# In Re Seaton

> California Supreme Court · September 29, 2004 · 17 Cal. Rptr. 3d 633

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9788628

## Case

- **Full name:** In Re RONALD HAROLD SEATON on Habeas Corpus
- **Court:** California Supreme Court
- **Decided:** September 29, 2004
- **Citations:** 17 Cal. Rptr. 3d 633; 34 Cal. 4th 193; 95 P.3d 896
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Werdegar
- **Judges:** Kennard, Werdegar, Brown
- **Cited by:** 91 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/9788628

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- explaining that a state court may bar habeas claims under either California’s rule requiring a timely objection at trial or the Dixon bar, if both could apply

## Opinion text

WERDEGAR, J., Concurring.
I concur in the judgment. I see no need, however, to announce today that the newly created procedural bar will apply even to “claims of constitutional error that are ‘clear and fundamental, and strike[] at the heart of the trial process.’ ” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 199, quoting In re Harris (1993) 5 Cal.4th 813, 834 [ 21 Cal.Rptr.2d 373 , 855 P.2d 391 ].) The majority does not assert that any of petitioner’s claims meets that high standard. Indeed, as the majority explains, each of petitioner’s claims ultimately lacks merit, either because he has failed to state a claim or because he has failed to show prejudice. Accordingly, I would postpone consideration of exceptions until presented with a conviction in which the new rule’s application threatens a miscarriage of justice. (Cf. Harris, supra, at pp. 825-826, 831, 833-834 .) To announce that a new rule will have no exceptions is far too easy when the facts of the case at hand do not offer a serious test of the rule’s fairness and wisdom.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9788628. Public record. Not legal advice.