In People v. Aranda, the Supreme Court today holds that the California constitution’s double-jeopardy clause requires trial courts to accept a jury’s acquittal verdict on a charge even though the jury has hung on uncharged lesser included offenses. Accepting the partial verdict protects the defendant from being retried on the acquitted charge. In 2012, a 6-3 U.S. Supreme Court interpreted the federal constitution as having no such requirement.
The California court’s 6-1 opinion by Justice Carol Corrigan reiterates that the “’California Constitution is a document of independent force and effect that may be interpreted in a manner more protective of defendants’ rights than that extended by the federal Constitution, as construed by the United States Supreme Court.’”
Justice Ming Chin is a lone dissenter in the case. He says the case “presents a close question,” but he would not interpret the federal and California constitutions differently. Justice Chin relies on the principle that “there must be cogent reasons for a departure from a construction placed on a similar constitutional provision by the United States Supreme Court” and on the decisions of other states’ courts construing their constitutions the same as the federal constitution.
Just last week, the court found broader protection for defendants under a different provision of the state constitution than under its federal counterpart, holding misdemeanor defendants have a right to appointed counsel in prosecution appeals from the granting of an evidence suppression motion. Coincidentally, the week before, Berkeley Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky directly told the court that “we need state constitutions so as to protect individual liberties to advance equality.”
Aranda looked like it might be one of the cases that Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye had stated a while ago were “stuck” and on hold due to 3-3 ties on the shorthanded court during the long time it took to fill the vacancy caused by Justice Kathryn Werdegar’s retirement. The court had granted review in December 2013 and briefing was completed in June 2014. However, with only one dissenter today, the case likely was stuck for some reason other than a 3-3 split among the justices, a reason we will most likely never know.
The court affirms the Fourth District, Division Two, Court of Appeal.