OPINIONS BY JUSTICE LUCAS

These are excerpts from opinions written by Justice Malcolm M. Lucas of the state Supreme Court:

RENT CONTROL

Fisher vs. City of Berkeley

Date: Issued Dec. 27, 1984

Case: Court voted 6 to 1 to uphold a controversial rent-control ordinance over claims that it violated antitrust law prohibitions against price-fixing.

Lucas’ Dissent:

“Price competition is the ‘central nervous system of the free market economy.’ Price-fixing, whether privately or publicly inspired, thus endangers the free economic system to which Congress has entrusted the prosperity of the entire nation.

“If our 38,500 county, municipal and township governments . . . were free to make economic choices . . . without regard to their anti-competitive effects, a serious chink in the armor of antitrust protection would be introduced. . . . “ PUBLIC EMPLOYEE STRIKES

County Sanitation District No. 2 of Los Angeles County vs. Los Angeles County Employees Assn.

Date: Issued May, 1985

Case: Court by a 4-3 vote said that state law did not bar public employees from striking unless it would create a substantial threat to public safety.

Lucas’ Dissent:

“In my view, public employees in this state neither have the right to strike, nor should they have that right.

” . . . Public strikes may devastate a city within a matter of days, or even hours. . . . For this reason, among many others, the courts of this state (and the vast majority of courts in other states and the federal government) have declared all public strikes illegal. . . . Until today the California Courts of Appeal uniformly had followed that rule.

” . . . The decision to allow public employee strikes requires a delicate and complex balancing process best undertaken by the Legislature. . . . The majority’s own proposal, to withhold the strike weapon only where ‘truly essential’ services are involved and a ‘substantial and imminent threat’ is posed, will afford little guidance to our trial courts who must, on a case-by-case basis, decide such issues. . . . In short, the majority’s broad holding will prove as unworkable as it is unwise.” DEATH PENALTY

People vs. Danny Montana Guerra

Date: Issued Nov. 18, 1985

Case: Court in a 6-1 ruling overturned the death sentence of a defendant convicted in the murder of a department store security guard. Lucas, in a change of position, said he would no longer feel bound to follow court precedents that barred capital punishment in cases where a jury had not specifically found that the defendant intended to kill his victim.

Lucas’ Dissent:

“I can no longer characterize myself as ‘concurring’ in these reversals. The (two precedents) are responsible for an increasing number of unnecessary reversals and retrials. I would join three of my colleagues (a total of four votes are required to reconsider a court decision) in re-examining, and ultimately overruling, those decisions.” WARRANTLESS SEARCHES

People vs. Larry Lynn Cook

Date: Issued Dec. 31, 1985

Case: Court in a 6-1 decision reversed the marijuana-growing conviction of a man whose backyard was subject to a warrantless search by officers in an airplane 1,600 feet above the ground. The majority said the action violated the defendant’s state constitutional rights.

Lucas’ Dissent:

“The majority . . . holds invalid all warrantless aerial surveillance of backyards and similar ‘curtilage’ areas. I cannot join in imposing such a broad, absolute prohibition. In my view, the limited, non-intrusive surveillance undertaken here did not constitute an unreasonable search.

“The majority’s repeated concern for protecting legitimate privacy interests is entirely misplaced in cases such as this, where the officers surveyed defendant’s backyard at a height of 1,600 feet. At such a height . . . it is virtually impossible to observe legitimate and private human activities on the ground. . . .

“The only privacy interest significantly infringed by such overflights is the interest of the marijuana grower. . . . Contrary to the majority’s repeated references to ‘garrison states’ and ‘Orwellian notions,’ we are not concerned here with the privacy interests of nude sunbathers, religious cultists, political activists, or anyone except marijuana growers.” RIGHT TO COUNSEL

People vs. Charles Caleb Houston

Date: Issued Oct. 2, 1986

Case: Court by a vote of 5 to 1 declined to follow a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a similar case and held that police must tell a suspect being held for questioning that his lawyer has arrived at the station house to confer with him. The court barred the use of a confession obtained in a drug case, saying that even when the suspect has previously waived his rights to silence and to counsel, he still must be given the opportunity to talk to the lawyer before interrogation.

Lucas’ Dissent:

” . . . The majority embarks on its own application and interpretation of federal precedent with barely a nod to the contrary approach taken by the high court (in the other case).

” . . . The majority fails to accord any weight to (the) public interest. In reaching their goal, my colleagues cite no overwhelming social policy mandating their result, nor do they ever squarely confront the inherently uneven application of the right they now adopt. . . . The majority seemingly takes this route in an effort to regulate police conduct of which it disapproves. But the regulation of such conduct beyond that required by the federal and state constitutions is an appropriate matter for the Legislature, not the courts.” A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP

People vs. Robert Gregory Smith

Date: Issued July 22, 1985

Case: Court voted 6 to 1 to uphold the conviction of an accused burglar. The defendant, who represented himself, contended that his conviction should be overturned because, among other things, he had not been allowed eight hours of sleep the night before his trial began and was too tired to present a case.

Lucas’ Majority Opinion:

“The record reflects that defendant was attentive, lucid, and articulate throughout his trial. . . . Given an eyewitness identification, defendant’s arrest in the getaway car with the stolen property, and his own admission that he made an incriminating statement (which he himself characterized as a confession), we must conclude that defendant failed to present a defense because none was available. . . .

“This case presents a classic example of a street-wise defendant doing everything possible to delay his conviction and to induce error into every phase of the proceeding. . . . “