People v. Reese

121 Cal. App. 3d 606, 175 Cal. Rptr. 214, 1981 Cal. App. LEXIS 1964
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedJune 5, 1981
DocketCrim. 11698
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 121 Cal. App. 3d 606 (People v. Reese) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Reese, 121 Cal. App. 3d 606, 175 Cal. Rptr. 214, 1981 Cal. App. LEXIS 1964 (Cal. Ct. App. 1981).

Opinion

Opinion

LANGFORD, J. *

Claude Lee Reese appeals from a judgment of conviction of one count of rape (Pen. Code,* 1 § 261) and one count of first degree burglary (§ 459). He was sentenced to state prison for the middle term of six years for the rape. The burglary sentence was stayed pursuant to section 654. He contends receipt of evidence of a voice lineup violated his right to counsel at that lineup in violation of the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and article I, section 15 of the California Constitution, and that the trial court’s rejection of defense scientific evidence was based on reasons inconsistent with the evidence.

On August 28, 1979, Valerie was raped in her home. She saw only her assailant’s hand, which was black, but she heard his voice. The next morning she recalled the voice as being that of defendant Claude Lee Reese, a patient at a psychiatric board and care facility where she had worked. Reese was a patient between July 1977 and September 1978 for a period of one or two months before running away. Valerie had encountered him again at the hospital in June or July 1979.

On the afternoon of August 31, 1979, while the police were still looking for Reese, she encountered him on the street. She saw him jumping up and down and heard him say in a mocking tone of voice, “he attacked me.”

*610 Reese was arrested on August 31. On September 4 the complaint was filed. On September 5 Valerie identified defendant Reese’s voice in a voice lineup at which she did not see the participants. Reese was arraigned on the complaint on September 6, 1979.

During the noon recess of the trial on January 3, 1980, a deputy heard Reese raising a ruckus in his cell. He was singing, yelling and screaming, yelling at people who were not there. At some points he would scream to God asking God for help. When the deputy told Reese to be quiet, he stated that he. had “raped that white woman.” 2

The defense called the police department criminalist and a private expert on the same subject. Valerie is a type A secreter, while Reese is a type B secreter. Secreters’ body fluids can be typed according to their blood type. Swabs from Valerie’s vagina indicated type A, but not type B. In view of the amount of semen shown by a phosphatase test he ran, the private expert would be surprised not to find type B, if Valerie had had intercourse with a type B secreter. The police expert was not surprised, attributing the absence of type B to insufficient semen or the masking effect of the type A fluids. The trial judge accepted the police criminalist’s conclusion, relying in part on, “the long experience of 2,000 cases that have been investigated.” There was no evidence in the record 2,000 cases had been investigated.

The starting point of our consideration of the question of Reese’s right to counsel at the voice lineup is the holding in Kirby v. Illinois (1972) 406 U.S. 682 [32 L.Ed.2d 411, 92 S.Ct. 1877], that the right to counsel at pretrial lineup afforded in United States v. Wade (1967) 388 U.S. 218 [18 L.Ed. 2d 1149, 87 S.Ct. 1926] and Gilbert v. California (1967) 388 U.S. 263 [18 L.Ed.2d 1178, 87 S.Ct. 1951], is limited to lineups conducted after the initiation of judicial criminal proceedings. Although in Kirby, at page 689 [32 L.Ed.2d at page 417], the court had referred to the “initiation of adversary judicial criminal proceedings—whether by way of formal charge, preliminary hearing, indictment, information or arraignment,” the Kirby decision was widely interpreted as limiting the right to counsel in postindictment lineups. In Moore v. Illinois (1977) 434 U.S. 220 [54 L.Ed.2d 424, 98 S.Ct. 458], the United States Supreme Court rejected that interpretation, saying, at page 228 [54 L.Ed.2d at page 433]: “Such a reading cannot be *611 squared with Kirby itself, which held that an accused’s rights under Wade and Gilbert attach to identifications conducted ‘at or after the initiation of adversary judicial criminal proceedings,’ including proceedings instituted ‘by way of formal charge [or] preliminary hearing.’ 406 U.S., at 689. The prosecution in this case was commenced under Illinois law when the victim’s complaint was filed in court. See Ill. Rev. Stat., ch. 38, § 111 (1975).”

Illinois Statutes, chapter 38, section 111-1, provides: “When authorized by law a prosecution may be commenced by: (a) a complaint; (b) an information; (c) an indictment.” Section 111-2 provides, inter alia, that all prosecutions of felonies shall be by information or indictment, and that no prosecution may proceed by information unless a preliminary hearing has been held or waived. All other prosecutions may be by indictment, information or complaint.

California Penal Code section 691, subdivision 4, contains the following definition: “The words ‘accusatory pleading’ include an indictment, an information, an accusation, a complaint filed with a magistrate charging a public offense of which the superior court has original trial jurisdiction, and a complaint filed with an inferior court charging a public offense of which such inferior court has original trial jurisdiction.”

Section 738 provides: “Before an information is filed there must be a preliminary examination of the case against the defendant and an order holding him to answer made under Section 872. The proceeding for a preliminary examination must be commenced by a written complaint, as provided elsewhere in this code.” (Italics added.)

The California procedure is indistinguishable from the Illinois process considered by the Supreme Court in Moore. The filing of a felony complaint in California starts the criminal proceeding, just as the United States Supreme Court held it did in Illinois.

The enumeration in Kirby and Moore of events which will start a criminal prosecution is in the disjunctive. The return of an indictment or the filing of an information invokes the right to counsel, even before the defendant is arraigned. The filing of any other accusatory pleading, as defined in section 691, subdivision 4, has the same effect. If an arraignment occurs before the filing of charges, that event will invoke the right.

*612 The use of arraignment as the starting point of a criminal prosecution would invite additional problems exemplified by People v. Williams (1977) 68 Cal.App.3d 36 [137 Cal.Rptr. 70], and the case at bench. In People v. Powell (1967) 67 Cal.2d 32, 59 [59 Cal.Rptr.

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Bluebook (online)
121 Cal. App. 3d 606, 175 Cal. Rptr. 214, 1981 Cal. App. LEXIS 1964, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-reese-calctapp-1981.