People v. Ford

• Decision Date: 16 November 1981
• Docket Number: Cr. 21871
• Citation: 635 P.2d 1176,30 Cal.3d 209,178 Cal.Rptr. 196
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 635 P.2d 1176 The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. George Edward FORD, Defendant and Appellant.

Page 196

178 Cal.Rptr. 196

30 Cal.3d 209, 635 P.2d 1176

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. George Edward FORD, Defendant and Appellant.

Cr. 21871.

Supreme Court of California, In Bank.

Nov. 16, 1981.

Hearing Denied December 16, 1981.

Seymour I. Cohen, Torrance, under appointment by the Supreme Court, and Dudley Gray, Torrance, for defendant and appellant.

George Deukmejian, Atty. Gen., Robert H. Philibosian, Chief Asst. Atty. Gen., S. Clark Moore, Asst. Atty. Gen., William R. Weisman and Robert R. Anderson, Deputy Attys. Gen., for plaintiff and respondent.

MOSK, Justice.

In People v. Gould (1960) 54 Cal.2d 621, 631, 7 Cal.Rptr. 273, 354 P.2d 865, this court held that in the absence of other evidence connecting the defendant with the crime, an extrajudicial identification that the witness cannot confirm by an identification at trial is insufficient to support a conviction. In People v. Chavez (1980) 26 Cal.3d 334, 364, 161 Cal.Rptr. 762, 605 P.2d 401; we held that such a pretrial identification may nevertheless be sufficient when it is made by a witness testifying under oath at the preliminary examination and there is evidence from which the jury could have credited that testimony over his trial testimony. In the case at bar we granted a hearing to consider whether Gould or Chavez applies when, at trial, the witness repudiates the identification testimony he gave at the preliminary examination.

We set forth the facts bearing on that issue. Defendant was convicted of six counts of armed robbery, and of being an ex-felon in possession of a concealable firearm. In count III he was charged with the armed robbery of Walter Lane on August 12, 1978. Lane, a merchant, was the sole witness to the crime. He testified that on the day in question two men and a woman entered his shop; the woman and one of the men browsed in the front of the store, while the other man went to the rear and into a small office. Lane followed him and found the man pointing a gun at him. The man ordered Lane to lie on the floor, empty his pockets, and remove his ring. After taking his valuables the man asked Lane where the safe was, and Lane replied there was none. While he was in the office, Lane heard someone emptying a change container located on the front counter; when the intruders left, the change was missing. Throughout these events Lane had ample opportunity to observe the man who robbed him. ¹

A week or 10 days after the robbery Lane was shown a group of photographs by the police, and picked out defendant as the robber. He again identified defendant in the courtroom at the preliminary hearing. At trial, however, Lane testified he could not identify defendant as the man who had robbed him; the most he would say was that defendant looked like the man in the police photograph he had selected earlier.

Invoking the Gould rule, defendant contends the evidence is insufficient to support his conviction of the Lane robbery because the sole witness thereto was unable to identify him at the trial. (See also In re Johnny G. (1979) 25 Cal.3d 543, 159 Cal.Rptr. 180 601 P.2d 196; In re Eugene M. (1976) 55 Cal.App.3d 650, 657-659, 127 Cal.Rptr. 851.) The Attorney General, in turn, relies on Chavez.

In Chavez the defendant was convicted of three counts of assault by force likely to cause great bodily harm, and the jury further found that he used a gun in each assault. The sole witness on the latter issue, Gregory Angel, denied at trial that he had seen defendant fire the gun. The prosecution then introduced pretrial statements to the contrary by Angel, to wit, extrajudicial statements he made to the police and his testimony at the preliminary hearing identifying the defendant as the gunman.

Upholding the use findings, this court distinguished Gould on two grounds. (26 Cal.3d at p. 364, 161 Cal.Rptr. 762, 605 P.2d 401.) Primarily, we stressed that the jury "had before it a transcription of Angel's positive identification of defendant under oath at defendant's preliminary examination." We noted that such identification had not been "shaken or discredited by cross-examination" at the preliminary hearing; and we concluded, "This sworn testimony at a formal, judicially conducted preliminary examination clearly provides a more substantial basis for the firearm use finding than the extrajudicial identifications in Gould" and its progeny.

In addition, we pointed to evidence in the record from which the jury could have chosen to discredit Angel's trial testimony in favor of his preliminary hearing testimony. Although Angel was never asked to explain the inconsistency between those stories, the jury could have found that Angel was reluctant to testify against the defendant at trial. ²

In the case at bar, as in Chavez, the jury had before it a positive identification of defendant given by a witness under oath at an adversary judicial proceeding: the prosecutor read to the jury those portions of the transcript of Lane's testimony at the preliminary hearing in which he identified defendant as the robber. Also as in Chavez, that testimony was not weakened in any way by cross-examination at the preliminary hearing. In contrast to Chavez, however, here the witness was asked at trial to explain why he identified defendant in his preliminary hearing testimony; he did so, and in effect repudiated that testimony. As will appear, we hold this to be a distinction without a difference.

To begin with, in the circumstances of this case the repudiation itself provided the jury with a basis on which it could have discredited Lane's trial testimony in favor of his preliminary hearing testimony. Lane gave two different explanations of the latter testimony, and each could have aroused the jury's suspicions. First, under questioning by the court Lane claimed he positively identified defendant at the preliminary hearing only "Because the judge told me I had to make a definite decision. She said I couldn't say 'looked like,' I had to say yes or no. In my mind I wasn't completely decided whether that was the man or not." Second, under cross-examination by defense counsel Lane denied he had identified defendant as the man who had robbed him, and claimed he meant only to say that defendant resembled the police photograph he had previously selected. But not only did these claims seem inconsistent with each other, they were apparently refuted by the transcript of the preliminary hearing read to the jury: from that transcript the jury could have found that the magistrate did not in fact coerce Lane into making a positive identification against his will, and that the identification was not in fact based on the photograph of defendant but on Lane's recollection of the actual events "at the time of the robbery." ³ And from these findings the jury could well have inferred, as in Chavez, that the reason for the witness's failure to make a positive identification at trial was simply that in the interim he had become reluctant to testify against this defendant. Indeed, the evidence reveals that defendant and his wife had a discussion with the witness prior to trial.

Moreover, even if Lane's explanation of his testimony at the preliminary hearing had been plausible, the jury was not bound to believe it and disbelieve his prior testimony: inconsistencies in identification evidence are for the jury to resolve. (See People v. Farrington (1931) 213 Cal. 459, 463, 2 P.2d 814; People v. Koontz (1970) 7 Cal.App.3d 30, 37, 86 Cal.Rptr. 374; People v. Blackwell (1967) 257 Cal.App.2d 313, 319-320, 64 Cal.Rptr. 642, and cases cited.) As we reiterated in Gould (at p. 631 of 54 Cal.2d, 7 Cal.Rptr. 273, 354 P.2d 865), "the probative value of an identification depends on the circumstances under which it was made." The pretrial identifications found wanting in Gould and its progeny were each made, as we stressed in Chavez (at p. 363 of 26 Cal.3d, 161 Cal.Rptr. 762, 605 P.2d 401), in circumstances that cast serious doubt on their accuracy and trustworthiness. ⁴ Here, by contrast, Lane's positive identification of defendant was made in a formal judicial proceeding, under oath and subject to cross-examination. These are traditional indicia of reliability, and satisfy the concerns underlying the Gould rule. It follows that even if it is repudiated at trial, a pretrial identification made in sworn testimony subject to cross-examination in a formal judicial proceeding is sufficient to support a conviction. (See, e. g., People v. Green (1971) 3 Cal.3d 981, 991, 92 Cal.Rptr. 494, 479 P.2d 998.) ⁵ Defendant's claim of insufficiency of the evidence to support his conviction on count III is therefore untenable.

We have reviewed defendant's remaining contentions. They present no new and important issue of law, and were correctly resolved by the Court of Appeal when the case was before that court. For the reasons stated by the Court of Appeal, we therefore hold each of these contentions to be without merit.

This disposition, which in effect incorporates by reference a portion of the Court of Appeal opinion, does not contravene our well- settled rule that an order granting a hearing and transferring a cause to this court operates to nullify the opinion and decision of the Court of Appeal. As we explained in a leading case on the subject, "without some further express act of approval or adoption of said opinion by this court, that opinion and decision are of no more effect as a judgment or as a precedent to be followed in the decision of legal questions that may hereafter arise than if they had not been written." (Italics added.) (Knouse v. Nimocks (1937) 8 Cal.2d 482, 483-484, 66 P.2d 438.) It is in the exercise of that power of express "approval or adoption" that in appropriate cases we have adopted as the opinion of this court all or part of a superseded Court of Appeal opinion (see, e. g., Doers v. Golden Gate Bridge etc. Dist. (1979) 23 Cal.3d 180, 151 Cal.Rptr. 837, 588 P.2d 1261; ...