Thursday, August 11, 2022

People v. Morelos (Cal. Supreme Ct. - Aug. 11, 2022)

The California Supreme Court affirms the conviction and death sentence in this case, in which the defendant represented himself (always unwise) and waived the right to a jury trial (almost always unwise in a capital case). Justice Liu dissents, and believes that the defendant was insufficiently informed about the nature of the right that he was giving up -- the right to a jury trial.

The underlying dispute basically involves how much the judge has to say in order to make sure that the waiver of the right to a jury is "knowing and intelligent" and hence valid. Here, the defendant was surely told -- on multiple occasions -- that he'd be giving up the right to a jury. But he wasn't told, for example, that the jury verdict would have to be unanimous or that he could participate in voir dire. Is that enough? It is for the majority, but not for Justice Liu. At least in a case in which the defendant represents himself.

I wonder if the solution here is to have an official "script" for these sort of things -- something like the Court did with Miranda warnings. We have pattern jury instructions, after all. It might be useful for the courts (or the Judicial Council) to actually spend some time and come up with a neat little "cheat sheet" that trial court judges can use for waivers like this. Sure, trial court judges can come up with their own, and undoubtedly some do. But it'd be nice if the warnings were both uniform and approved by the higher-ups. That way we could all know they're good. (Indeed, they could be even more prophylactic than the bare minimum; why not, after all?)