P.2d 748] [exclusion of black citizens from jury venire]; People v. Carmichael (1926) 198 Cal. 534, 547 [246 P. 62] [restriction on voir dire questioning to establish bias].) In the present case, any infringement upon defendant’s rights is much less severe—restricting exploratory voir dire questioning which might disclose some basis for a peremptory challenge.
Article VI, section 13, of the California Constitution provides in pertinent part that “No judgment shall be set aside, ... in any cause, .. . for any error as to any matter of procedure, unless, after an examination of the entire cause, including the evidence, the court shall be of the opinion that the error complained of has resulted in a miscarriage of justice.” (Italics added.)
Twenty-five years ago we considered the foregoing constitutional mandate in People v. Watson (1956) 46 Cal.2d 818, 836 [299 P.2d 243], and held that “a ‘miscarriage of justice’ should be declared only when the court, ‘after an examination of the entire cause, including the evidence,’ is of the ‘opinion’ that it is reasonably probable that a result more favorable to the appealing party would have been reached in the absence of the error.” (Italics added.) The Watson standard has been applied in hundreds of subsequent decisions and is acknowledged as representing the present test for measuring the harmlessness of trial errors under the state constitutional standard. (People v. Jackson (1980) 28 Cal.3d 264, 307 [168 Cal.Rptr. 603, 618 P.2d 149]; see Wit-*416kin, Cal. Criminal Procedure (1963) Reversible Error, § 741, at p. 712 et seq.)
In the present case, as the majority acknowledges, “At the beginning of voir dire the court inquired of the veniremen as a group whether they would follow the court’s instructions on the law regardless of their personal opinions about what the law is or should be. The prospective jurors responded en masse that they could do so.” (Ante, p. 397 italics added.) In addition, defense counsel was permitted to ask panel members whether they would follow self-defense instructions even if they disagreed with the law. (Ante, p. 398.) The only restriction placed on voir dire examination in this regard concerned questions aimed at determining the prospective jurors’ specific views regarding the use of force in self-defense where an avenue of retreat was available.
Under the foregoing circumstances, how can we hold that a “miscarriage of justice” (art. VI, § 13) occurred in this case, or that “it is reasonably probable” (Watson, supra, 46 Cal.2d 818) that a more favorable verdict would have been rendered but for the voir dire restrictions? In my view the majority errs in so readily assuming the probability of prejudice in this case.
Our continued and studied neglect of the constitutional mandate of article VI, section 13, has not gone unnoticed. (MacLeod, The California Constitution and the California Supreme Court in Conflict Over the Harmless Error Rule (1981) 32 Hastings L.J. 687.) This thoughtful analysis correctly observes that “as interpreted in Watson, article VI, section 13 allows an appellate court to reverse a verdict only if it first finds that the result probably would have been different had the error not occurred; ... The court in Watson emphasized that reasonable probability, not mere possibility, of a different result is required to overturn a trial court verdict.” (Pp. 689-690, italics in original, fns. omitted.) The principal thesis of the Hastings commentator is that we have “effectively abrogated the state constitutional rule on harmless error” (p. 687) by, among other things, use of an “ipse dixit approach, in which the court, without support from its own analysis of the record, attempts to satisfy the Watson test by transmuting its own determination that the error possibly was prejudicial into a holding that it probably was prejudicial; ...” (P. 691, italics in original, fns. omitted.) In my view, there is much merit in the article’s conclusion that our misapplication of the constitutional mandate results in reversals of *417judgments “despite the harmlessness of the error, shaking public confidence in the system of justice.” (P. 705.)
Because my reading of the record in this case does not persuade me that it is reasonably probable that the trial court’s restriction upon defense counsel’s voir dire examination affected the jury’s verdict or resulted in a miscarriage of justice, I would affirm the judgment of conviction.
Respondent’s petition for a rehearing was denied July 3, 1981. Richardson, J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted.