Court Opinion

ID: 9729698
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:46:46.395013+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:00.589787
License: Public Domain

SPARKS, J.
I dissent.
Penal Code section 132 declares that “[e]very person who upon any trial, proceeding, inquiry, or investigation whatever, authorized or permitted by law, offers in evidence, as genuine or true, any book, paper, document, record, or other instrument in writing, knowing the same to have been forged or fraudulently altered or antedated, is guilty of felony.” For the first time in its 117-year history, the majority today holds that the mere delivery of documents to a state functionary conducting a preliminary investigation and to an attorney seeking discovery to enforce a civil judgment constitutes an “offer[ ] in evidence” within the meaning of this section. This astonishing holding mistakenly converts technical terms into ordinary and different ones and thereby unjustifiably and exponentially expands a narrow criminal statute into a penal dragnet. This construction of the statute under the facts of this case also flies in the face of settled principles of Fifth Amendment jurisprudence.
*1070Under this misreading of the statute, it would, for example, be a felony to give a building inspector conducting an authorized investigation into a housing code violation a known fraudulently back-dated invoice. But the physical delivery of a forged document to an investigating official does not constitute an offer in evidence. In my view, “offers in evidence” means to submit a document to a judge or other hearing officer for formal admission into the official record of some evidentiary trial, proceeding, inquiry or investigation. So construed, defendant did not offer the forged documents in evidence and consequently did not violate Penal Code section 132. (All further statutory references are to the Penal Code unless otherwise noted.) I would therefore affirm the dismissal of the counts charging a violation of this section.
As the majority notes, two counts of the indictment charged violations of section 132. The first count related to an investigation conducted by the Fair Political Practices Commission. The Executive Director of the Fair Political Practices Commission (Commission) issued a subpoena duces tecum on February 3, 1984. It was captioned “In the matter of William M Bryan” and jointly directed defendant Frank A. Pereira and “Pereira-Stathos, Inc.” to bring “the originals or true, complete, and legible copies” of various documents and produce them at the Sacramento office of the Commission on February 27, 1984. Among the documents subpoenaed were “[a]ll records or writings of any type relating to a loan of $200,000 made to William M Bryan (Bryan) and/or Joann P. Bryan on or about September 11, 1981.” In particular, the subpoena directed the production of “[a]ll loan or credit applications or financial statements provided by Bryan.” As a staff attorney for the Commission later testified before the Sacramento County Grand Jury, “[bjasically, we were looking for what information Pereira-Stathos and Frank Pereira had in their possession regarding all loans that they might have made to Mr. Bryan, including the $200,000 loan made in September of ’81.”
The documents in question are the corporate loan papers and for reasons not explained in the record the documents were not produced before the Commission on February 3, 1984. Instead, they were physically delivered on March 19, 1984, by defendant and his counsel to Judith Sproul Davis, an attorney with the enforcement division of the Commission, at her office in Sacramento. No official hearing was being conducted by the Commission at that time and the records were neither offered nor accepted in evidence by anyone.1 Evidence later adduced before the grand jury established that the *1071loan application documents delivered by defendant had been altered. The delivery of these documents to Mrs. Davis led to the first count of offering forged documents in evidence.
The second count of violation of section 132 involved “civil discovery in the case of Whitworth Estates Corporation v. Hawaii Properties Listed, Sacramento Superior Court Number 301030.” The evidence before the grand jury established that Attorney Michael Hackard represented the plaintiff, Whitworth Estate Corporation. In an effort to collect a judgment against the defendant, Hawaii Properties Listed, a company affiliated with Supervisor Bryan, Mr. Hackard served a subpoena duces tecum on Pereira-Stathos, Inc. The subpoena sought corporate documents relating to deeds of trust in favor of Pereira-Stathos, Inc. on property owned by Bryan. An attorney representing Pereira-Stathos, Inc. telephoned Hackard in response to the subpoena and agreed to provide informal discovery, meaning that he would provide the documents sought by the subpoena. The documents in question were mailed to Hackard by the attorney. This series of events led to the second count of violating section 132.2
The trial court, correctly in my view, granted defendant’s motion to dismiss the section 132 counts on the utterly sensible ground that defendant “cannot be said to have offered anything in evidence, even in the less formal investigative or investigatory proceeding. . . . [fl] . . . The defendant did produce the documents. But to stretch that act into an offer of evidence in my judgment would be to go beyond a reasonable interpretation of Section 132.”
Without accounting for the words of the statute, the majority reads the statute broadly to cover informal settings such as conferences in an official’s office and mail deliveries to an attorney’s office where, one may suppose, documents are never technically offered in evidence. But as we shall see, neither the history of the statute nor the rules of statutory construction justify the majority’s bizarre construction of the phrase “offers in evidence” to mean any delivery of documents to an official or other person conducting an authorized investigation.
1 begin with the legislative and judicial history of the statute. Section 132 was enacted as part of the original Penal Code of 1872. It was part of a *1072chapter dealing with “Falsifying Evidence.” (Ch. 6 of pt. I, tit. 7, enacted 1872.) “This chapter,” the code commissioners noted, “is founded upon § 3 of the act of April 27, 1863 (Stats 1863 p. 645) and §§84 and 86 of the Crimes and Punishment Act, as amended by the act cited. The language adopted is that of the New York Penal Code, §§ 165 to 170, inclusive.” (See Deering’s Ann. Pen. Code (1985 ed.) § 132 et seq., p. 223; see also People v. Newton (1963) 222 Cal.App.2d 187, 189-190 [34 Cal.Rptr. 888].) The several statutes in this chapter created crimes for “acts interfering with the administration of justice.” {Id., at p. 189.) Like the New York model, section 132 dealt with “Offering false evidence” and condemned every person who knowingly “offers in evidence, as genuine and true” any forged document in “any trial, proceeding, inquiry, or investigation whatever, authorized or permitted by law.” (§ 132, enacted 1872.) Section 133 dealt with “Deceiving a witness” and provided that every person who “makes or exhibits” any false statement to a witness with intent to affect his testimony in “any trial, proceeding, inquiry, or investigation whatever, authorized by law” was guilty of a misdemeanor. (§ 133, enacted 1872.) Section 134 covered “Preparing false evidence” and denounced the preparation of any false document “with intent to produce it, or allow it to be produced” as genuine or true for any false or deceitful purpose in “any trial, proceeding, or inquiry whatever, authorized by law.” (§ 134, enacted 1872.) Section 135 covered “Destroying evidence” and prohibited any person from destroying or concealing any document or thing knowing it “is about to be produced in evidence upon any trial, inquiry, or investigation whatever, authorized by law.” (§ 135, enacted 1872.) Section 136 dealt with “Preventing or dissuading witness from attending” and punished every person who willfully “prevents or dissuades” any witness from attending “any trial, proceeding, or inquiry, authorized by law.” (§ 136, enacted 1872.) Section 137 dealt with “Bribing witnesses” and declared every person guilty who “gives or offers, or promises to give” any bribe to a witness to influence him or otherwise fraudulently induces him to give false or withhold true testimony. (§ 137, enacted 1872.) Finally, section 138 covered “Taking or offering to take bribes” and declared that every witness who “receives or offers to receive” any bribe to influence his testimony or to absent himself from the “trial or other judicial proceeding” was guilty of a felony. (§ 138, enacted 1872.)
As the Court of Appeal noted in People v. Newton, supra, 222 Cal.App.2d 187, “all of the contemporaneous code sections [in this chapter] use broad language, such as ‘trial, proceeding, inquiry, or investigation whatever, authorized by law’ or ‘trial or proceeding,’ and so by their language specifically apply to proceedings other than trials as well as to trials.” (Id., at p. 190; see also People v. Fields (1980) 105 Cal.App.3d 341, 345-346 [164 Cal.Rptr. 336].) Thus in a case involving section 135, the appellate court held that a grievance committee hearing at a state university authorized by *1073the Education Code came within the statutory terms of “any trial, proceeding, or inquiry whatever, authorized by law.” (People v. Clark (1977) 72 Cal.App.3d 80, 83-84 [139 Cal.Rptr. 817].) “The Legislature in addition to providing that this section apply to full-scale trials, provides a penalty for falsely produced material at other proceedings or inquiries ‘authorized by law,’ which plainly need not be full-scale trials. The instant grievance board hearing is both a proceeding authorized by law, Education Code section 24315, and an inquiry pursuant to that code section.” {Ibid.)
Section 132 itself has not been the subject of extensive judicial interpretation. It was first construed in People v. Wignall (1932) 125 Cal.App. 465 [13 P.2d 995]. There defendant was convicted of the several offenses, including the crime of offering a forged will in evidence in a probate proceeding. The Court of Appeal reversed the offering in evidence conviction for lack of evidence. “There is no evidence in the record sustaining his conviction on the third count wherein he is charged with offering the forged will in evidence in the probate proceeding. This is not mentioned in the testimony of any witness and is not covered by any admission or stipulation of counsel. A copy of the forged will is before us. It contains no indorsement which would even tend to indicate that it had ever been introduced in evidence in any probate proceeding. Its only indorsement is ‘Filed Feb. 16, 1931 Harry L. Allison Clerk By M. L. Aldridge, Deputy.’ This is the date it was filed with the petition for its probate. This date is material under the second charge of filing [a false document with the county clerk], but not under the third, of offering it in evidence.” {Id., at p.475.)
The statute was next considered in the People v. Hooper (1935) 10 Cal.App.2d 332 [51 P.2d 1131]. There defendant was sued by his landlord in the municipal court for back rent. At the trial defendant produced a rent check with a forged endorsement stating, “All previous rent paid.” {Id., at p. 334.) On appeal from a conviction for violation of section 132, defendant argued that the check in question had never been “offered in evidence” and consequently his conviction was not supported by the evidence. Rejecting that argument, the court affirmed the conviction. “It is true,” the court noted, “that the record does not disclose that the check was ever marked as an exhibit in the civil case, and the court reporter at that trial could not discover from his notes that it was ever formally introduced in evidence. But the check was produced in the municipal court by appellant’s attorney, appellant there testified as to the check and the disputed endorsement, it was marked for identification, was examined by the court and was the subject of expert testimony and legal argument. We are of the opinion that such use of the document constitutes an offering in evidence within the meaning of the section.” (10 Cal.App.2d at pp. 334-335.)
*1074The appellate court next passed on section 132 in People v. Horowitz (1945) 70 Cal.App.2d 675 [161 P.2d 833]. In that case defendant forged a will, caused it to be filed for probate and offered it in evidence during a will contest proceeding. The reviewing court summarily ruled that defendant had properly been convicted of offering the forged will in evidence in violation of section 132. “He offered it for probate. He defended a contest filed by [decedent’s husband]. He knowingly offered the forged instrument in evidence, the crime denounced by section 132.” {Id., at p. 688.) In a later habeas corpus proceeding, the California Supreme Court similarly concluded that the evidence sufficiently showed “petitioner violated section 132 of the Penal Code by offering the forged will in evidence in the probate proceeding.” (In re Horowitz (1949) 33 Cal.2d 534, 544 [203 P.2d 513].) Substantially the same issue arose in People v. Geibel (1949) 93 Cal.App.2d 147 [208 P.2d 743]. There defendant was convicted of violation of 132 by offering a forged will in probate. On appeal defendant argued that offering a false will for probate did not violate section 132. He rhetorically asked in his brief on appeal: “At a hearing where a will is presented for probate, is it offered in evidence or is it just offered for probate?” {Id., at p. 169.) Citing Hooper, the court had no difficulty in concluding the forged will had been offered in evidence. “In the instant case there is evidence that the will was offered for probate by appellant or at his behest, and at the hearing on the petition for admission to probate of the will, appellant appeared not only as one of the attorneys for the petitioner, but there testified as to the execution of the will and the genuineness of the disputed signature of the testator. The document was examined by the court, and was the subject of expert testimony and legal argument. We are persuaded that such use of the instrument constitutes an offering in evidence within the meaning of the code section . . . .” {Id., at pp. 169-170, citation omitted.)
The only lessons to be learned from this legislative and judicial history are that section 132 applies to proceedings other than trials, that the filing of a forged document with a public official does not constitute an offer in evidence, and that a forged document presented at a hearing need not be marked as an exhibit or formally admitted into evidence in order to constitute an offer in evidence. But nothing in this history suggests that the phrase “offers in evidence” somehow means delivery to the custody of an investigating official.
Nor do the rules of statutory construction aid the majority’s construction. Section 7, subdivision 16 directs that “[w]ords and phrases must be construed according to the context and approved usage of the language; but technical words and phrases, and such others as may have acquired a peculiar and appropriate meaning in law, must be construed according to such peculiar and appropriate meaning.” An offer in evidence is both a *1075technical phrase and one which has well known meaning in the law. In the context of legal proceedings, “to ‘offer’ evidence is to state its nature and purport, or to recite what is expected to be proved by a given witness or document, and demand its admission.” (Black’s Law Diet. (5th ed. 1979) p. 975, col. 2.) Thus offered evidence means ”[e]vidence presented by a party on the trial of an action.” (Ballentine’s Law Diet. (3d ed. 1969) p. 881, col. 1.) Consequently, the phrase “offered in evidence” infers an evidentiary use of the material as opposed to its mere production. (United States v. Bennethum (D.Del. 1957) 21 F.R.D. 227, 231.) As Wigmore explained, an offer of evidence is “ordinarily made by the counsel’s oral calling of a witness or a presentation of a document or by the counsel’s oral statement of a question to a witness.” (1 Wigmore, Evidence (Tillers rev. 1983) § 17, pp. 758-759, fn. omitted.) Its primary mission “is to inform the parties at trial and the trial court of the nature of the evidence that the proponent plans to introduce, so that opposing parties may lodge an objection and the trial court may make an informed ruling on any objection made.” (1 Wigmore, supra, at p. 758, fn. 3.) Such an offer plays the same role in any other evidentiary hearing arising in the course of any proceeding, inquiry or investigation.
By its terms, section 132 is not limited to trials; it applies to any “proceeding, inquiry, or investigation whatever.” The statute nonetheless contemplates that whatever the nature of the investigation or inquiry it be sufficiently formal to permit the introduction of evidence. “Each of these statutes [§§ 132, 133, 134, 136, 137, and 138] reflects the legislative purpose of protecting the integrity of evidence in pending formal proceedings.” (People v. Fields, supra, 105 Cal.App.3d at p. 345, fn. 3, italics added.) Thus, for example, section 132 would apply to forged evidence offered in evidence during a hearing in the course of a grand jury investigation (§§ 914.1, 915, 920) or in the course of a coroner’s inquiry. (Gov. Code, § 27491.6 et seq.) And, of course, it would apply to evidence offered at a hearing conducted by the Fair Political Practices Commission. (Gov. Code, § 83116.) On the other hand, it would not apply when no evidentiary hearing is in progress. Thus, section 132 would not apply when a forged document is given to a police officer conducting a routine criminal investigation.
The phrase “offers in evidence” presupposes the existence of some forum in which the proffered evidence may be received. It means to submit a document for introduction into the official record of some formal, pending proceeding, inquiry or investigation of any kind which is authorized or permitted by law. The phrase is inextricably linked with the concept of admissibility. To admit a document offered in evidence means that the presiding officer formally accepted it and made the document a part of the official record. But one cannot offer a document in evidence when no hearing is being conducted. One can produce it, deliver it, mail it or otherwise *1076transmit it to an investigating agency or officer without a hearing but one cannot offer it in evidence when no evidentiary hearing is under way. Just as an offer without an acceptance is not a contract, the tender of a document without a hearing is not an offer in evidence.
The majority’s construction of the statute as applying to all deliveries of forged documents during an investigation is also inconsistent with the evil sought to be suppressed by the Legislature. The gravamen of the crime of offering false evidence is the representation that the document is “genuine or true” when the proponent knows “the same to have been forged or fraudulently altered or antedated.” (§ 132.) That representation inevitably occurs when the defendant knowingly offers the forged document in evidence by presenting it for use during the hearing. In contrast, the mere delivery of a document to an investigating official, unlike an offer in evidence, says nothing about its genuineness. Moreover, the implicit restriction of the offense to evidentiary hearings ensures that the forged document has some relevance to the proceeding and is meant to influence its outcome. Under the majority’s construction, any known forged document delivered to some investigating official trolling on a fishing expedition would violate the statute, even if it had no conceivable relevance to the authorized investigation. Without the moorings of an actual evidentiary hearing, the statute would drift away from its intended purpose of prohibiting the falsification of evidence.
There are even more compelling constitutional reasons why the majority’s construction of the statute ought to be rejected—reasons anchored in the dilemma of imprisonment or coerced self-incrimination. The defendant in this case was compelled to produce the forged corporate documents under compulsion of subpoenas. The first horn of the dilemma is that the willful failure to comply with the subpoena would subject the recalcitrant custodian to contempt and imprisonment. (Gov. Code, § 83118; Code Civ. Proc., § 1991; §§ 166, subd. 4, 1331.) On the other horn, the custodian of subpoenaed corporate records may not refuse to produce them on the ground they might incriminate him. (Brashwell v. United States (1988) 487 U.S. 99 [101 L.Ed.2d 98, 108 S.Ct. 2284].) Under the doctrine known as “the collective entity rule,” the high court recently reiterated, “for purposes of the Fifth Amendment, corporations and other collective entities are treated differently from individuals.” (Id., at p. 104 [101 L.Ed.2d at p. 106].) Consequently, a “corporate custodian . . . may not resist a subpoena for corporate records on Fifth Amendment grounds.” (Id., at p. 109 [101 L.Ed.2d at p. 108].) Given the Hobson’s choice imposed by the majority, the custodian may either refuse to comply with the subpoena and face imprisonment for contempt or comply and thereby commit the crime of offering forged evidence in violation of section 132. Either way the hapless *1077custodian in defendant’s shoes faces imprisonment. This “jailed if you do and jailed if you don’t” construction of the statute is repugnant to elementary notions of due process. To circumvent this predicament the Attorney General suggests that the custodian could, at the time of delivering the forged corporate documents, truthfully declare that they are forged. But this is no answer to the constitutional dilemma. This suggested variation on the theme would simply be another form of coerced self-incrimination; the custodian could avert committing one crime only by incriminating himself in another.
In a footnote, the majority sweeps away these constitutional concerns on the procedural ground that defendant waived any self-incrimination claim by not objecting. This misses the point of my objection to the majority’s construction of the statute. Such a quibble adds nothing to the constitutional dialogue for it is meaningless to say that the subpoenaed custodian should have lodged a frivolous self-incrimination objection. Under the definitive interpretation of the right against self-incrimination by the United States Supreme Court, the custodian of corporate records simply has no Fifth Amendment right to refuse to produce the records. (Brashwell v. United States, supra, 487 U.S. at p. 105 [101 L.Ed.2d at p. 106].) Thus, the dilemma remains the same whether or not the custodian tenders an untenable Fifth Amendment objection. The central point of my objection is that we should not construe a criminal statute in such a way that it subjects the actor to criminal sanctions no matter what he does.
There remains a final constitutional impediment, indeed the coup de grace, to the majority’s position. Its interpretation of the statute under the facts of this case is wholly inconsistent with the construction required by settled Fifth Amendment principles. “From Wilson [v. United States (1911) 221 U.S. 361] forward, the Court has consistently recognized that the custodian of corporate or entity records holds those documents in a representative rather than a personal capacity. Artificial entities such as corporations may act only through their agents, and a custodian’s assumption of his representative capacity leads to certain obligations, including the duty to produce corporate records on proper demand by the Government. Under those circumstances, the custodian’s act of production is not deemed a personal act, but rather an act of the corporation. Any claim of Fifth Amendment privilege asserted by the agent would be tantamount to a claim of privilege by the corporation—which of course possesses no such privilege.” (Brashwell, supra, 487 U.S. at p. 110 [101 L.Ed.2d at p. 109], citation omitted.) It follows from this overriding Fifth Amendment doctrine that if anyone committed a violation of section 132 it was the corporation, Pereira-Stathos, Inc., and not its individual agent, defendant Frank A. Pereira. Thus, as a matter of constitutional law, defendant did not offer anything; *1078the corporation merely produced the records as commanded. The imposition of criminal liability upon the corporation’s agent under the circumstances of this case irreconcilably conflicts with settled Fifth Amendment jurisprudence.
Quite apart from these constitutional constraints, the majority’s construction of the statute, given the long established meaning of an offer in evidence as a tender for admission in an evidentiary hearing, violates the statutory command to construe words according to their “peculiar and appropriate meaning.” (§ 7, subd. 16.) And this is just the first of several misapplications of the rules of statutory construction of criminal statutes.
It is also a well recognized rule of statutory construction that when different terms are used in related statutes it is presumed that different meanings were intended by the Legislature. (See e.g., Las Virgenes Mun. Wat. Dist. v. Dorgelo (1984) 154 Cal.App.3d 481, 486 [201 Cal.Rptr. 266].) As defense counsel correctly notes, to adopt the majority’s construction of the statute “is to read the precise legal term ‘offers in evidence’ out of the statute and to interpret that language as synonymous with ‘production.’ ” Neither the majority nor the Attorney General has explained why the Legislature would have used the technical phrase “offers in evidence” if it had just meant “produces.” If the Legislature had intended the statute to cover the mere production of false documents it would have used that term, as it did in the crime of preparing false documents to be “produced” at a trial, proceeding or inquiry. (§ 134.)
Finally, and most critically, the majority’s construction violates a fundamental rule of statutory construction of penal statutes. Although I think it clear that a mere delivery of documents is not an offer in evidence, at worst the statute is ambiguous. Thus, even if we were to assume that the reading urged by the Attorney General and adopted by the majority was grammatically possible, long settled principles would nevertheless compel a reading in the manner most favorable to the defendant. “ ‘[W]hen language which is reasonably susceptible of two constructions is used in a penal law ordinarily that construction which is most favorable to the offender will be adopted. [ÍI] The defendant is entitled to the benefit of every reasonable doubt, whether it arise out of a question of fact, or as to the true interpretation of words or the construction of language used in a statute.’ ” (People v. Davis (1981) 29 Cal.3d 814, 828 [176 Cal.Rptr. 521, 633 P.2d 186], citation omitted.) It is true that this “canon entitles the defendant only to the benefit of every realistic doubt.” (People v. Anderson (1987) 43 Cal.3d 1104, 1145 [240 Cal.Rptr. 585, 742 P.2d 1306], italics in original.) But if ever a doubt can be said to be real, this is it. This defendant, like any other accused person, is *1079entitled to the most favorable construction of the statute. For all these reasons, I would affirm the order of dismissal.
A petition for a reharing was denied March 3, 1989, and respondent’s petition for review by the Supreme Court was denied May 17, 1989.

The Commission is empowered to “investigate possible violations” of the Political Reform Act of 1974. (Gov. Code, § 83115.) If it determines that there is probable cause for believing the act has been violated, “it may hold a hearing to determine if such a violation has occurred.” (Gov. Code, § 83116.) The hearing must be conducted in accordance with the *1071Administrative Procedure Act. (Ibid.) No such hearing was underway when the documents in question in this case were delivered to staff counsel.

 Since no evidence was adduced before the grand jury that defendant either mailed the forged documents, or caused them to be mailed, to Attorney Hackard, it is difficult to understand how the majority can conclude, even given its construction of the statute, that there was reasonable or probable cause to believe that defendant offered forged documents in evidence as alleged in the civil discovery count.