Court Opinion

ID: 9794423
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:05:29.242764+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:13:09.712855
License: Public Domain

*84MOSK, J.
I dissent.
Ex proprio motu, I would raise—and resolve in the affirmative—the question whether Roger James Agajanian, who served as counsel in the trial court, provided defendant with ineffective assistance in violation of his rights under the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution and article I, section 15, of the California Constitution.1
Agajanian’s deficiencies as trial counsel were pervasive and serious. The point is established by the record. It is confirmed by the majority opinion’s practically countless references to waiver. Examples of Agajanian’s failings are hard to select, each competing with the rest for egregiousness. By way of illustration only, I note the following. At the guilt phase, Agajanian relied on the defense of diminished capacity. Much to the surprise he expressed at trial, this defense had previously been abolished and rendered a nullity for all relevant purposes. At the penalty phase, Agajanian presented a summation asking the jury to spare defendant’s life. The argument he made in support was worthless. The majority is generous in describing the remarks as “a rambling discourse, not tied to particular evidence.” (Maj. opn„ ante, at p. 82, fn. 45.)2
Agajanian’s deficiencies at trial compel this conclusion: his failings resulted in a breakdown of the adversarial process at trial; that breakdown establishes a violation of defendant’s federal and state constitutional right to the effective assistance of counsel; and that violation mandates reversal of the judgment even in the absence of a showing of specific prejudice. (See United States v. Cronic (1984) 466 U.S. 648, 653-662 [80 L.Ed.2d 657, 664-670, 104 S.Ct. 2039] [speaking of the federal constitutional guaranty only]; People v. Ledesma (1987) 43 Cal.3d 171, 242-245 [233 Cal.Rptr. 404, 729 P.2d 839] (conc. opn. of Grodin, J.) [speaking of both the federal and state constitutional guaranties].)3
“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 that the guilty be convicted and the innocent go free.” (Herring v. *85New York (1975) 422 U.S. 853, 862 [45 L.Ed.2d 593, 600, 95 S.Ct. 2550]; accord, United States v. Cronic, supra, 466 U.S. at p. 655 [80 L.Ed.2d at p. 665].) In other words, “The system assumes that adversarial testing will ultimately advance the public interest in truth and fairness.” (Polk County v. Dodson (1981) 454 U.S. 312, 318 [70 L.Ed.2d 509, 516, 102 S.Ct. 445].) It follows that the system requires “meaningful adversarial testing.” (United States v. Cronic, supra, 466 U.S. at p. 656 [80 L.Ed.2d at p. 666].) “When” —as here—“such testing is absent, the process breaks down and hence its result must be deemed unreliable as a matter of law.” (People v. Bloom (1989) 48 Cal.3d 1194,1237 [259 Cal.Rptr. 669, 774 P.2d 698] (conc. & dis. opn. of Mosk, J.); see United States v. Cronic, supra, 466 U.S. at p. 659 [80 L.Ed.2d at p. 668]; see also Rose v. Clark (1986) 478 U.S. 570, 577-578 [92 L.Ed.2d 460, 470-471, 106 S.Ct. 3101] [to similar effect].)
For the foregoing reasons, I would reverse the judgment in its entirety.
Appellant’s petition for a rehearing was denied April 29, 1992. Mosk, J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted.

Agajanian also served as counsel in this court from the commencement of the appeal in 1983 until his suspension from the practice of law in 1990. Shortly thereafter, present counsel was appointed in his place.

Agajanian’s deficiencies as appellate counsel were also pervasive and serious. Witness the fact that the sole act of any significance that he performed on behalf of defendant over the course of almost seven years of representation before this court was the filing of a single thirty-page brief raising only two insubstantial penalty claims.

Agajanian’s deficiencies on appeal would have compelled the same conclusion had he not been suspended from the practice of law and been replaced by present counsel.