Court Opinion

ID: 9566139
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:34:17.679776+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:14.766690
License: Public Domain

MOSK, J.,
Concurring.—I concur in the judgment. After review, I have found no error warranting reversal.
I write separately to reaffirm the teaching of People v. Deere (1985) 41 Cal.3d 353 [222 Cal.Rptr. 13, 710 P.2d 925] (hereafter sometimes Deere I), and to reject the criticism of that decision in People v. Bloom (1989) 48 Cal.3d 1194 [259 Cal.Rptr. 669, 774 P.2d 698].
In Deere I, we reversed the judgment of death originally entered against defendant on the ground that counsel’s failure to present evidence in mitigation—although in accord with defendant’s request—rendered the penalty determination constitutionally unreliable.
Specifically, Deere I held that counsel’s failure to present evidence in mitigation introduced error into the penalty proceeding.
“To permit a defendant convicted of a potentially capital crime to bar his counsel from introducing mitigating evidence at the penalty phase . . . would . . . prevent this court from discharging its constitutional and statutory duty to review a judgment of death upon the complete record of the case, because a significant portion of the evidence of the appropriateness of the penalty would be missing.
“This deficiency of the record implicates [a] paramount concern of the state: ‘in capital cases . . . the state has a strong interest in reducing the risk of mistaken judgments.’ . . . [T]he United States Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized that the qualitative difference between death and all other penalties demands a correspondingly higher degree of reliability in the determination that death is the appropriate punishment. . . . [T]he high court has insisted that the sentencer must be permitted to consider any aspect of the defendant’s character and record as an independently mitigating factor.
“To allow a capital defendant to prevent the introduction of mitigating evidence on his behalf withholds from the trier of fact potentially crucial information bearing on the penalty decision no less than if the defendant *728was himself prevented from introducing such evidence by statute or judicial ruling. In either case the state’s interest in a reliable penalty determination is defeated.” (People v. Deere, supra, 41 Cal.3d at pp. 363-364, citations omitted.)
Deere I also held that so long as “the record . . . demonstrates ‘the possibility that at least someone might have been called to testify on [the] defendant’s behalf and to urge that his life be spared[]’ ” (41 Cal.3d at p. 367, italics in original), the error cannot be deemed harmless. “When the sentencer in a capital case is deprived of all or a substantial part of the available evidence in mitigation, ‘the potential for prejudice is too obvious to require proof.’ Indeed, ‘short of substituting a verdict of its own, there is no way for a reviewing court to determine what effect unpresented mitigating evidence might have had on the sentencer’s decision.’ We have no doubt that a judgment of death imposed in such circumstances constitutes a miscarriage of justice: not only [would the] defendant not have [had] a fair penalty trial—in effect he [would have] had no penalty trial at all.” (People v. Deere, supra, 41 Cal. 3d at p. 368, citations omitted.)
But in People v. Bloom, supra, 48 Cal.3d 1194, a majority of this court disapproved the analysis of Deere I. They stated that the “reliability [required by the Eighth Amendment in death penalty cases] is attained when the prosecution has discharged its burden of proof at the guilt and penalty phases pursuant to the rules of evidence and within the guidelines of a constitutional death penalty statute, the death verdict has been returned under proper instructions and procedures, and the trier of penalty has duly considered the relevant mitigating evidence, if any, which the defendant has chosen to present.” (People v. Bloom, supra, 48 Cal.3d at p. 1228.)
To my mind, the Bloom assertion is altogether unsound. If in any matter we cannot allow form to prevail over substance, it is in a situation like the present in which a person’s life is at stake.
“Manifestly, the penalty phase of a capital trial in this state is an adversary process. ‘The very premise of our adversary system of criminal justice is that partisan advocacy on both sides of a case will best promote the ultimate objective’ of punishment in accordance with deserts. In other words, ‘The system assumes that adversarial testing will ultimately advance the public interest in truth and fairness.’ It follows that the system requires ‘meaningful adversarial testing.’ When such testing is absent, the process breaks down and hence its result must be deemed unreliable as a matter of law.
“Further, as the United States Supreme Court has repeatedly emphasized, ‘the penalty of death is qualitatively different from a sentence of *729imprisonment, however long. Death, in its finality, differs more from life imprisonment than a 100-year prison term differs from one of only a year or two. Because of that qualitative difference, there is a corresponding difference in the need for reliability in the determination that death is the appropriate punishment in a specific case.’ ” (People v. Bloom, supra, 48 Cal.3d at pp. 1236-1237, citations omitted (cone. & dis. opn. of Mosk, J.).)
Thus, contrary to the Bloom assertion, the reliability required by the Eighth Amendment in death penalty cases can be assured only when the record on which the verdict is based is “complete,” i.e., when it does not lack any “significant portion of the evidence of the appropriateness of the penalty” that counsel reasonably concludes “ ‘. . . makes the most compelling case in mitigation.’ ” (People v. Deere, supra, 41 Cal.3d at pp. 363, 364, fn. 3.)
I turn now to the case at bar. In my view, no Deere error occurred or, if it did, it was effectively cured. To be sure, at defendant’s request counsel again declined to present available evidence in mitigation. By so doing, he violated his obligation to the court and the adversarial process. But this time, the court—wisely not anticipating Bloom—appointed special counsel. That counsel proceeded to introduce mitigating evidence. Indeed, he put on a case for life that, though ultimately unsuccessful, was not insubstantial.
Accordingly, having found no Deere error or any other defect warranting reversal, I concur in the judgment.
Broussard, J., concurred.
Appellant’s petition for a rehearing was denied July 24, 1991.