Court Opinion

ID: 9578052
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:41:02.144853+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:22:28.703994
License: Public Domain

NEWMAN, J.
I concur in the result. Yet once again, I believe, our court may have failed to observe California Rule of Court, rule 29(a), which advises that “hearing in the Supreme Court after decision by a Court of Appeal will be ordered. .. where it appears necessary to secure uniformity of decision or the settlement of important questions of law. . . . ”
As the majority here concede, the principal issue is whether under “familiar rules” there was sufficient corroboration of an accomplice’s testimony. {Ante, p. 26.) To support the contention that a hearing in this court was necessary, petitioner argued as follows:1
*36“1. This is an important prosecution of substantial public interest. It involves the shooting at the Golden Dragon restaurant in San Francisco in the early morning hours of September 4, 1977 in which five people were killed and eleven wounded.
“2. The [Court of Appeal] opinion not only reversed the conviction but precluded the possibility of retrial.
“3. The opinion erroneously invaded the province of the jury by finding, contrary to the verdict of a unanimous jury of twelve impartial men and women, that there was insufficient evidence to corroborate accomplice testimony; this was done despite corroborating evidence showing motive, opportunity, knowledge and other circumstances indicating guilt.
“4. The opinion relied on a ‘fact’ which is not in the record, and which is false, in apparently finding an important item of corroborating evidence to be insignificant. The inhabitants of this state are entitled to have ‘jury’ verdicts, even those made by an appellate court, be based solely on evidence presented in the record, and not on facts the court somehow wills into being.
“5. Even though the [Court of Appeal] opinion is not published, hearing should be granted to deter similar overreaching by intermediate appellate courts in the future.”
I submit that those five claims, even if presumed correct, show a necessity neither to secure “uniformity of decision” nor to settle “important questions of law.” (Cf. my separate opinions in People v. Superior Court (Wells) (1980) 27 Cal.3d 670, 674 [165 Cal.Rptr. 872, 612 P.2d 962], and People v. Brigham (1979) 25 Cal.3d 283, 316 [157 Cal.Rptr. 905, 599 P.2d 100].)

Quoted from page 2 of the petition for hearing filed here on May 30, 1980. (Italics added.)