Court Opinion

ID: 9723525
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 10:18:31.712337+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:49.336077
License: Public Domain

POCHÉ, J.
I dissent.
Appellant contends that he was inadequately represented because his counsel did not challenge a confession as being the product of duress. My majority colleagues reject this for two reasons, neither of which I understand to be valid under the law of this state as enunciated by the California Supreme Court in People v. Pope (1979) 23 Cal.3d 412 [152 Cal.Rptr. 732, 590 P.2d 859] and People v. Nation (1980) 26 Cal.3d 169 [161 Cal.Rptr. 299, 604 P.2d 1051].
The first explanation given is that a diligent advocate might have made the tactical judgment that a duress challenge “would only weaken the credibility of appellant’s case.” It is difficult to see how failing to challenge the admissibility of a coerced confession provides any tactical advantage. (See People v. Pope, supra, 23 Cal.3d 412, 426, and People v. Nation, supra, 26 Cal.3d 169, 179.) The case was tried by the court. Even if the evidence supporting the use of duress in prompting the confession is very weak, the defense loses nothing in moving to strike it. If nothing more, such a motion preserves for the record defendant’s objection to admission of a confession he considers involuntary. At worst, the court trying the case might deem the motion unfounded.
My colleagues’ second ground for upholding trial counsel’s inaction is that failure to challenge the confession did not result in the “withdrawal of a potentially meritorious defense” because the court might not have accepted appellant’s story and granted the motion. Application of such a criterion results from a distorted translation of People v. Pope, supra, 23 Cal.3d 412, 425, which does not require a showing of assured success. All that is needed is failure to raise a potentially meritorious defense: “[a] crucial defense is not necessarily one which, if presented, ‘would result inexorably in a defendant’s acquittal.’” (Id., p. 425, fn. 15.) In at least four cases, Pope error has been found for failure to take an appropriate motion, where no showing was made that the court would have granted the motion. (People v. Cooper (1979) 94 Cal.App.3d 672, 682 [156 Cal.Rptr. 646] (failure to move for disclosure of informant’s identity); People v. Schiering (1979) 92 Cal.App.3d 429, 435 [154 Cal.Rptr. 847] (failure to bring discovery motion to compel the prosecution to produce names and statements of crucial defense witnesses); People v. Farley (1979) 90 Cal.App.3d 851, 868 [153 Cal. *597Rptr. 695] (failure to make the appropriate suppression of evidence motions); People v. Nation, supra, 26 Cal.3d 169, 181 (failure to obtain adjudication of the admissibility of identification evidence).)
I would remand for a hearing on the question of whether the confession was the product of duress.
Appellant’s petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied June 12, 1980. Bird, C. J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted.