Court Opinion

ID: 9547844
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:53:09.263587+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:18:09.414459
License: Public Domain

KAUS, J.
I concur in the result. It is good that the court takes the bull by the horn and overrules the dicta which permit a trial court to express its view on the ultimate question—whether the defendant is, in fact, guilty. The Constitution merely permits “comment on the evidence and the testimony and credibility of witnesses. ” This is a far cry from allowing judicial intrusion at the ultimate moment of truth when each juror must ask himself whether he has a reasonable doubt concerning the defendant’s guilt. True, courts must judge whether the evidence “could reasonably support a finding of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt” (Jackson v. Virginia (1979) 443 U.S. 307, 318 [61 L.Ed.2d 560, 573, 99 S.Ct. 2781]), or, in the California formulation, “ ‘whether a reasonable trier *414of fact could have found the prosecution sustained its burden of proving the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.’ ” (People v. Johnson (1980) 26 Cal.3d 557, 576-578 [162 Cal.Rptr. 431, 606 P.2d 738].) Yet, saying that a given state of the evidence justifies a reasonable juror in not having a reasonable doubt, is quite different from telling that juror that if he does harbor such a doubt, he and the court are in disagreement. The truth is that the tidiest, most conclusive prosecution case may contain undefinable flaws which a particular juror cannot reconcile with the constitutionally demanded standard of proof. (In re Winship (1970) 397 U.S. 358, 361-364 [25 L.Ed.2d 368, 373-375, 90 S.Ct. 1068].) In Winship the court quoted with approval from Davis v. United States (1895) 160 U.S. 469, 493 [40 L.Ed. 499, 507, 16 S.Ct. 353]: “No man should be deprived of his life under the forms of law unless the jurors who try him are able, upon their conscience, to say that the evidence before them ... is sufficient to show beyond a reasonable doubt the existence of every fact necessary to constitute the crime charged.” (Italics added.)
When a trial court departs from comments on evidence and credibility and states its views on the ultimate question of guilt, it trespasses on forbidden ground—the conscience of each juror.1
On the other hand I cannot join the wholesale condemnation of exercising the privilege of comment after a jury deadlock has been reached. I respectfully submit that while a unanimous verdict after comment may dramatically prove the power of comment, the difference in coercive effect between postdeadlock intervention and predeliberation comment is more apparent than real. In most cases early comment—if it has any effect—simply avoids a deadlock from arising in the first place. Therefore—if it mattered—I would prefer to say that generally the power of unsolicited but proper, temperate and balanced comment is not diminished by having been passed up before the beginning of deliberations.2
*415In this case, however, it does not matter. The court did not comment until after the jury had expressly asked it to do so. Why deny the court the power to assist the jury when assistance is needed most—when the jury asks for help? In many cases where the court comments before the jury starts its deliberations, its remarks are unhelpful at best or coercive at worst. Where the jury asks for guidance we know that the first alternative, at least, need not worry us.

The American Bar Association Project on Minimum Standards for Criminal Justice, while advocating that trial courts be given the authority to summarize and comment on the evidence, at the same time takes the position that “[t]he court ‘may not suggest a verdict of guilty or not guilty, nor may the court directly express an opinion on the guilt or innocence of the defendant.’ ” (ABA Project on Minimum Standards for Criminal Justice, Standards Relating to Trial by Jury (Approved Draft 1968) std. 4.7(b)(ii), pp. 121, 126-127.)

The majority relies on People v. Flores (1971) 17 Cal.App.3d 579 [95 Cal.Rptr. 138] and People v. Moore (1974) 40 Cal.App.3d 56 [114 Cal.Rptr. 655] to support its establishment of a special rule barring all postdeadlock comment. In neither case, however, did the court suggest that the timing of the judicial comment was the fatal flaw. Instead, both courts found that the trial courts had erred in going beyond a fair comment on the evidence and expressing a definite opinion on the ultimate question of the defendants’ guilt. (17 Cal.App.3d at pp. 583-588; 40 Cal.App.3d at pp. 65-67.) In addition, the Moore trial court had misstated the facts in several respects. (40 Cal.App.3d at p. 65.)