In People v. Hendrix, the Supreme Court today addresses only one of two issues before it in holding a burglary conviction must be reversed because of instructional error. The jury was told that, to prevent a guilty verdict, a mistake of fact must be “reasonable,” but the court concluded, “it was enough if [the mistake] was genuinely held.” The Attorney General conceded the error, but claimed a lack of prejudice. The court held the instructional error was not harmless, but it declined to decide which of two standards of review was appropriate for the analysis.
After granting review, the court limited the issues to be briefed and argued to: “Did the Court of Appeal err in holding an instructional error on the defense of mistake of fact harmless? In the circumstances of this case, which standard of prejudice applies to an error in instructing on the defense of mistake of fact: that of People v. Watson (1956) 46 Cal.2d 818 or that of Chapman v. California (1967) 386 U.S. 18?”
The court’s unanimous opinion by Justice Leondra Kruger said it wasn’t necessary to determine the applicability of the Chapman harmless-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard, which is used to “ ‘evaluate the harmlessness of violations of the federal Constitution,’ ” because the error in the case before the court was prejudicial under the more lenient Watson test, which requires reversal “if ‘it is reasonably probable that a result more favorable to the appealing party would have been reached in the absence of the error.’ ”
The opinion is not just a relatively insignificant, fact-specific application of the Watson harmless error rule, however. The court also holds for the first time — in agreement with some Court of Appeal cases — that “a hung jury, [and not only] an acquittal, is a ‘more favorable’ [citation] outcome for purposes of harmless error review under Watson.”
The court reversed a divided Second District, Division Six, Court of Appeal published opinion. It said the appellate court “leaned heavily on its own view of the facts, rather than focusing its analysis on the error’s likely effect on the jury’s consideration of those facts.”
Related:
Chief Justice: the court narrows its opinions “because we realize we don’t need to speak so broadly”