# People v. Frierson

> California Supreme Court · August 31, 1979 · 25 Cal. 3d 142

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9629260

## Case

- **Full name:** The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. LAVELLE FRIERSON, Defendant and Appellant; In Re LAVELLE FRIERSON on Habeas Corpus
- **Court:** California Supreme Court
- **Decided:** August 31, 1979
- **Citations:** 25 Cal. 3d 142; 158 Cal. Rptr. 281; 599 P.2d 587; 1979 Cal. LEXIS 302
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Tobriner
- **Judges:** Tobriner, Richardson, Mosk, Bird
- **Cited by:** 268 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9629260

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that even though defendant was rational and appeared to be without mental abnormalities, and even though killings appeared to be deliberate, counsel was prejudicially ineffective for failing to investigate evidence that defendant was impaired on day of murders
- noting that “our statute does not require the sentencing authority to expressly find ... that the aggravating circumstances in fact outweigh the mitigating circumstances,” a requirement only added in 1978

## Opinion text

TOBRINER, J.
I concur in section 2 of Justice Richardson’s opinion, which concludes that defendant’s conviction must be reversed because of the failure of his trial counsel to render constitutionally adequate representation. Accordingly, I concur in the judgment reversing defendant’s conviction and granting the writ of habeas corpus.
Although three of my colleagues have deemed it appropriate to speak at this time to some of the constitutional questions presented by the 1977 death penalty statute, I join with the Chief Justice and Justices Mosk and Newman in abstaining from reaching those issues. In my view our court should await a case in which a defendant actually faces execution under the 1977 law before addressing the basic constitutional questions raised by that enactment. The awesome question of whether a defendant will live or die should be framed in concrete, not abstract, terms; the decision must be reached with the realization that it will result in the designed death of an individual man or woman who stands before the court. Therefore, I do not concur in any portion of section 5 of Justice Richardson’s opinion.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9629260. Public record. Not legal advice.