People v. Treloar

• Citation: 64 Cal.2d 141,410 P.2d 620,49 Cal.Rptr. 100
• Decision Date: 09 February 1966
• Docket Number: Cr. 8822
• Court: United States State Supreme Court (California)
• Parties: , 410 P.2d 620 The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Raymond Forrest TRELOAR, Defendant and Appellant.

Page 100

49 Cal.Rptr. 100

64 Cal.2d 141, 410 P.2d 620

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Raymond Forrest TRELOAR, Defendant and Appellant.

Cr. 8822.

Supreme Court of California, In Bank.

Feb. 9, 1966.

Rehearing Denied March 9, 1966.

Ollie M. Marie-Victoire, San Francisco, under appointment by Supreme Court, for defendant and appellant.

Thomas C. Lynch, Atty. Gen., William E. James, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Gordon Ringer, Deputy Atty. Gen., for plaintiff and respondent.

TRAYNOR, Chief Justice.

Defendant was convicted on thirteen counts of first degree robbery (Pen. Code, §§ 211, 211a), two counts of kidnaping for the purpose of robbery without bodily harm (Pen. Code, § 209), and one count of murder commited during one of the robberies (Pen. Code, § 189). The jury fixed the punishment at death on the murder count. The court sentenced defendant to prison for the term prescribed by law on the robbery and kidnaping counts and to death on the murder count. On a prior appeal, we affirmed the judgment on the issue of guilt but reversed on the issue of penalty. (People v. Treloar, 61 Cal.2d 544, 550, 39 Cal.Rptr. 386, 393 P.2d 698.) On retrial the jury again fixed the penalty at death. This appeal is automatic. (Pen. Code, § 1239, subd. (b).)

The facts with respect to the commission of the crimes were summarized in our former opinion and need not be repeated. (People v. Treloar, supra, 61 Cal.2d at pp. 545-546, 39 Cal.Rptr. 386, 393 P.2d 698.)

After he was arrested and taken to the police station, defendant was questioned intensively. Two complete confessions, in which he gave full details concerning the robberies and the murder, were solicited by the police and were introduced into evidence against him at the trial on the issue of guilt and at the subsequent penalty trials.

Confessions are not admissible if they were obtained when '(1) the investigation was no longer a general inquiry into an unsolved crime but had begun to focus on a particular suspect, (2) the suspect was in custody, (3) the authorities had carried out a process of interrogations that lent itself to eliciting incriminating statements, (4) the authorities had not effectively informed defendant of his right to counsel or of his absolute right to remain silent, and no evidence establishes that he had waived these rights.' (People v. Dorado, 62 Cal.2d 338, 353-354, 42 Cal.Rptr. 169, 179, 398 P.2d 361, 371; Escobedo v. State of Illinois, 378 U.S. 478, 84 S.Ct. 1758, 12 L.Ed.2d 977.) It is conceded that at no time was defendant advised of these rights before he gave the confessions. The confessions should therefore have been excluded.

In In re Spencer, 63 A.C. 418, 46 Cal.Rptr. 753, 406 P.2d 33, and People v. Polk, 63 A.C. 461, 47 Cal.Rptr. 1, 406 P.2d 641, we held that by virtue of Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U.S. 618, 622, footnote 5, 85 S.Ct. 1731, 14 L.Ed.2d 601, a defendant may invoke Escobedo to attack a final judgment on the issue of guilt in a subsequent proceeding relating to penalty, if the judgment on the issue of guilt was not final when Escobedo was decided and if the defendant had no opportunity to raise the constitutional issue at trial and on appeal. The judgment against defendant on the issue of guilt did not become final until 30 days after it was affirmed by this court on July 14, 1964, approximately three weeks after Escobedo was decided. Under the law applicable at the time the appeal was briefed and argued, no question could have been raised on Escobedo grounds. Defendant did not waive his Escobedo claims by failure of counsel to call the attention of this court to the significance of that case by supplemental brief or petition for rehearing in the few weeks between the decision in Escobedo and the time our judgment became final. Under the circumstances, defendant did not have a realistic opportunity to invoke the Escobedo case in his earlier appeal. There was not, therefore, such a deliberate bypassing of orderly state procedures as would justify a denial of collateral relief in the federal courts (see Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S. 391, 438, 439, 83 S.Ct. 822, 9 L.Ed.2d 837), and here, as in the Polk and Spencer cases, our practice on collateral attack compels the granting of relief.

Since the violation of Escobedo compels reversal of the judgment on the issue of guilt on all counts, ¹ the judgment on the issue of penalty must necessarily be reversed. ² Other questions remain that may arise on retrial.

At the retrial on the issue of penalty the prosecution introduced police testimony describing statements made by defendant before he was brought to the police station for booking. These statements were not offered at the trial on the issue of guilt, but they may be offered on a retrial of that issue.

Defendant was arrested in Los Angeles on March 27, 1962. As the arresting officer reached to disarm him, defendant exclaimed, 'You have the right man' and 'This is the gun I had.' These remarks will be referred to as defendant's first statement. In the police car, he initiated a conversation with one of the officers. He volunteered that had the police been a few minutes late in arresting him he would not have been caught, as he was planning to leave for South America. He asked how long Rivard, the murder victim, had lived. These remarks will be referred to as defendant's second statement. The officer replied and then asked, 'What happened to the guy (the victim) in Farah's bar?' Defendant responded that 'he tried to be a hero,' and, when requested to explain, continued, 'the guy wouldn't do what he was told.' These remarks will be referred to as the third statement.

These three statements are admissible. When they were made, three of the four conditions of Escobedo and Dorado necessary to attain the vital accusatory stage had been met, but the condition that the statements be the result of a 'process of interrogations that lends itself to eliciting incriminating statements' (People v. Stewart, 62 Cal.2d 571, 577, 43 Cal.Rptr. 201, 206, 400 P.2d 97, 102; People v. Dorado supra, 62 Cal.2d at p. 353, 42 Cal.Rptr. 169, 398 P.2d 361; Escobedo v. State of Illinois, supra, 378 U.S. at p. 491, 84 S.Ct. 1758) had not been met. The test whether a prohibited process of interrogations has been undertaken is objective. 'Whatever may be the subjective intent of the interrogators, we must * * * analyze the total situation which envelops the questioning by considering such factors as the length of the interrogation, the place and time of the interrogation, the nature of the questions, the conduct of the police and all other relevant circumstances.' (People v. Stewart, supra, at p. 579, 43 Cal.Rptr. at p. 206, 400 P.2d at p. 102.) As we explained in In re Lopez, 62 Cal.2d 368, 42 Cal.Rptr. 188, 398 P.2d 380, the United States Supreme Court in Escobedo 'sought to eliminate conditions which invited coerced confessions'; it 'sought primarily to prevent police tactics which, in the past, have spawned involuntary confessions.' (62 Cal.2d at pp. 372-373, 42 Cal.Rptr. at p. 191, 398 P.2d at p. 383.) In People v. Cotter, 63 A.C. 404, 46 Cal.Rptr. 622, 405 P.2d 862, we pointed out that an analysis of Escobedo, Dorado, and Stewart, supra, makes it clear that those cases were primarily aimed at preventing police officers from employing 'inquisitorial techniques in seeking to prove the charge against the accused out of his own mouth.' (63 A.C. at p. 412, 46 Cal.Rptr. at p. 626, 405 P.2d at p. 866.) The facts of the cases decided by this court that compelled reversal under Escobedo demonstrated that the police had attempted a process of sustained and accusatory inquiries, resulting in active, if sometimes subtle, pressure upon the accused to incriminate himself.

It is evident that defendant's first statement, made immediately upon his arrest, was entirely spontaneous and in no way elicited by the police. Defendant's second statement was also spontaneous. The third statement was given in response to an officer's question, but the circumstances under which the statement was made were unlike the 'total situation' in the Escobedo case and the cases following it in four crucial respects: (1) defendant had been in police custody for a few minutes only and was in the process of being promptly taken to the police station; (2) the questioning was initiated by defendant, and the statement was volunteered in response to a neutral inquiry invited by defendant's own remarks; (3) the conduct of the police was neither intimidating nor accusatory, nor did it appear in any way designed to elicit incriminating statements; (4) defendant had virtually confessed in his earlier statements. There was thus no inquisitorial pressure, subtle or blunt, asserted against defendant and designed 'to prove the charge against the accused out of his own mouth.' (People v. Cotter, supra, 63 A.C. at p. 412, 46 Cal.Rptr. at p. 626, 405 P.2d at p. 866.)

Other questions raised are not likely to arise on retrial.

The remittitur issued in Crim. No. 7352, People v. Treloar, 61 Cal.2d 544, 39 Cal.Rptr. 386, 393 P.2d 698, is recalled and the judgment of the Supreme Court of July 14, 1964, vacated. The judgment appealed from is reversed in its entirety.

PETERS, TOBRINER, and PEEK, JJ., concur.

SCHAUER, Justice* (dissenting).

Before we can tenably reach the result decreed by the majority a critical question appears to be: Do we have multiple causes before us or only a single 'entire cause'? The issue is critical because it is jurisdictional. Only if we view this case as presenting multiple 'causes' to be severally determined, each without benefit of the record in the other, can we find color of constitutional authority to reverse.

To begin with it is noted that the Supreme Court of California is a court of limited jurisdiction. The sole source of our relevant power is article VI of the state Constitution. That article measures the grant and defines its limits as follows: 'The ...