Court Opinion

ID: 9737441
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:25:10.315305+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:23:58.906290
License: Public Domain

ROTH, P. J.,
Concurring and Dissenting.—I concur with the majority in an affirmance of the judgment as to Counts IV, V, VI and VII.
I dissent from the judgment reversing the conviction of defendants for conspiracy under Count I.
My colleagues reverse the judgment of conviction under Count I on a very narrow point.
Count I of the information did not charge conspiracy to breach the peace. It charged “Conspiracy to commit assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury, assault, battery, and riot . . .” It set forth 13 overt acts.
Nothing in Count I says anything about disturbing the peace per se.
The trial court in its instructions to the jury gave the code definition of riot as follows: “Any use of force or violence, disturbing the public peace, or any threat to use such force or violence, if accompanied by immediate power of execution by two or more persons acting together and without authority of law, is a riot.” (Pen. Code, § 404.) (Italics added.)
The court then followed with the instruction criticized by defendants and found fatally defective in this court by the majority re disturbance of the peace. This instruction merely. *372amplified the instruction on riot. It did not eliminate that portion of the riot instruction which required “force and violence’’ or “threats to use force and violence.” As pointed out hereafter, this instruction did not stand alone. The charge to the jury read as a whole could leave no doubt that physical force or the threat thereof was necessary to convict.
In addition, as pointed out by the majority, the court did refuse to give the defendants’ requested instruction number 11, to the effect that “. . . words of abuse or insult do not justify forceable assault and that one so assaulted may defend himself . . . .”
Criticizing the court’s instruction set out by the majority in respect of disturbance of the peace, defendants, quoting Terminiello, argue, “ 1 [The instruction] permitted conviction of petitioner if his speech stirred people to anger, invited public dispute, or brought about a condition of unrest. A conviction resting on any of these grounds may not stand. ’ ’ ’
In Terminiello, the only charge on which defendant was tried was disturbing the peace. No other instructions given cured the defective instruction.
Construing Terminiello, defendants argue: “In other words, in the case at bar, where emotions admittedly became aroused, it was especially important that the principles of free speech be made crystal clear and the jury have been advised thereof so as to make sure that the defendants, if they were to be convicted, have been convicted only for their illegal acts and hot because their speech aroused antagonism in others who resorted to violence..”
■■ Instruction number 11 which defendants requested, and which was refused by the court, is verbatim as follows:
.“No words of abuse, insult or reproach addressed to a person or persons or uttered concerning him or them, howsoever opprobrious the words may be, if unaccompanied by any threat or apparent threat of great bodily injury or any assault upon the person, will justify the person or persons in an assault by any means of force likely to produce great bodily injury, and a person so assaulted may defend himself against such assault according to the rules governing' self-defense upon which I (have) (will) instruct(ed) you.”
■ • .The majority opinion omits to mention, however, that the court did give at the People’s request, the following instruction (CALJIG 606):
• “No words of abuse, insult or reproach addressed to a person or uttered concerning him, howsoever grievous or opprobrious the words may be, [if unaccompanied by any *373threat of great bodily injury or any assault upon the person or any trespass against lands or goods,] will justify him in an assault with a deadly weapon [or] by any means of force likely to produce great bodily injury, and the provocation only of such words will not constitute a defense to a charge of having committed such an assault.”
Defendants concede that the court properly gave People’s instruction CALJIC 606, but they nevertheless contend that there is a prejudicial variance between the two. They argue that: “The failure to give defendants requested instruction number 11 and the giving of CALJIC 606, resulted in twisting the matter completely about. Rather than there being an instruction telling the jury what the crowd was not permitted to do against defendants if they, the crowd, took umbrage at defendants’ signs, the jury was told what defendants could not do if they, the defendants, took umbrage at what the crowd was saying. And the jury was told, of defendants’ discomfiture with the remarks of the crowd, that ‘the provocation only of such words will not constitute a defense to a charge of having committed such an assault. ’ The only persons before the Court charged with such an offense were the defendants.
“In other words, the giving of the Terminiello type of instruction (allowing conviction of defendants’ signs disturbed the tranquility of the crowd or caused it consternation or alarm) together with the refusal to instruct that the crowd had no right to assault defendants because of their disapproval of the contents of the signs, coupled with the giving of the instruction that defendants had no right to assault the members of the crowd because of defendants’ disapproval of what the crowd said, permitted a conviction of defendants for the exercise of their constitutional right to free speech because others engaged in violence.”
Defendants argue further in respect of the variance “. . . [I] t was absolutely essential, if the defendants were to be given a fair trial and if the right to the exercise of free speech were to have any meaning in it, that the jury be instructed they were not permitted to convict defendants because the crowd’s tranquility was disturbed by defendants’ signs or because the signs caused the crowd consternation or alarm. Not only were the jury not instructed that they could not convict defendants if they thus found, but they were, . . . affirmatively advised that they could convict if the signs did disturb the crowd’s tranquility or caused it consternation or alarm.”
*374The distinction defendants insist upon between requested instruction number 11 (refused) and OALJIC 606 (given), if standing alone maj'- have misled a jury, but when read with other instructions requested by defendants and given by the court, there is no doubt that the jury understood that defendants could not be convicted for peacefully carrying signs, however provocative. In Terminiello and the other eases quoted, there were no such additional instructions.
A reading of the complete charge shows that the jury was instructed on every theory of the defense and emphatically instructed on the point that defendants could not be convicted merely because they carried signs, however explosive and provocative.
The trial court, at defendants’ request, instructed in part as follows:
“Peaceful picketing is recognized as a proper exercise of freedom of speech protected by the Constitution of the State of California and of the United States.”
“The principle of freedom of speech, in and of itself, is not a defense to the commission of the crimes of assault, battery, riot, or a conspiracy to commit any of these crimes. ’ ’
“A picket may be peaceful even though he loiters, walks, stands, or sits upon a public highway, alley, sidewalk, or crosswalk, and thereby constitutes to some extent an obstruction to the free passage of persons or an annoyance to persons who do not approve of his presence. ’ ’
“The fact that to some extent compulsion, coercion, intimidation, or threats are employed in picketing does not detract from-its peaceful nature so long as they constitute only economic, moral, or social pressure and not the pressure of violence.”
- “Resistance sufficient to prevent the offense may be made by a party about to be injured to prevent an illegal attempt by force' to take or injure property in his lawful possession. ’ ’
In addition, the trial court at the request of the prosecution, gave instructions as follows:
“It is lawful for a person who is being assaulted, and who has reasonable ground for believing that bodily injury is about to be inflicted upon him, to stand his ground and defend himself from such attack, and in doing so he may use all force and means which he believes to be reasonably necessary and which would appear to a reasonable person, in the same or similar circumstances, to be necessary to prevent the injury which appears to be imminent.”
*375“A person who has been attacked and who is exercising his right of lawful self-defense is not required to retreat, and he not only may stand his ground and defend himself against the attack but may also pursue his assailant until' he has secured himself from danger if that course appears to him, and would appear to a reasonable person in the same situation, to be reasonably and apparently necessary; and this is his right even though he might more easily have gained safety by-withdrawing from the scene.”
In short, the court in my opinion, 'did not, as defendants contend and the majority state, suggest: “. . . to the jury it could infer a conspiracy to riot from defendants’ display of provocative signs and slogans which might incite others to break the peace. ...”
To the contrary, the jury was told, as- the majority insist it should have been ”... that those picketed had no right to break the peace or resort to violence because of antipathy toward defendants ’ signs, slogans, symbols, and costumes. ...” Nor, in my opinion, do the instructions, when read together as they must be, form any basis for the statement of the majority that ”... the jury was advised that the acts of the defendants which tended to incite others to break the peace could be construed as evidence of their conspiracy to riot.”
There can be no true liberty without free speech. This does not mean that when speech is accompanied, by numerous acts of physical provocation, of which there is abundant evidence which is only sketchily detailed by the majority, that free speech should be permitted to become the refuge of violent scoundrels by reason of a single instruction which is incorrect only when it stands alone.
Assuming, that the failure to give instruction number 11 or that by giving of the instruction on 'disturbance of the peace quoted by the majority, standing alone, is error, the cases are legion to the effect that instructions, even in felony cases, will be read as a whole. (People v. Honeycutt, 29 Cal.2d 52, 62 [172 P.2d 698]; People v. Monteverde, 111 Cal.App.2d 156, 168 [244 P.2d 447]; People v. Hunter, 146 Cal.App.2d 64, 67 [303 P.2d 356].)
Free speech is no more precious than life or the liberty of which it is a manifestation. In Honeycutt, supra, defendant was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to death. The court, speaking of an erroneous instruction, said; “But here, considering all the instructions together, and in the light of the evidence, we cannot say that in this ease the jury *376were misled by the erroneous instructions of which defendant complains. Upon any rational view of the evidence and instructions the verdict cannot reasonably be .deemed to have been the result of a misconception of the law. Under such circumstances a reversal of the judgment is not required." (P. 62.)
Further, it is clear to me from the whole record that if the instruction on breach of the peace had been omitted and instruction number 11 had been given in lieu of or together with CALJIC 606, the result would have been the same. (People v. Watson, 46 Cal.2d 818, 836 [299 P.2d 243]; Fahey v. Connecticut, 375 U.S. 85, 86-87 [84 S.Ct. 229, 11 L.Ed.2d 171]; People v. Cockrell, 63 Cal.2d 659, 669 [47 Cal.Rptr. 788, 408 P.2d 116]; Pen. Code, § 1404.)
There being no prejudice, the judgment of conviction on Count I should be affirmed.
A petition for a rehearing was denied April 28, 1966. Both, P. J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted. Respondent’s petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied June 1, 1966.