In re Seaton

• Decision Date: 23 August 2004
• Docket Number: No. S067491.,S067491.
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: In re Ronald Harold SEATON on Habeas Corpus.

17 Cal.Rptr.3d 633

95 P.3d 896

34 Cal.4th 193

In re Ronald Harold SEATON on Habeas Corpus.

No. S067491.

Supreme Court of California.

August 23, 2004.

As Modified on Denial of Rehearing September 29, 2004.¹

Steinhart & Falconer, Piper Rudnick, James T. Fousekis, Roger R. Myers, Dorothy A. Streutker, Joshua K. Koltun and Lisa M. Sitkin, San Francisco, for Petitioner Ronald Harold Seaton.

Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, David P. Druliner and Robert R. Anderson, Chief Assistant Attorneys General, Gary W. Schons, Assistant Attorney General, William M. Wood, Laura Whitcomb Halgren, Adrianne S. Denault, Holly D. Wilkens and Matthew Mulford, Deputy Attorneys General, for Respondent State of California.

KENNARD, J.

Petitioner Ronald Harold Seaton was sentenced to death after his conviction of murder (Pen.Code, § 187)² with burglary-murder and robbery-murder special circumstances (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(17)(A) & (G)). On his automatic appeal, we affirmed the judgment. (People v. Seaton (2001) 26 Cal.4th 598, 110 Cal.Rptr.2d 441, 28 P.3d 175.)

The petition for writ of habeas corpus challenges his capital murder conviction on numerous grounds. Four of those pertain to matters that petitioner could not have raised on appeal because of his failure to raise them in the trial court by a pretrial motion.³ We issued an order to show cause to determine whether this failure also precludes consideration of those issues in a postconviction habeas corpus proceeding. We conclude it does, unless the claim depends substantially upon facts that the petitioner did not know, and could not reasonably have known, at the time of trial.

I

On January 25, 1998, petitioner filed this habeas corpus petition.

In claim II.A., petitioner contends that his murder conviction, the jury's special circumstance findings, and his sentence of death should be vacated because the prosecutor's decision to seek the death penalty was motivated by petitioner's "race [African-American], and/or the publicity attending this case, and/or the lack of guidelines for such matters in the prosecutor's office, and/or the arbitrary practices of the prosecutors involved in making all decisions regarding Petitioner's case."

In claim II.B., petitioner asserts that his death sentence should be vacated because the prosecutor's decision to seek the death penalty was improperly based on the prosecutor's inaccurate belief that petitioner had a prior conviction in Michigan for a crime described as "Assault Less than Murder."

In claim II.C., petitioner argues that his death sentence should be vacated because the prosecutor's decision to seek the death penalty against him was improperly based on financial and political considerations.

In claim V.A., petitioner contends that his murder conviction, the special circumstance findings, and his death sentence should be vacated because Riverside County deliberately manipulated the racial composition of its panels of prospective jurors, resulting in a substantial underrepresentation of African-Americans and Hispanics in the panel assigned to his case.

Petitioner alleges that the conduct underlying those claims violated "the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution and Article I, sections 1, 7, 9, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 24, 27, 28, and 30 of the California Constitution, as well as the statutory and decisional law of the State of California and rights under Penal Code section 1473."

Petitioner did not raise any of these four claims at trial. The Attorney General argues that his failure to do so now bars him from raising them in this habeas corpus proceeding.

II

Penal Code section 1259 provides: "Upon an appeal taken by the defendant, the appellate court may ... review any question of law involved in any ruling, order, instruction, or thing whatsoever said or done at the trial or prior to or after judgment, which thing was said or done after objection made in and considered by the lower court, and which affected the substantial rights of the defendant." (Italics added.) Thus, as a general rule, "the failure to object to errors committed at trial relieves the reviewing court of the obligation to consider those errors on appeal." (Fischer et al., Appeals and Writs in Criminal Cases (2d ed. 2000) § 1D.26, pp. 182-183; see also 4 Cal.Jur.3d (1998) Appellate Review, § 175, pp. 233-234.) This applies to claims based on statutory violations, as well as claims based on violations of fundamental constitutional rights. (People v. Barnum (2003) 29 Cal.4th 1210, 1224, fn. 2, 131 Cal.Rptr.2d 499, 64 P.3d 788; People v. Saunders (1993) 5 Cal.4th 580, 590, 20 Cal.Rptr.2d 638, 853 P.2d 1093; see also Peretz v. United States (1991) 501 U.S. 923, 936-937, 111 S.Ct. 2661, 115 L.Ed.2d 808.)

The reasons for the rule are these: "`In the hurry of the trial many things may be, and are, overlooked which would readily have been rectified had attention been called to them. The law casts upon the party the duty of looking after his legal rights and calling the judge's attention to any infringement of them. If any other rule were to obtain, the party would in most cases be careful to be silent as to his objections until it would be too late to obviate them, and the result would be that few judgments would stand the test of an appeal.'" (Sommer v. Martin (1921) 55 Cal.App. 603, 610, 204 P. 33, quoted with approval in People v. Saunders, supra, 5 Cal.4th at p. 590, 20 Cal.Rptr.2d 638, 853 P.2d 1093.)

To consider on appeal a defendant's claims of error that were not objected to at trial "would deprive the People of the opportunity to cure the defect at trial and would `permit the defendant to gamble on an acquittal at his trial secure in the knowledge that a conviction would be reversed on appeal.'" (People v. Rogers (1978) 21 Cal.3d 542, 548, 146 Cal.Rptr. 732, 579 P.2d 1048.) There are various reasons why a criminal defendant might choose not to object at trial to a perceived error. The defendant may believe that the error has not actually caused any harm. This example comes to mind: At trial, the defense realizes that the venire of prospective jurors does not represent a fair cross-section of the community. There is no objection because the defense thinks, for whatever reason, that the likelihood of prevailing at trial with the particular prospective jurors that have been summoned may be greater than with a more representative selection. If the defense loses its gamble, and the defendant is convicted, the defense's deliberate tactical decision not to raise the issue at trial should bar its consideration on appeal.

If the perceived error is harmful to the defense, a defendant nonetheless might choose not to object simply to gain the proverbial "two bites at the apple." In other words, if the error could be asserted for first time on appeal, and a judgment of conviction reversed, the charges will have to be retried, and the defendant will have two opportunities for acquittal. Moreover, the defense may have reason to expect that the prosecution's evidence will be weaker because of the death of witnesses, fading of memories, or loss of physical evidence in a second trial after an appellate reversal.

For the reasons described above, petitioner was not entitled to raise on appeal any of the four claims at issue here. (See People v. Lucas (1995) 12 Cal.4th 415, 476-477, 48 Cal.Rptr.2d 525, 907 P.2d 373 [claim that prosecutor's charging decision violated the defendant's constitutional rights is forfeited because not raised at trial]; People v. Howard (1992) 1 Cal.4th 1132, 1159, 5 Cal.Rptr.2d 268, 824 P.2d 1315 [claim that minority group was underrepresented in the jury venire forfeited because not raised at trial].) Petitioner does not contend otherwise.

Petitioner argues, however, that because this is not an appeal but a habeas corpus proceeding, the forfeiture rule does not apply. He asserts that whether a claim can be raised in a habeas corpus proceeding depends on the nature of the claim, not on whether it was raised at trial. Citing In re Harris (1993) 5 Cal.4th 813, 834, 21 Cal.Rptr.2d 373, 855 P.2d 391 (Harris), he contends that even if not raised at trial, claims of constitutional error that are "clear and fundamental, and strike[ ] at the heart of the trial process" can be raised on habeas corpus.

In Harris, we first discussed the Waltreus rule (In re Waltreus (1965) 62 Cal.2d 218, 225, 42 Cal.Rptr. 9, 397 P.2d 1001), which precludes a habeas corpus petitioner from raising a claim that was raised and rejected on appeal. We then discussed the Dixon rule (In re Dixon (1953) 41 Cal.2d 756, 759, 264 P.2d 513), which bars a habeas corpus petitioner from raising a claim that was not, but should have been, raised on appeal. We held that neither rule bars a claim of constitutional error that is "clear and fundamental, and strikes at the heart of the trial process." (Harris, supra, 5 Cal.4th at p. 834, 21 Cal.Rptr.2d 373, 855 P.2d 391.)

Harris does indeed allow a convicted defendant to file a habeas corpus petition raising claims of fundamental constitutional error even when those claims were previously rejected on appeal, or when the defendant did not, but should have, raised them on appeal. But Harris said nothing about allowing a defendant to raise such claims in a habeas corpus proceeding when no objection was made at trial. A criminal defendant, like any other party to an action, may not sit on his or her rights. Thus, just as a defendant generally may not raise on appeal a claim not raised at trial (see 17 Cal.Rptr.3d pp. 636-637, 95 P.3d pp. 898-899, ante), a defendant should not be allowed to raise on habeas corpus an issue that could have been presented at trial. If a claim that was forfeited for appeal could nonetheless be raised in a habeas corpus proceeding, the main purpose of the forfeiture rule—to encourage prompt correction of trial errors and thereby avoid unnecessary retrials—would be...