Court Opinion

ID: 9647454
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 13:37:04.569085+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:49.726350
License: Public Domain

CLARK, Judge,
concurring.
The result reached in this case appears, at first blush, to be illogical and unfair. Appellant and her husband were charged in a single information with acting in concert to possess jointly a quantity of marijuana found in their dwelling but not on the person of either. The husband was tried first and acquitted. That result was necessarily based on a finding by the jury that appellant did not possess the marijuana because, under the joint possession charge, her possession was sufficient, if proved, to convict the husband. But the trial of the wife resulted in conviction, a verdict which is inconsistent and incompatible with the result of the previous case in its factual underpinning. The purpose of this concurring opinion is to demonstrate why this result is sound and acceptable.
*930Appellant’s argument that acquittal of her husband in the severed trial of her case precludes prosecution of her relies on the concept of collateral estoppel. That doctrine bars a suitor from relitigating a proposition already decided as an element of a final judgment. Here, the ultimate fact issue in the cases of appellant and her husband was whether either, acting in concert, possessed marijuana. The verdict acquitting the husband is compatible only with a finding by the jury that marijuana was not possessed by either appellant or her husband. Appellant argues here that the state, as a party to prosecution of the husband’s case, is precluded by collateral estoppel from relitigating the same fact question which has already been decided in the previous trial. Cited, among other cases, is Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436, 90 S.Ct. 1189, 25 L.Ed.2d 469 (1970).
It is first appropriate to note that the claim made here by appellant is not based on double jeopardy or, so far as can be perceived, upon any constitutional guarantees. While double jeopardy does include the component of collateral estoppel, the Fifth Amendment protection is limited in application to reprosecution of the same individual. This case is therefore distinguishable from Ashe v. Swenson, supra, where the fact issue was the identity of Ashe as one of the persons who robbed a group of individuals. When the state failed in the first trial to prove it was Ashe who robbed one of the victims, it was precluded from retrying Ashe on charges of robbing the others under the doctrine of collateral estoppel as a component of double jeopardy. Identity of offenses and of the individual are essential to the defense of double jeopardy.
Collateral estoppel is, in many respects, a broader doctrine than double jeopardy. It focuses on issues in terms of ultimate facts and thus may be applicable even though the former and later proceedings are not based on the same offense. In contrast to double jeopardy, however, collateral estop-pel does not necessarily bar all prosecutions, only the relitigation of issues determined by the former verdict and judgment. Annot., 9 A.L.R.3rd 203, 245 (1966). Appellant’s advocacy of collateral estoppel conforms here to that aspect of the doctrine because she makes no claim that acquittal of her husband on that circumstance alone exonerates her, only that the state may not again attempt to prove that which a prior judgment has denied, her possession of marijuana.
The principal difficulty with the availability of collateral estoppel to appellant, appealing as the result may be in terms of fairness and consistency, is the absence of mutuality. Quite apparently, appellant was under no handicap in her defense because of the prior trial of her husband and, had the state been successful in that prosecution, the result would have been of no aid in establishing any element of the case against appellant. Thus, appellant seeks unilateral application of the collateral es-toppel concept.
Non-mutual collateral estoppel is a doctrine which has received wide acceptance following its original introduction in Bernhard v. Bank of America National Trust & Savings Ass’n, 19 Cal.2d 807, 122 P.2d 892 (1942). It was adopted in Missouri in Oates v. Safeco Insurance Co. of America, 583 S.W.2d 713 (Mo. banc 1979). These, however, were civil cases. The same general acceptance in criminal cases has not followed.
California does appear to find the same rationale supportive of non-mutual collateral estoppel in criminal and civil cases and to make no distinction where a criminal prosecution is involved. People v. Taylor, 12 Cal.3d 686, 527 P.2d 622, 117 Cal.Rptr. 70 (1974) set out a three part test to apply in determining whether collateral estoppel was applicable to bar litigation of an issue in a criminal trial. The elements are (a) common identity of the issue in the present and in a prior trial, (b) a final judgment on the merits in the prior trial, and (c) the party against whom the estoppel is asserted was a party in the prior trial. Mutuality is not a requirement. This rule was applied to bar prosecution of an indicted eo-*931conspirator in People v. Superior Court, 44 Cal.App.3d 494, 118 Cal.Rptr. 702 (1975) where a prior trial had resulted in acquittal of the two other co-conspirators.
The only recent Missouri cases which discuss the subject are State v. Clark, 646 S.W.2d 409 (Mo.App.1983) and State v. Swearingin, 564 S.W.2d 351 (Mo.App.1978). Neither provides an analysis fully applicable to appellant’s contention and the facts of this case. In Clark, the question of collateral estoppel could not be explored because no identity of an issue of ultimate fact common to both trials was ascertainable. (n Swearingin, the general statement is made that collateral estoppel is unavailable in a criminal case except as to defendants who were parties to the prior adjudication, but the opinion does not offer a satisfying analysis of why a doctrine generally accepted in the civil field should be rejected out of hand in criminal cases. On the other hand, no reported Missouri decision has suggested any disposition by courts here to approve non-mutual collateral estoppel as a defensive tool in criminal prosecutions.
The arguments which support rejection of collateral estoppel as applicable in criminal cases where the estoppel is unilaterally imposed against the state were enumerated in Standefer v. United States, 447 U.S. 10, 100 S.Ct. 1999, 64 L.Ed.2d 689 (1980). First, the state often does not have the full and fair opportunity to litigate the fact issue, raised in the estoppel claim because of procedures distinctive to criminal cases. Discovery rights are limited by court rules and constitutional privileges, there is no entitlement of the state to a directed verdict or judgment notwithstanding the verdict, a new trial may not be had because a verdict of acquittal is against the weight of the evidence, and the state has no right of appellate review after a judgment of acquittal.
Secondly, the state may be prevented from the use of inculpatory evidence by concepts peculiar to criminal law, such as the exclusionary rule, and, as a consequence, the first defendant may be acquitted. As to a second defendant, however, the evidence may be admissible and supportive of conviction.
Finally, there is an overriding public interest in the enforcement of the criminal law which justifies the prospect of repetitive litigation and the attendant burden on court dockets. Again, it is to be emphasized that the issue in collateral estoppel cases considered here is not one of individual rights present in double jeopardy situations, but a restriction on the state concerning successive opportunities to prove similar cases against different individuals.
The conditions which distinguish criminal cases and the policy considerations involved are, in the writer’s view, adequate to justify rejection of non-mutual collateral estop-pel as a defense to prosecution of appellant here and to like defendants similarly situated. I therefore concur in the opinion delivered by Kennedy, J.