Court Opinion

ID: 9606015
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:45:28.898861+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:54:55.779742
License: Public Domain

SPENCE, J.
I dissent.
The sole ground upon which the majority opinion bases the reversal is the failure of the trial court to instruct the jury, upon its own motion, that evidence of the oral admissions of the defendant ought to be viewed with caution.
While it has been held in recent cases that such instruction should be given on proper occasions, this appears to be the first case in which a judgment has been reversed solely because of the trial court’s failure so to instruct. In my opinion, when the sole error consists of the failure to give such instruction, such error alone would seldom, if ever, warrant a reversal for, as has been repeatedly said, the instruction states a mere commonplace or matter of common knowledge which the jury would know without any instruction on the subject. (People v. Wardrip, 141 Cal. 229, 233 [74 P. 744]; Goss v. Steiger Terra Cotta & Pottery Works, 148 Cal. 155,156 [83 P. 681]; People v. Raber, 168 Cal. 316, 320 [143 P. 317]; People v. Koenig, 29 Cal.2d 87, 94 [173 P.2d 1]; People v. Hewitt, 78 Cal.App. 426, 440 [248 P. 1021]; People v. Hansen, 130 Cal.App. 217, 220 [19 P.2d 993]; People v. Burnette, 39 Cal. App.2d 215, 231 [102 P.2d 799]; Freeman v. Nickerson, 77 Cal.App.2d 40, 62 [174 P.2d 688].)
In the present case the “admissions” of defendant constituted a detailed confession of his active participation in the crime for which he was convicted. Defendant took the witness *402stand and denied some, but not all, of the numerous incriminating statements which the officers testified that he had made. His principal claim was that his confession was not voluntarily made, but the jury, under proper instructions relating to confessions, found against defendant upon this claim. I am satisfied, under the circumstances presented by the record before us, that it is highly improbable that the jury would have reached any different conclusion concerning the defendant’s guilt in the event that the omitted instruction had been given; and I therefore believe that the constitutional mandate requires an affirmance. (Const., art. VI, § 4%.) It seems appropriate here to recall that long before the enactment of the constitutional mandate, this court said in People v. Cronin, 34 Cal. 191, at page 204: “If we were to reverse judgments because we find ourselves able, upon full examination and mature reflection, to improve upon what the Court below has said—which, under like circumstances, doubtless, the Court below could itself do—there would be no end to new trials.”
I find no error in the record which would warrant a reversal, and I would therefore affirm the judgment and the order denying the motion for a new trial.
Shenk, J., concurred.