BILL ANALYSIS
SB 469
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Date of Hearing: June 23, 1998
Counsel: Cassandra Knight
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SAFETY
Don Perata, Chair
SB 469 (Rainey) - As Amended: June 17, 1998
SUMMARY : Provides that in a multiple murder special circumstance
case, the jurisdiction for any of the murders charged is the
county that has jurisdiction for one or more of the murders as
long as the charged murders are "connected together in their
commission."
EXISTING LAW provides that:
1) "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the
right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the
State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed."
(Sixth Amendment, United States Constitution.)
2) When a public offense is committed in more than one
jurisdiction or the plan for the public offense occurs in more
than one jurisdiction, the jurisdiction of the offense is in any
of the counties where part of the offense occurred or was planned.
(Penal Code (PC) Section 781.)
3) The jurisdiction of a criminal action for murder or
manslaughter is in the county where the fatal injury was
inflicted, or the county in which the injured party died or in the
county in which his/her body was found. (PC Section 790.)
4) An accusatory pleading may charge two or more different
offenses connected together in their commission, or two or more
different offenses of the same class of crimes; and if two or more
pleadings are filed in such cases in the same court, the court may
order them to be consolidated. (PC Section 954.)
5) A special circumstance for murder in the first degree exists
when the defendant, in the same proceeding, has been convicted of
more than one offense of murder in the first or second degree,
punishable by death or imprisonment in the state prison for life
without the possibility of parole. (PC Section 190.2(a)(3).)
COMMENTS :
1) Author's Statement . According to the author, "Serial killers
who go on brutal killing rampages do so without consideration of
county lines. However, under current law, if a serial killer
commits murder in more than one county, he must be tried
separately in each jurisdiction. This results in astronomical and
unnecessary costs for both prosecutors and defendants. In
addition to the waste of public resources, it is unfair to
victims' families who must testify repeatedly about the same crime
in different trials.
SB 469
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"Senate Bill 469 would allow for the consolidation of murder
charges into a single trial for serial killers who are charged
with murder in more than one county as long as the murders are
connected in their commission. This bill would alleviate the
fiscal burden of redundant trials and lessen the emotional
strain on victims.
"Recent multiple-county murder defendants include 'The Freeway
Killer' (William Bonin), 'The Night Stalker' (Richard Ramirez),
and 'The Trailside Killer' (David Carpenter)."
2) Jurisdiction under this bill . Under existing law, if a series
of murders occurs, each murder must be tried in a county which
meets the jurisdiction requirements in PC sections 781 and 790.
This bill provides that if a defendant is charged with the
special circumstance of multiple murders, the jurisdiction for
the trial can be any of the counties which would have been the
proper jurisdiction for the trial of any of the murders.
3) Vicinage . The Sixth Amendment of the United States
Constitution guarantees a defendant the right to jury trial by
vicinage. The California Constitution does not contain an
explicit vicinage requirement, but nonetheless it has been
found to provide an independent guarantee of the right to a
jury drawn from the vicinage.
The concept of vicinage is distinct from the concept of venue.
While venue refers to the location where the trial is held,
vicinage refers to the area from which the jury pool is drawn.
(See People v. Guzman (1988) 45 Cal.3d 915, 934.)
"The concept of vicinage was interpreted so strictly at common
law that, where a crime was committed partly in one county and
partly in another, it was not prosecutable at all. The Sixth
Amendment provides greater flexibility; and statutes...have
broadened jurisdiction beyond the rigid common law limits."
(Witkin and Epstein, California Criminal Law 2d , Section 2643.)
In recent cases, the concept of vicinage has been broadly
interpreted to provide the right to a trial within a district
but not necessarily within a division of a district.
4) "Connected Together in Their Commission." The author noted
the argument that courts have interpreted the PC Section 954
phrase "connected together in their commission" to include
offenses that do not relate to the same transaction and were
committed at different times and places against different victims.
( People v. Poon (1981) 125 Cal.App.3d 55, 68.) However, the
California Supreme Court held that joinder of distinct offenses is
permissible only where there is "a common element of importance in
their commission." ( People v. Pike (1962) 58 Cal.2d 70.)
SB 469
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The author states that this bill invokes only the "connected
together in their commission" element of PC Section 954 and not
the "same class of crimes" element in an attempt to narrow the
application to appropriate multiple murder special circumstance
cases.
Under this bill, a defendant could meet the requirements
necessary to have all cases brought to one county, but the
charged cases still may not be suitable for joinder.
Therefore, there would be separate trials for each
offense even though the trials would be in the same county. Would
the author's objectives of saving money or sparing the witnesses
from testifying multiple times be met under this scenario?
The author states that existing law is very clear that even
where the statutory requirements for joinder are met, prejudice
to the defendant may require severance of the cases. "Refusal
to sever may be an abuse of discretion where: (1) evidence on
the crimes to be jointly tried would not be cross-admissible in
separate trials; (2) certain charges are unusually likely to
inflame the jury against the defendant; (3) a 'weak' case has
been joined with a 'strong' case or with another 'weak' case,
so that the spillover effect of aggregate evidence on several
charges might well alter the outcome of some or all of the
charges; and (4) any one of the charges carries the death
penalty or joinder of them turns the matter into a capital
case." ( People v. Bradford (1997) 15 Cal.4th 1229, 1315.)
The author argues this bill incorporates the case law of
joinder to accomplish the dual goals of judicial economy and
fairness to the defendant by consolidating multiple murder
special circumstance trials in one county where appropriate.
5) Senate Committee on Public Safety . After extensive hearings
by the Senate Committee on Public Safety, this bill was amended to
include language that the "jurisdiction for any charged
murder...shall be in any county that has jurisdiction...for one or
more of the charged murders if evidence of one or more of the
charged murders would be admissible in separate trials of the
other charged murders pursuant to subdivision (b) of Section 1101
of the Evidence Code."
In its current form, deleted from this bill is the language
from and reference to Evidence Code Section 1101(b). Now the
bill refers to charged murders that are "connected together in
their commission" as is found in PC Section 954.
6) Argument in Support . The Los Angeles County District
Attorney's Office writes, "[The] office has reviewed the proposed
amendment to SB 469.... In most, if not all, cases of murder, the
evidence which causes the murders to be "connected in their
commission" will also support an argument that some preliminary
planning activity or other overt acts occurred in the county where
the murders are being charged, thus overcoming a vicinage
objection. ( People v. Campbell (1991) 230 Cal.App.3d 1432, 1447.)
Viewed in this light, the amendment can be said to codify
SB 469
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existing case law allowing joinder of crimes committed in separate
counties."
7) Argument in Opposition . California Attorneys for Criminal
Justice writes, "Creating jurisdiction for any murder by a
defendant in a county where that same defendant is charged with
another murder is an expensive and unnecessary step that will, in
some cases, result in unfairness to the defendant. Prosecutors
should not be able to 'forum shop' to have a defendant tried for a
murder committed in one county in another county where the
prosecution believes it will be more likely to get a conviction,
or the death penalty. Moreover, allowing all of the trials to be
held in one county will in many cases result in enormous expense
to the state, as witnesses for both defense and prosecution will
have to be moved to and put up in the county of trial.
"Under existing law, multiple murder cases in different
counties are
subject to joinder where appropriate. We believe that existing
law provides appropriate protections for the interests of both the
defense and prosecution in these cases."
REGISTERED SUPPORT/OPPOSITION :
Support
California District Attorneys Association (Sponsor)
Attorney General's Office
Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office
California Peace Officers' Association
California Police Chiefs' Association
California State Sheriffs' Association
Doris Tate Crime Victims Bureau
Sherman Block, Sheriff of Los Angeles County
Arthur Danner III, District Attorney, Santa Cruz County
Bryan Brown, Supervising Deputy District Attorney, Orange County
Jerry R. Herman, District Attorney of Marin County
2 Private Citizens
Opposition
California Attorneys for Criminal Justice
American Civil Liberties Union
Analysis prepared by : Cassandra Knight / apubs / (916) 319-3744