Lead Opinion
Opinion
Criminal defendants routinely file motions at the outset of their cases to suppress the evidence against them. When a judge grants such a motion, the prosecution may decide to dismiss the case and refile charges. But if the prosecution does refile such charges, Penal Code section 1538.5, subdivision (p)
What we hold is that although trial courts possess broad discretion to distribute business within their courts and make determinations concerning the availability of judges, that discretion must be exercised in a manner consistent with constraints imposed by section 1538.5(p). In light of the statute’s text, as well as its purpose of prohibiting prosecutorial forum shopping, the trial court’s disсretion should be exercised in accordance with the following understanding: A judge may be found unavailable for purposes of section 1538.5(p) only if the trial court, acting in good faith and taking reasonable steps, cannot arrange for that judge to hear the motion. The trial court must make its finding of unavailability on the record.
Because the trial court below did not take reasonable measures to ensure compliance with section 1538.5(p), we find an abuse of discretion. And because the resulting error was prejudicial, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeal and remand the case with directions that the Court of Appeal instruct the trial court to determine on the record whether the relevant judge is now available.
I. Background
On Lebruary 24, 2010, the People filed a complaint in Santa Clara County Superior Court charging defendant Adam Sergio Rodriguez with one count of
Rodriguez filed a renewed suppression motion in superior court on January 3, 2011, pursuant to section 1538.5(i), which permits a defendant who “was held to answer at the preliminary hearing” to “renew or make the motion [to suppress] at a special hearing relating to the validity of the search or seizure.” Judge Vincent Chiarello granted the renewed motion on May 2, 2011, finding that statements made by police outside Rodriguez’s home rendered any consent to search the premises involuntary. The suppressed evidence included images and video footage of child pornography obtained from Rodriguez’s desktop computer. Also inadmissible was a subsequent search warrant—a fruit of the initial encounter—that resulted in further forensic analysis of Rodriguez’s computer, as well as statements he made to police during the execution of that search warrant. The case was dismissed at the People’s request.
The People then filed a new complaint on July 11, 2011, alleging the same offenses. Rodriguez filed a motion to suppress, contending that the “Proper Venue for This Motion” was before Judge Chiarello pursuant to section 1538.5(p) because Judge Chiarello was the “same judge” who had granted Rodriguez’s previous motion. In conjunction with his suppression motion, Rodriguez also filed a “Request For Calendar Setting,” which asked that the motion be assigned to Judge Chiarello.
The People opposed assignment to Judge Chiarello. In a hearing before Presiding Judge Jerome Nadler, in San Jose, the court denied Rodriguez’s request to have Judge Chiarello hear this latest suppression motion. The cоurt explained its decision thus: “Well, counsel, I don’t agree with your interpretation that it needs to go back to Judge Chiarello by law. Furthermore, Judge Chiarello is not available to me any longer; he’s been transferred to another division, in Palo Alto.” Judge Nadler continued: “And judges are—mine is a limited jurisdiction Court—I hate to say it—and so departments make themselves available when they’re available to me, with the exception of Department 54, who’s Judge Del Pozzo, who’s assigned full time to my division, or to take Preliminary Examination matters. Everyone else volunteers for that assignment on an availability basis. [¶] So I’m not sure who’s going to be available on October 27th at 8:32 when this matter is set for Preliminary examination and now 1538.5. [¶] It will just have to go out to whatever Judge is available on that date.”
Dissatisfied with these rulings, Rodriguez filed a renewed motion to suppress pursuant to section 1538.5(i) on February 8, 2012, seeking review in superior court. Rodriguez sought to set aside Judge Zecher’s order holding him to answer and reiterated that Judge Chiarello should have heard the relitigated motion to suppress. This time, the People conceded the motion should have been heard by Judge Chiarello, not Judge Zecher, because “Judge Chiarello was available” even though “he had been transferred to another department of the Superior Court.” But according to the People, the appropriate vehicle for challenging Judge Zecher’s rulings was a section 995 motion. Rodriguez ultimately withdrew his motion after the trial court concluded a renewed motion to suppress under section 1538.5(i) was not the proper vehicle for setting aside Judge Zecher’s holding order.
Instead, Rodriguez moved on March 6, 2012, to set aside the information under section 995. He argued that because his motion to suppress had been heard by Judge Zecher—and not Judge Chiarello—he had been deprived of a substantial right, for which the proper remedy was to set aside the information. The People opposed the motion, asserting that Rodriguez’s decision to bring his motion to suppress in conjunction with the preliminary hearing— rather than waiting to bring the motion until after the hearing—removed the situation from the ambit of section 1538.5(p), which contains no requirement that the same judge preside over any subsequent preliminary hearing. Judge Linda Clark denied Rodriguez’s motion on March 28, 2012.
In so doing, however, Judge Clark invited Rodriguez to file yet another section 1538.5(i) motion to the extent he wanted review of Judge Zecher’s denial of the relitigated motion to suppress. Rodriguez did so. The People opposed the motion to suppress, which Judge Clark denied on April 25, 2012.
The Court of Appeal affirmed. At the outset, the Court of Appeal concluded that section 1538.5(p) grants the trial court discretion to determine whether a judge is available. The Court of Appeal then concluded that Judge Nadler’s “wholly discretionary” authority, as presiding judge, to assign motions to different superior court judges justified the conclusion that Judge Chiarello was not available because he was in Palo Alto hearing other matters.
Rodriguez petitioned this court, and we granted review.
II. Discussion
Trial courts operate according to norms that confer substantial discretion in the conduct of judicial business. (See Rutherford v. Owens-Illinois, Inc. (1997)
A. The Nature of Discretion
The parties agree that trial courts possess some amount of discretion to determine whether the same judge who granted a defendant’s previous motion to supprеss is available to hear the subsequent motion. What their disagreement concerns is whether any limits exist on that discretion, given the explicit language of section 1538.5(p). According to the People, the statute does not purport to limit a trial court’s broad discretion, typically exercised by a presiding judge, to make judicial assignments. Rodriguez, by contrast, argues that the trial court’s discretion is more circumscribed because the Legislature’s intended purpose in enacting the relevant portion of section 1538.5(p) was to prohibit prosecutorial forum shopping. As a result, Rodriguez maintains, the phrase “if the judge is available” should be construed as a narrow exception to the statute’s general rule that a subsequent suppression motion “shall be heard by the same judge” who granted the previous one.
As a matter of routine institutional practice, the authority to determine whether a particular judge is available resides with the trial court and its presiding judge. Section 1538.5(р) does not explicitly say as much. But its language is best understood to imply that someone must decide whether the sought-after judge is indeed available. And even a rudimentary survey of the relevant institutional rules would suggest that trial courts—more specifically, their presiding judges—should be the ones making the availability determination as part of their statutorily prescribed responsibility to distribute business
The proceedings below aptly illustrate this norm. Rodriguez, invoking his statutory right under section 1538.5(p), requested that Judge Chiarello be assigned to hear his relitigated suppression motion. That request was entertained by Judge Nadler, who then, as presiding judge, made the determination that Judge Chiarello was not available to hear Rodriguеz’s motion because he was in Palo Alto for a sentencing calendar. This chain of events generally comports with how we expect a criminal defendant would request that a trial court honor his or her section 1538.5(p) right. (See Beck v. Superior Court (1942)
Such requests arise against the backdrop of trial courts’ institutional decisions to allocate work in accordance with an eclectic range of constraints as well as concerns. Given the existence of different trial courts with different needs—in some counties, involving dozens of judges and multiple locations—we have emphasized the need for courts to have particularly broad discretion in the exercise of such managerial functions. (See Anderson, supra,
What these examples indicate is that the authority to determine whether a particular judge is available does not plainly fall into a category of unconstrained trial court discretion, assuming such a category even exists. (See Black’s Law Dict. (10th ed. 2014) p. 565, col. 2 [defining “discretion” as, inter alia, “[w]ise conduct and management exercised without constraint . . .” (italics added)].) Rather, courts’ discretion to administer their business, in light of the right that section 1538.5(p) affords, is more akin to “judicial discretion,” which we have long emphasized is subject to appropriate legal constraints. (See Bailey v. Taaffe (1866)
B. Discretion in Section 1538.5(p)
Where, as here, a specific statute affects the extent and nature of a trial court’s discretion, we examine a trial court’s actions in light of the specific law bearing on that discretion. (See Sargon Enterprises, Inc. v. University of Southern California (2012)
Far from being mutually exclusive, then, discretion and statutory commands must often coexist. So our analysis in this case implicates more than the aforementioned norm vesting trial courts with substantial managerial discretion, and the strong case for deference in matters implicating judicial
We interpret that section by starting, as we must in all problems of statutory interpretation, with its text. (See, e.g., People v. Cottle (2006)
Any reasonable reading of section 1538.5 would recognize that the statute’s purpose—as reflected in its text—includes taking account of the practical constraints that would necessarily affect, and to some extent justify, trial court discretion. Such a reading would also recognize the importance that subdivision (p) appears to have in the broader structure of section 1538.5, which singles out for special treatment suppression motions arising in cases where charges are dismissed and refiled following a successful suppression motion. But the statute itself does not settle the precise scope of those constraints by providing a definition of the term “available.” Nor does it describe what considerations should guide a court’s determination of whether a judge is or is not available. So the term’s ordinary meaning is instructive. (See Cacho v. Boudreau (2007)
Rodriguez would take these definitions to mean that trial courts possess only a sliver of discretion in this context. A judge is unavailable for purposes of section 1538.5(p), contends Rodriguez, “if and only if that judge is no longer a judge of the court, due for example to death or retirement, or if the
But what must be true about a statutory term such as ‘“available,” at least under any plausible interpretive approach, is that in this context the term has some underlying content. And that content is difficult to reconcile with a conclusion that the trial court’s discretion in this arena is enhrely unconstrained. In other contexts, we have suggested that statutory terms related to a judge’s availability indeed function as a constraint of sorts. (See Francis v. Superior Court (1935)
No such risk was at issue in Anderson. As explained above, we considered in that case whether a writ of mandate could lie to compel a presiding judge to assign judicial duties pursuant to Government Code section 69508. (Anderson, supra, 13 Cal.3d at pp. 735-737.) In finding the writ could lie, we nonetheless observed that the presiding judge’s authority to “ ‘distribute the business of the court among the judges’ ” and to “ ‘prescribe the order of
To the extent the meaning of “available” in section 1538.5(p) remains unclear—even after taking into account the word’s ordinary meaning, the cases in which we have found discretion to be constrained by statutory terms, and the fact that no other statutory provisions dilute its importance—an analysis of the legislative history further bolsters the case for interpreting the statute in a manner that gives some effect to that term. We previously described this history in Jimenez, supra, 28 Cal.4th at pages 805-808, and we do so again here. (See also Barnes v. Superior Court (2002)
The sequence of events that led to the enactment of sеction 1538.5(p) appears to have begun with our decision in Schlick v. Superior Court (1992)
In response to Schlick, the Legislature amended section 1538.5 in 1993 by revising subdivision (j) and adding subdivision (p). (Stats. 1993, ch. 761, § 2, pp. 4248, 4251-4252.) Section 1538.5(j) now provides that if a suppression motion is granted either at the preliminary hearing or in the superior court, resulting in dismissal of the action, the prosecution may refile the action, and the previous suppression ruling “shall not be binding in any subsequent proceeding, except as limited by subdivision (p).” At the same time, the Legislature added subdivision (p), which, as relevant here, provides: “Reliti-gation of the motion shall be heard by the same judge who granted the motion at the first hearing if the judge is available.”
It was the Los Angeles County District Attorney (the District Attorney) that lobbied for Senate Bill No. 933 (1993-1994 Reg. Sess.), which resulted in
The result was Senate Bill No. 933 (1993-1994 Reg. Sess.). But when introduced, the bill had no provision governing which judge should hear relitigated suppression motions. (Jimenez, supra,
The bill was soon amended yet again. Included in the amended version was language modifying proposed section 1538.5(p) to direct that the judge who granted the earlier suppression motion shall hear the relitigated motion if that judge is available. (Sen. Bill No. 933 (1993-1994 Reg. Sess.) as amended Aug. 16, 1993.) With that language added, the bill passed both houses and was prepared for executive signature. In his cover letter to the Governor, the bill’s sponsor explained that “[Senate Bill No. 933] prohibits ‘forum shopping’ by requiring that all search and seizure motions in a case be heard by
This legislative history makes even clearer what can be inferred from a close analysis of the statute’s text and structure: that the Legislature’s purpose in enacting section 1538.5(p)’s same judge rule was to prohibit prosecutors from engaging in forum shopping—or, more specifically, judge shopping. (See Jimenez, supra,
The same judge rule also serves a related institutional purpose: It ensures that prosecutors will have to make their renewed case before a judge already familiar with the relevant facts and, more importantly, the bases for the original grant. That judge is in the best position to weigh whatever new evidence or arguments the People have brought to bear and test those against his or hеr reasons for granting the previous motion to suppress. (Cf. Francis, supra,
C. Reasonable, Good Faith Measures
In light of these purposes and how they were embodied in the statute, we generally agree with Rodriguez’s interpretation. Although trial courts have discretion to determine whether a judge is available within the meaning of section 1538.5(p), that discretion must be meaningfully cabined to protect the statutory right of every defendant, if possible, to have the same judge decide any relitigated suppression motion. To that end, we find that mere inconvenience is not sufficient to render a judge unavailable for purposes of section
This is not to say that reviewing courts are now free to second-guess judgment calls that are better left to the trial courts. Trial courts have considerable discretion to administer their logistical affairs, and rightly so: lodged in trial courts is likely the contextual knowledge and motivation to deploy judicial resources effectively, and to learn over time. But to adequately protect a defendant’s statutory right under section 1538.5(p), we hold that a trial court must take reasonable steps in good faith to ensure that the same judge who granted the previous suppression motion is assigned to hear the relitigated motion. Only if the trial court has done so may it make a finding of unavailability. And the trial court must make such a finding on the record, so appellate review proves meaningful. (See People v. Lewis and Oliver (2006)
This standard strikes an appropriate balance: it reflects the importance of the statute’s provisions and purpose, while taking account of the sensible reasons for preserving trial courts’ discretion. (Cf. Francis, supra,
This standard is also in line with our previous holdings. In Arbuckle, the defendant pleaded guilty to assault with a deadly weapon pursuant to a plea
Here, as in Arbuckle, a showing of more than mere inconvenience is necessary before a judge can be deemed unavailable. In fact, section 1538.5(p) cases command at least as great a showing of impracticability. This is so because, unlike the defendant in Arbuckle, Rodriguez has no alternative remedy at his disposal. Nothing quite compares, in this case, to allowing a defendant’s withdrawal of his or her guilty plea. If the same judge does not hear Rodriguez’s relitigated suppression motion, it will be heard by another, just as the People intended below.
Permitting a different judge to hear the suppression motion despite the text of section 1538.5(p)—and without a demonstrated showing of reasonable, good faith measures taken—would risk rendering the statute’s same judge rule a dead letter. In Jimenez, we considered whether the People could make a judge unavailable to hear a relitigated suppression motion by disqualifying that judge pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 170.6, which allows a party to peremptorily challenge a judge on the basis of prejudice. (Jimenez, supra,
The same is true here. Although it was the trial court in this case, not the People, that concluded Judge Chiarello was unavailable by virtue of his assignment to the Palo Alto courthouse, the People repeatedly opposed Rodriguez’s requests for Judge Chiarello to hear his subsequent motion to
The Court of Appeal’s decision in People v. Roberts (2010)
Here, by contrast, section 1538.5(p)’s requirement that a subsequent suppression motion be heard by the same judge who granted the previous motion plays a critical role in the statutory scheme. That is the very statutory scheme that abrogated Schlick by allowing prosecutors to dismiss a case, refile it, and then relitigate anew any subsequently filed motion to suppress. The same judge rule was adopted precisely because of concerns that this new scheme would also permit prosecutors to forum shop. To guard against that ill, the Legislature inserted the same judge requirement in section 1538.5(p). (Jimenez, supra, 28 Cal.4th at pp. 807-808.) Unlike in this case, moreover, the main purpose of the wiretap statute at issue in Roberts—to “limit[] unnecessary interception of wire and oral communications” (Roberts, supra,
D. Abuse of Discretion
Applying our rule to the facts here, we conclude that the trial court abused its discretion.
The ineluctable realities of life sometimes mean that the judge designated by statute to hear a suppression motion has died, retired, resigned, or lacks the capacity to undertake his or her duty. This is not such a case. (Cf. Telefilm, Inc. v. Superior Court (1949)
What happened instead is Rodriguez properly requested that Judge Chiarello be assigned to hear the relitigated suppression motion, and Judge Nadler, the presiding judge, denied the request without taking reаsonable steps to comply with section 1538.5(p). In October 2011, Judge Nadler indicated that he did not agree the motion needed to be heard by Judge Chiarello, and that, in any event, Judge Chiarello was unavailable because he had been transferred to another division up the road in Palo Alto. The record does not show Judge Nadler ever attempted to contact Judge Chiarello, or that he inquired as to when Judge Chiarello might be available to hear Rodriguez’s motion. This failure to take reasonable measures to honor Rodriguez’s statutory right was an abuse of discretion.
Rodriguez contends that this error was prejudicial because the same facts were presented in the second case as were presented to Judge Chiarello in the first case, and “[t]here is no reason to suppose that Judge Chiarello would have analyzed them any differently the second time he heard the suppression motion than he did the first time.” The People do not dispute that the same facts were presented in each case. What they assert instead is that the second judge “reasonably denied the defense motion to suppress evidence,” citing only the conclusion of the Court of Appeal that substantial evidence supported the second judge’s finding of voluntary consent to the search.
But the fact that substantial evidence could conceivably support the second judge’s conclusion that consent was lawfully obtained does not imply that Judge Chiarello would have altered his interpretation of the circumstances in which the officers entered the home and took Rodriguez’s computer. Nor does it establish that Judge Chiarello’s ruling, based on his interpretation of the evidence, was erroneous. Indeed, the justification underlying section 1538.5(p) is the value of consistency in this very context: the same judge who granted the previous suppression motion must hear the relitigated motion because it is that judge who is best suited to weigh whatevеr new evidence or arguments the prosecution has brought to bear and test those against his or her reasons for granting the prior motion. We risk undermining precisely the statutory scheme we are charged with interpreting by trying to reconstruct, in the abstract, what Judge Chiarello might have done if presented with the same evidence and arguments the prosecution offered to the second judge.
So we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeal. We remand the case with directions that the Court of Appeal instruct the trial court to determine, on the record, whether Judge Chiarello is now available to hear Rodriguez’s relitigated suppression motion. And if Judge Chiarello is available, section 1538.5(p) requires that he hear the motion.
III. Conclusion
The same judge requirement in section 1538.5(p) does not eliminate an important measure of discretion vested in the trial court and its presiding judge to handle matters of judicial availability. Yet because judicial discretion and statutory commands routinely coexist, trial courts must use that discretion to determine whether a judge is available within the meaning of section 1538.5(p) only in accordance with the constraints imposed by the statute’s text and purpose. Before a trial court (or its presiding judge) can declare a judge unavailable, it must take reasonable, good faith measures to ensure that the same judge who granted the previous suppression motion is assigned to hear the relitigated motion. Any finding of unavailability must also be made on the record. The trial court’s failure to meet that standard constituted prejudicial error.
We reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeal and remand the case with directions that the Court of Appeal instruct the trial court to determine on the record, consistent with our analysis here, whether Judge Chiarello is now available to hear Rodriguez’s relitigated suppression motion.
Notes
Subsequent unlabeled statutory references are to the Penal Code, and subsequent textual references to section 1538.5’s subdivisions shall take the following form: section 1538.5(a), section 1538.5(p), etc.
The Palo Alto courthouse is about 15 miles from San Jose.
Although the requirement that a subsequent suppression motion be heard by the same judge who granted the previous motion appears in a subdivision that also addresses third suppression motions, courts have held that the requirement applies to sеcond suppression motions as well. (See Soil v. Superior Court (1997)
Although we may only draw limited inferences from an individual legislator’s letter, we have considered letters expressing the views of a bill’s sponsor to the Governor, where those views are fully consistent with the statutory language and purpose. (See Larkin v. Workers’ Comp. Appeals Bd. (2015)
If a defendant immediately seeks review by writ of a trial court’s decision not to send a relitigated suppression motion to the judge who granted the previous one, the only issue will be whether the record establishes that the trial court took reasonable steps in good faith to ensure the same judge heard the relitigated motion. The defendant will not be required to establish a reasonable probability that the original judge would grant the suppression motion a second time. Prompt resolution of the issue by writ review may prevent the waste of resources on a trial that results in a judgment that must be reversed, as occurred in this case.
Concurrence Opinion
Concurring.—I concur in the judgment and join in the court’s conclusion that a presiding judge must take reasonable steps in good faith to ensure that the same judge who granted an earlier suppression motion is assigned to hear the relitigated suppression motion. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 691.) However, I disagree with two aspects of the majority’s analysis.
The majority states that cases involving the “same judge” rule of Penal Code section 1538.5, subdivision (p) (section 1538.5(p)), “command at least as great a showing of impracticability” as was required in People v. Arbuckle (1978)
To be sure, we can conclude that a judge’s transfer to another division of a superior court should not thwart a defendant’s statutory right to have the same judge hear his relitigated suppression motion. However, the suggestion that an equal or greater degree of impracticability must be shown in these cases than in Arbuckle is perplexing, because we did not find in Arbuckle that any degree of impracticability would excuse a presiding judgе’s assignment of a sentencing hearing to a different judge.
The majority also compares the district attorney’s action here to that of the prosecution in People v. Superior Court (Jimenez) (2002)
With those reservations, I join the majority.