“[T]he Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution and article I, section 17 of the California Constitution preclude punishment that is disproportionate to a defendant’s individual culpability.”
How later courts described this case
- “[T]he Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution and article I, section 17 of the California Constitution preclude punishment that is disproportionate to a defendant’s individual culpability.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
MOSK, J., Concurring and Dissenting.
I concur in the judgment.
I generally agree with the majority’s analysis. On two points, however, I must take a contrary position.
I cannot join in the majority’s dictum unnecessarily “question[ing] whether records stemming from [Sharon White Bear’s] voluntary treatment by . . . county therapists” at a county mental health center (maj. opn.,ante, at p. 518) are within the coverage of Pennsylvania v. Ritchie (1987) 480 U.S. 39 [ 94 L.Ed.2d 40 , 107 S.Ct. 989 ]. That decision applies broadly to the “government” (id. at p. 57 [ 94 L.Ed.2d at p. 57 ])—which obviously includes agencies such as that involved here.
Neither can I join in the majority’s conclusion brushing aside the serious question defendant has raised as to whether the standard instruction defining reasonable doubt derived from Penal Code section 1096 violates the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
I have long been convinced that the standard instruction is unnecessarily confusing, that it purports to define, at some length, a term—“reasonable doubt”—that numerous courts across the country have held to be self-explanatory.
In my concurring opinion in People v. Brigham (1979) 25 Cal.3d 283 [ 157 Cal.Rptr. 905 , 599 P.2d 100 ], I urged the Legislature to delete the definition and to return the law to the uncomplicated state that prevailed in the period from 1850 to 1927.
Since the Legislature has not seen fit to act, I believe it is time we intervened. We should not wait for the federal judiciary to grapple with the standard instruction’s potential constitutional infirmity.