High Court Limits Victim Rights Bill : Ruling Narrows Ability to Challenge Testimony; State May Ask Rehearing

The state Supreme Court issued a flurry of decisions Friday in its final actions under Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird--restricting the effect of the Victims’ Bill of Rights initiative and overturning the death sentences of five convicted murderers.

In their 5-2 decision on Proposition 8, the anti-crime measure adopted by voters in 1982, the justices held that incriminating statements obtained improperly from a defendant cannot be used later to challenge his truthfulness at trial. The court said the measure did not require state courts to follow federal court precedents that allowed such statements to be used to impeach a defendant’s testimony.

The justices, with court personnel working into the night, released 16 rulings in a last-minute attempt to reduce the court’s sizable backlog before the official departure Monday of Bird and Justices Cruz Reynoso and Joseph R. Grodin. All three were defeated in the Nov. 4 election.

Some Arguments Ahead

Nonetheless, 60 cases--including 35 involving the death penalty--that had been argued before the three justices still remained undecided--and most of them probably will have to be re-argued later when three new justices are named by Gov. George Deukmejian and are confirmed.

Among the issues that will face reconsideration by a new court dominated by Deukmejian nominees is whether the new state mandatory auto insurance law is constitutional, when police may detain suspected truants and whether the justices should overturn past rulings barring capital sentences when the jury has not specifically found that the defendant intended to kill his victim.

Bird, ending a controversial nine-year tenure, issued a brief statement wishing her judicial colleagues well and thanking “the people of the state of California for the privilege and honor of having been their chief justice.”

While the court had upheld several key provisions of the Victim’s Bill of Rights in previous decisions, Friday’s ruling was a substantial setback to law enforcement authorities.

Chief Assistant Atty. Gen. Steve White called the decision “a big disappointment” and said it was “quite likely” the state would seek a rehearing of the case after Bird, Reynoso and Grodin--all of whom joined in the majority--leave office and other justices take their places.

“The ruling permits defendants to go into a courtroom and lie with impunity,” White said. “It is directly contrary to the intended truth-finding purposes of a criminal trial.”

1976 Decision Reaffirmed

In a 41-page majority opinion by Justice Stanley Mosk, the court strongly reaffirmed a ruling it made in 1976 holding that state constitutional guarantees against self-incrimination barred the use for impeachment purposes of any statements obtained by police from suspects who have not been warned of their rights to silence and to legal counsel.

Such warnings are required both by state court rulings and the landmark 1966 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Miranda v. Arizona. Statements obtained without effective warnings ordinarily cannot be used in a trial.

However, in 1971 the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the use of improperly obtained statements to challenge the credibility of any defendants who choose to testify and tell a different story in a trial.

But the state Supreme Court refused Friday to follow the high court lead, just as it refused in 1976.

The justices rejected contentions by the state attorney general’s office that the 1982 initiative’s truth-in-evidence provisions mandated them to follow the high court’s 1971 precedent.

Mosk, author of the 1976 decision, concluded that a state statute protecting the privilege against self-incrimination effectively included interpretations of the law made by the state courts.

Protection of Defendant

Thus, he said, the 11-year-old state ruling had established the kind of “existing statutory rule of evidence” that Proposition 8 excepted from its sweeping requirements for following federal decisions.

Mosk said that without full protection against use of such statements, prosecutors, armed with improperly obtained pretrial admissions, could force a defendant to choose between silence at trial or risk disclosing evidence before a jury linking himself to a crime, thus violating the privilege.

“Without the rule, therefore, one of the important policies of the privilege--to ‘require the government in its contest with the individual to shoulder the entire load’--could be frustrated and the privilege itself rendered of little practical effect,” he said.

Mosk was joined in the majority by Bird, Grodin, Reynoso and Justice Allen E. Broussard.

In dissent, Justice Malcolm M. Lucas, joined by Justice Edward A. Panelli, denounced the court for “thwarting the obvious intent” of the people who designed and voted for Proposition 8.

Purpose of Initiative

The initiative, Lucas said, was drafted “for the very purpose” of nullifying the 1976 ruling and other state court decisions “which have elevated the procedural rights of the criminal defendant far above the level required by the federal Constitution, as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court.”

Lucas and Panelli were both appointed to the court by Gov. George Deukmejian, who is expected to name successors to Bird, Reynoso and Grodin within a few weeks.

The case before the court arose in the case of Michael Dennis May, who was convicted of rape, robbery, burglary and other crimes in Santa Barbara County in 1983.

May made potentially damaging admissions to interrogators after asking to speak to an attorney. A trial court judge ruled that the statements, while improperly obtained, could be used to impeach his testimony at trial. May declined to testify and appealed the ruling, saying it violated the privilege against self-incrimination.

Effect of Decision

The state Supreme Court reversed the trial court and ordered further proceedings in that court to determine what May would have said had he testified and whether it would have affected the outcome of the case.

May’s attorneys were not immediately available for comment.

In another case Friday, the justices dealt a blow to Los Angeles County and other local governments by ruling that they were not entitled to reimbursements by the state for an estimated $50 million in increases in workers’ compensation benefits for public employees.

The court, in a unanimous decision, said that a 1979 initiative sponsored by tax crusader Paul Gann requiring the state to compensate cities and counties for new programs or “higher level of service” did not apply to such benefits.

‘Governmental Function’

In an opinion by Grodin, the court said that under the law the state must pay for the cost of programs “that carry out the governmental function of providing services to the public, or laws which, to implement a state policy, impose unique requirements on local governments and do not apply generally to all residents and entities in the state.”

Workers compensation is not such a program because it applies to all employers--public and private--the court said.

Mosk, in a separate opinion, said he agreed that in this case the state should not be held liable for increased cost-of-living benefits because such payments do not result in an increased level of service.

But he warned that the court’s opinion could invite the state to order “unlimited financial burdens” on local units of government without providing funds to meet those burdens.

The ruling appeared to allow the Legislature to continue to approve benefit increases by a mere majority vote. Had the state been required to reimburse local governments for such increases, such funding would have required a more difficult two-thirds vote.

In another action, the justices, by a vote of 4 to 3, upheld a state appellate court ruling approving jury selection procedures in the north county branch of San Diego Superior Court. The procedure had been challenged by Eddie O’Hare, defendant in a kidnaping case, because it drew jurors from only a part of the county.