Court Opinion

ID: 9545207
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:08:21.734661+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:14:19.275770
License: Public Domain

*494RICHARDSON, J.
I respectfully dissent. As I have indicated in my concurring and dissenting opinion in the companion case of People v. Gaston, ante, at page 476 [143 Cal.Rptr. 205, 573 P.2d 423], I believe that the majority has today improperly reduced the showing required of an indigent defendant when requesting augmentation of the record on appeal. I believe that People v. Hill (1967) 67 Cal.2d 105 [60 Cal.Rptr. 234, 429 P.2d 586], and California Rules of Court, rule 12(a), fairly require that a defendant allege with some specificity what he expects to find in the record and why he believes the record will be helpful. In my concurring and dissenting opinion in Gaston, I have explained why the test fashioned by the court is improper. My basic concern is that, under the standard expressed by the majority, augmentation will be routinely granted whenever defendant makes an unsupported, speculative assertion that a particular error might have been committed at trial. The present case aptly illustrates this concern.
In the present case appellant moved to augment the record with a reporter’s transcript of (1) the oral recitation of jury instructions, and (2) closing arguments of counsel. Appellant contends that he needs a transcript of closing arguments to determine whether the prosecutor may have committed misconduct or may have engaged in “improper comment on the instructions or erroneous discussions of the law.” Appellant alleges no facts, however, general or particular, indicating that such prosecutorial misconduct did occur.
Appellant further contends that he needs a transcript of oral jury instructions to determine if there are “discrepancies” between those instructions given by the judge and those agreed to by the parties. In support of this assertion, appellant observes that there were such discrepancies between certain jury instructions orally delivered before trial and the corresponding written instructions. However, appellant does not contend that the discrepancies in the preliminary instructions were prejudicial or even substantial, and a review of the record indicates that they were not. These insignificant alterations in the wording of preliminary jury instructions do not in themselves constitute error and they are not reasonably probative of probable error in the final jury instructions.
It is manifest that appellant has not established a colorable need for a complete trial transcript. Appellant has offered no substantial reason to believe that a trial transcript is necessary. Appellant has failed to specify any facts or reasons which suggest that there is a substantial possibility that error occurred either during the reading of jury instructions or the *495presentation of final argument. He has offered little more than mere speculation that error might have occurred.
I believe that if mere speculation is deemed sufficient to constitute an adequate showing for augmentation of the record, such augmentation will become virtually automatic, in violation of the clear intent of California Rules of Court, rule 12(a), and of our holding in People v. Hill, supra.
Clark, J., concurred.