Esguerra v. State
| Docket Number | A-13819 |
| Decision Date | 18 August 2023 |
| Parties | FRED MICHAEL ESGUERRA JR., Petitioner, v. STATE OF ALASKA, Respondent. |
| Court | Alaska Court of Appeals |
Petition for Review from the Superior Court, Third Judicial District, Trial Court No. 3AN-19-04854 CR Anchorage, Erin B Marston, Judge.
Melissa H. Goldstein and Julia Bedell, Assistant Public Defenders, and Samantha Cherot, Public Defender, Anchorage for the Petitioner.
Kenneth M. Rosenstein, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Criminal Appeals, Anchorage, and Treg R. Taylor, Attorney General, Juneau, for the Respondent.
Before: Allard, Chief Judge, and Wollenberg and Harbison, Judges.
In 2002, Fred Michael Esguerra Jr. was convicted of two counts of first-degree sexual abuse of a minor and one count of attempted first-degree sexual abuse of a minor.[1] Esguerra was later released on probation.
In October 2018, the State filed a petition to revoke Esguerra's probation on three separate grounds. Esguerra testified at the probation revocation hearing and denied a number of the State's factual claims. After Esguerra testified, the State, believing that Esguerra had lied on the witness stand, added a fourth violation to the petition: that Esguerra had just committed perjury. The court found that the State had proven two of the claimed probation violations by a preponderance of the evidence, but found that the State had not proven the other two, including the allegation of perjury.
Several months later, the State indicted Esguerra on eleven counts of perjury based on his testimony at the probation revocation hearing. Esguerra moved to dismiss the indictment, arguing that because the State had failed to prove the perjury allegation in the probation revocation proceeding, it was barred from pursuing that allegation in a subsequent criminal proceeding by the doctrines of res judicata (i.e., claim preclusion) and collateral estoppel (i.e., issue preclusion). The superior court denied Esguerra's request, and Esguerra petitioned this Court for review, which we granted.
We now affirm the superior court's denial of Esguerra's motion to dismiss the indictment.
The State's prosecution of Esguerra is not precluded by res judicata or collateral estoppel
This petition requires us to address whether the doctrines of res judicata and collateral estoppel preclude the State from pursuing criminal charges when the State failed to prove those same charges in a probation revocation proceeding alleging that the defendant engaged in new criminal conduct.
The doctrine of res judicata, also called claim preclusion, "prevents a party from suing on a claim which has been previously litigated to a final judgment by that party . . . and precludes the assertion by such parties of any legal theory, cause of action, or defense which could have been asserted in that action."[2] This doctrine does not apply here because the State could not pursue its current "cause of action" - i.e., its criminal prosecution of Esguerra - through a petition to revoke probation.
But the doctrine of collateral estoppel, also called issue preclusion, presents a more difficult question. Collateral estoppel "bars the relitigation of issues actually determined in [earlier] proceedings."[3] It requires four elements:
(1) the party against whom the preclusion is employed was a party to or in privity with a party to the first action; (2) the issue precluded from relitigation is identical to the issue decided in the first action; (3) the issue was resolved by the first action by a final judgment on the merits; and (4) the determination of the issue was essential to the final judgment.[4]
We find persuasive the California Supreme Court's analysis of this issue in Lucido v. Superior Court.[5] The California Supreme Court acknowledged that the technical elements of collateral estoppel will often be met when the government seeks to file criminal charges based on alleged probation violations that it previously failed to prove, but the court went on to hold that the public policies underlying the doctrine of collateral estoppel would not be served by applying it to this context.
Lucido explained that there are three core public policies underlying collateral estoppel: preservation of the integrity of the judicial system, promotion of judicial economy, and protection of litigants from harassment by vexatious litigation.[6]
With respect to the integrity of the judicial system, the court acknowledged that "[p]ublic confidence in the integrity of the judicial system is threatened whenever two tribunals render inconsistent verdicts."[7] But the court concluded that eliminating this potential inconsistency by displacing full determination of factual issues in criminal trials would have an even greater effect on public confidence in the judiciary.[8]
As the Lucido court explained, "Probation revocation hearings and criminal trials serve different public interests."[9] The role of the judge in a probation revocation proceeding is "not to determine whether the probationer is guilty or innocent of a crime," but only "whether a violation of the terms of probation has occurred and, if so, whether it would be appropriate to allow the probationer to continue to retain [their] conditional liberty."[10] The court further reasoned:
Because the limited nature of this inquiry may not involve or invoke presentation of all evidence bearing on the underlying factual allegations, the [government's] failure to satisfy the lower burden of proof at the revocation hearing does not necessarily amount to an acquittal or demonstrate an inability to meet the higher criminal standard of proof.[11]
In light of these differing purposes, the Lucido court concluded that "[p]reemption of trial of a new charge by a revocation decision designed to perform a wholly independent social and legal task would undermine the function of the criminal trial process as the intended forum for ultimate determinations as to guilt or innocence of newly alleged crimes."[12]
With respect to the promotion of judicial economy, the court acknowledged that applying collateral estoppel would potentially promote judicial economy in two ways: "it would reduce the number of court proceedings by precluding prosecution of issues determined adversely to the [government] at the revocation hearing[;]" and "by increasing the already high stakes of the revocation hearing, it might encourage the [government] to prosecute first."[13] But the court found that these concerns were insufficient to justify applying collateral estoppel, writing that "[w]hatever the efficiencies of applying collateral estoppel in this case, they pale before the importance of preserving the criminal trial process as the exclusive forum for determining guilt or innocence as to new crimes."[14]
With respect to the protection of litigants from harassment by vexatious litigation, the court explained that although application of collateral estoppel would prevent repetitive litigation, "[t]he essence of vexatiousness . . . is not mere repetition" but rather "harassment through baseless or unjustified litigation."[15] As the court explained, it is generally "neither vexatious nor unfair for a probationer to be subjected to both a revocation hearing and a criminal trial" because "[t]he public has a legitimate expectation that a person once found guilty of a crime may both be held to the terms of [their] probation and (if deemed appropriate by the prosecution) tried anew for any offenses alleged to have been committed during the probationary period."[16] The fact that the government failed to prevail at the revocation hearing "does not alone transform the otherwise permissible subsequent trial into harassment."[17]
For all these reasons, the California Supreme Court concluded that "[a]pplying collateral estoppel would unduly expand the designated function of the revocation hearing and undermine the public interest in determining criminal guilt and innocence at criminal trials."[18]
Much like California, Alaska courts have repeatedly "looked to the public policies underlying the doctrine [of collateral estoppel] before concluding that collateral estoppel should be applied in a particular setting."[19] And we agree with the California Supreme Court that those policies support refusing to apply collateral estoppel to the situation presented here.
We also note that at the time Lucido was decided in 1990, courts were roughly split on this question. Lucido cited five jurisdictions (Arizona, Florida, New York, Washington, and the Sixth Circuit) holding that collateral estoppel does not apply and three jurisdictions (Illinois, Oregon, and Texas) holding that it does.[20] But Lucido now firmly states the majority rule. We count at least ten additional states (Connecticut, Georgia, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Wisconsin) holding that collateral estoppel does not apply.[21] And one of the three states cited in Lucido as holding that collateral estoppel does apply (Texas) recently overturned its prior case law and joined the majority view.[22] For all the reasons stated above, we agree with the vast majority of courts that have decided this issue that collateral estoppel does not apply to the situation at issue here.
But although we conclude, after balancing all of the relevant policy considerations, that collateral estoppel should not be applied in this context, we take this time to remind the State that public confidence in the integrity of the judicial system is indeed undermined whenever two tribunals render inconsistent verdicts.[23] In his concurrence in McCracken v. Corey, Justice Rabinowitz recommended that when the government...
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