Court Opinion

ID: 9796886
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 04:07:36.917553+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:51:11.961665
License: Public Domain

MORENO, J., Concurring and dissenting.
I concur in the majority’s conclusion that “the close family relationship between longtime employees of the LACDA [Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office] and defendant [Andrew] Vasquez created a conflict of interest and a consequential likelihood of unfair treatment that should have been avoided through recusal of the prosecutorial office.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 55.) I also agree with the majority that not every violation of Penal Code section 1424 (section 1424) necessarily violates due process guarantees. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 59.) I dissent, however, from the majority’s further conclusion that the denial of defendants’ recusal motions in this case did not constitute a due process violation. (Id. at p. 58.)
The pattern of conduct by the prosecutor in this case established that Vasquez was treated differently and less favorably than another defendant in his position would have been who did not have Vasquez’s family connection to the LACDA. This disparate treatment of Vasquez violated the duty imposed on prosecutorial offices to exercise their discretion in an impartial and evenhanded manner “bom of objective and impartial consideration of each individual case.” (People v. Superior Court (Greer) (1977) 19 Cal.3d 255, 267 [137 Cal.Rptr. 476, 561 P.2d 1164].) As we stated in Greer, “[individual instances of unfairness, although they may not separately achieve constitutional dimension, might well cumulate and render the entire proceeding constitutionally invalid.” (Id. at p. 265.) That point was reached by the time of the second motion to recuse because by then there was demonstrable evidence that the prosecutor’s discretionary decisions were being driven by the LACDA’s concern that it not be perceived as showing any favoritism to Vasquez due to his family connection to the office. Because “we do not know and cannot now ascertain what would have happened if the prosecuting attorney had been free to exercise the fair discretion which he owed to all persons charged with crime in his court” (Ganger v. Peyton (4th Cir. 1967) 379 F.2d 709, 714), I am unable to conclude that the constitutional violation was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. (Ibid., citing Chapman v. *73California (1967) 386 U.S. 18 [17 L.Ed.2d 705, 87 S.Ct. 824].) Accordingly, I would reverse defendants’ convictions.1
I emphasize at the outset that my conclusion arises from the specific facts of this case viewed in their totality. I do not intend to suggest that a prosecutor’s office should be recused in every case in which either a defendant or a victim of crime has some family connection to that office. Moreover, even in this case, recusal would not have been necessary had there not been a pattern of unfair treatment of Vasquez both on the record and reasonably inferable from the record. My opinion should be read with those caveats in mind.
I begin with the applicable law. Classically, the concept of due process does not describe discrete events in a prosecution but describes the entire unfolding procedure. (People v. Lyons (1956) 47 Cal.2d 311, 319 [303 P.2d 329] [“It is axiomatic that when an accused is denied that fair and impartial trial guaranteed by law, such procedure amounts to a denial of due process”].) The seminal case regarding prosecutorial conflicts makes it clear that prosecution of a defendant by a conflicted prosecutor implicates the due process right to a trial that is “fair and impartial” at every stage of the proceeding. (People v. Superior Court (Greer), supra, 19 Cal.3d at p. 266.) As Greer also makes clear, “It is the obligation of the prosecutor, as well as of the court, to respect this [due process] mandate.” (Ibid.)
The prosecutor has a special duty of impartiality that flows from his or her function as “ ‘the representative ... of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done.’ ” (People v. Superior Court (Greer), supra, 19 Cal.3d at p. 266.) Moreover, the prosecutor’s role as representative of the People necessarily includes “ ‘the defendant and his family and those who care about him. It also includes the vast majority of citizens who know nothing about a particular case, but who give over to the prosecutor the authority to seek a just result in their name.’ (Corrigan, On Prosecutorial Ethics (1986) 13 Hastings Const.L.Q. 537, 538-539.)” (People v. Eubanks (1996) 14 Cal.4th 580, 589-590 [59 Cal.Rptr.2d 200, 927 P.2d 310], italics added.)
The obligation of a prosecutor to observe the mandate of due process is particularly crucial in light of the prosecutor’s broad discretionary powers *74during the course of a criminal prosecution. “[I]t is precisely because the prosecutor enjoys such broad discretion that the public he serves and those he accuses may justifiably demand that he perform his functions with the highest degree of integrity and impartiality . . . .” (People v. Superior Court (Greer), supra, 19 Cal.3d at pp. 266-267; see People v. Eubanks, supra, 14 Cal.4th at p. 590 [“Thus the district attorney is expected to exercise his or her discretionary functions in the interests of the People at large, and not under the influence or control of an interested individual”].) To fulfill this due process obligation, the prosecutor’s exercise of discretion must be “bom of objective and impartial consideration of each individual case.” (People v. Superior Court (Greer), supra, 19 Cal.3d at p. 267.)2
Applying these principles to the instant case, the record shows that certain discretionary decisions made by the prosecutor were not “bom of objective and impartial consideration” of the circumstances of this case but affected by LACDA’s interest in avoiding allegations by the victim’s family or the general public that favoritism had been shown to the child of longtime employees of the office. Furthermore, I submit that this conflict was not personal to the prosecutor who handled defendant’s case but was an institutional conflict involving the entire LACDA. The clearest evidence that this conflict was institutional, and that it was recognized as such by the LACDA itself, can be inferred from the fact that the Los Angeles District Attorney tendered the prosecution to the Attorney General long before defendants’ motions to recuse the office.3 Given that the head of the office recognized the existence of a potentially disabling conflict, it is not plausible that the various discretionary decisions made by the individual prosecutor in this case did not reflect an institutional interest in avoiding any showing of favoritism toward Vasquez.
With respect to those discretionary decisions, I find compelling evidence of the disparate and unfair treatment of Vasquez in the prosecutor’s refusal to *75waive jury trial. The majority and I are in agreement that, based on the prosecutor’s own statements, this decision was influenced by the prosecutor’s concern “about an appearance to the victim’s family of favoritism by the LACDA’s office” toward the child of longtime employees. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 55.)
In light of this admission, I also find suspect the prosecutor’s decision to refuse defendants’ offer to plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter. The majority argues that the prosecutor’s refusal was justified by the vote of the first jury that showed at least eight jurors had voted either for first or second degree murder—three voted for voluntary manslaughter and one to acquit— and because the evidence was susceptible to an assessment that Vasquez committed murder. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 58, fin. 3.) I disagree.
The prosecutor’s earlier refusal to accept a court trial in order to avoid the appearance of favoritism leads to the conclusion that a similarly improper motive likely led her to reject defendants’ offers to plead to voluntary manslaughter. Under the circumstances, a prosecutor who was not hindered by a conflict of interest would have seriously considered, and likely accepted, defendants’ offer. The first trial had left fully one-third of the jury unconvinced that a murder had occurred. A prosecutor looking at this result, knowing that his or her evidence was likely to be weakened by the passage of time and the availability of a transcript with which to impeach prosecution witnesses, might well have accepted a plea to a lesser charge.
Finally, as the Court of Appeal observed, the evidence in this case could also have supported a finding that Vasquez did not intend to kill the victim. “Vasquez had no prior criminal record. The evidence of Vasquez’s intent was arguably ambiguous. The evidence showed the P.A.L. and C.N.E. tagging crews were rivals but that their usual mode of confrontations was fistfights. The tagging crews had no history of using deadly weapons, or any weapons for that matter, beyond mace or pepper spray. The jury at the first trial obviously could not agree on the crime committed. It is possible that several of these jurors believed Vasquez and Fregoso merely intended to assault and scare the victim rather than kill him.”
In light of these circumstances, I cannot agree with the majority that the prosecutor’s categorical rejection of defendants’ offer to plead to voluntary manslaughter was not influenced by the conflict that the prosecutor admitted had influenced her decision not to waive jury. In my view, that conflict appears to have permeated the prosecutor’s treatment of defendant.
*76In short, “[g]iven the entire complex of facts in this case,” I conclude that defendants did not “receive fair and impartial treatment” (Hambarian v. Superior Court (2002) 27 Cal.4th 826, 852 [118 Cal.Rptr.2d 725, 44 P.3d 102] (dis. opn. of Moreno, J.)), resulting in a violation of their due process rights. (Cf. People v. Eubanks, supra, 14 Cal.4th at p. 599 [“the trial court must consider the entire complex of facts ... to determine whether the conflict makes fair and impartial treatment of the defendant unlikely”].) A prosecutor, straining to avoid showing any favoritism toward the child of career employees of her office, made at least two documented discretionary decisions that were not reached in a fair and impartial manner. These decisions must be viewed in light of the recognition by the Los Angeles District Attorney that this case represented a potentially disabling conflict as evidenced by his unsuccessful tender of the case to the Attorney General. Thus, the individual prosecutor’s discretion in this case was guided by institutional concerns about showing favoritism to Vasquez rather than concerns personal to her. Accordingly, I would reverse defendants’ convictions.
George, C. J., concurred.
Appellants’ petition for a rehearing was denied August 16, 2006. Moreno, J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted.

 Although the basis of the conflict in this case involved the employment of Vasquez’s parents by the LACDA, as codefendant Anthony Fregoso observes he and Vasquez were tried together—before the second trial Fregoso moved unsuccessfully to sever his trial from Vasquez’s—and thus Fregoso’s “fate was dependent upon the prosecutor’s treatment of [Vasquez] with regard to every discretionary decision.”

I do not believe that what the majority describes as the “somewhat narrower standard the Legislature created in section 1424” (maj. opn., ante, at p. 59), diminishes the prosecutor’s responsibilities in this respect. To the contrary, the two-part test established by section 1424 for recusal seems to echo these due process concerns. Under the statute, “a ‘conflict,’ within the meaning of section 1424, exists whenever the circumstances of a case evidence a reasonable possibility that the DA’s office may not exercise its discretionary function in an evenhanded manner” and recusal is required when the conflict is “so grave as to render it unlikely that defendant will receive fair treatment during all portions of the criminal proceedings.” (People v. Conner (1983) 34 Cal.3d 141, 148 [193 Cal.Rptr. 148, 666 P.2d 5], italics added.)

 As I emphasized at the outset, in examining whether the conflict in this case violated defendants’ due process rights, I am focused only on the particular constellation of facts presented here. I do not intend to suggest that every case in which a district attorney unsuccessfully tenders prosecution of a case to the Attorney General will necessarily constitute evidence of the existence of a disabling conflict. The subsequent conduct by the district attorney’s office may demonstrate that any conflict was successfully negotiated.