Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
Super. Ct. Nos. 04F6567, 06F11120
CANTIL-SAKAUYE, J.
A jury convicted defendant Gordon James Wright in case No. 04F6567 of transporting methamphetamine (Health & Saf. Code, § 11379, subd. (a)), possessing methamphetamine for sale (§ 11378), possessing drug paraphernalia (§ 11364, a misdemeanor), and possessing less than 28.5 grams of marijuana, a misdemeanor (§ 11357, subd. (b)). It found defendant not guilty of being under the influence of a controlled substance (§ 11550, subd. (a)), and the court declared a mistrial when the jury could not reach a verdict on the charge of driving under the influence of drugs (Veh. Code, § 23152, subd. (a)). The court found true the special allegations regarding prior drug-related convictions (§ 11370.2, subd. (c)) and a prior prison term (Pen. Code, § 667.5, subd. (b)).
Hereafter, undesignated statutory references are to the Health and Safety Code.
In case No. 06F11120, defendant pled guilty to one count of failure to appear in case No. 04F6567 (Pen. Code, § 1320.5) and admitted the “on-bail” enhancement (Pen. Code, § 12022.1). The parties agreed to dismiss other felony and misdemeanor charges pending against defendant including case No. 04F7290. The court sentenced defendant to an aggregate term of 15 years and eight months in case Nos. 04F6567 and 06F11120.
On appeal, defendant challenges the court’s refusal to consider a negotiated plea on the second day of trial. He also argues that the court violated his Sixth Amendment right to counsel when it consulted the presiding judge outside the presence of defendant and his attorney. We shall affirm the judgment.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
Case No. 04F6567
On September 8, 2004, the Shasta Interagency Narcotics Task Force searched an apartment in Anderson, California. Defendant pulled into a parking space next to where Detective Joseph Jones was watching for the targeted parolee to return. Jones made contact with defendant and suspected that he was under the influence of a controlled substance. Agent Dan Callahan from the Department of Justice, Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement, also questioned defendant and arrested him for driving under the influence. A search of defendant and his car incident to the arrest revealed $1,739 in cash, .26 grams of methamphetamine, pay/owe sheets, syringes, and marijuana.
After defendant waived preliminary hearing, the prosecutor extended a seven-year state prison offer until the settlement conference. After the settlement conference was vacated the offer remained open until January 6, 2006, the trial readiness conference. The court ordered defendant, who was on bail in case No. 04F6567, to appear on January 6, 2006, but he failed to do so. The court issued a bench warrant.
Case No. 06F11120
On December 20, 2006, defendant appeared in court for arraignment on charges stemming from his failure to appear.
Trial Proceedings On Case No. 04F6567
At the readiness conference held on Friday, December 29, 2006, the prosecution and defense declared that they were ready to proceed. Judge Ruggiero assigned case No. 04F6567 for trial before Judge Jahr the following Wednesday, January 3, 2007.
On the first day of trial, the prosecutor moved to consolidate trial of case No. 04F6567 with a pending case No. 04F7290. He represented that in the latter case, police had arrested defendant on July 31, 2004, for possession of methamphetamine for sale, transportation of methamphetamine and driving under the influence, after they responded to a single vehicle accident in Redding. The prosecutor argued that the court should consolidate the cases in the interests of justice and judicial economy because both involved the same class of offenses. However, defense counsel had learned only the day before that as to case No. 04F7290 a potential prosecution witness named Chad Mullenary had been arrested 10 days earlier for spousal abuse. The report indicated that Mullenary offered to provide information about his victim, a marijuana dealer, in exchange for a deal. Although the prosecution indicated that it did not intend to call Mullenary as a witness, the defense requested a continuance to explore the possibility of calling Mullenary, then impeaching him.
The court denied the prosecution motion to consolidate and the defense request for a continuance. Acknowledging that defense counsel knew nothing about the problem with Mullenary at the time of the readiness conference, the court nonetheless lectured counsel about the court’s pretrial policy designed to assist case management by avoiding last-minute problems. The court continued, “And we have an understanding that the last opportunity to settle a case is on the trial readiness calendar, the Friday before the -- the week of trial with two important caveats. And that is, if new circumstances arose that were unknown or unknowable as of the trial readiness and would otherwise warrant a different disposition or a continuance, those certainly would be considered afresh on the day of trial, be they unknown or unknowable.” The court reminded counsel that “everybody knew the potentials” and still confirmed that they were ready to proceed in case No. 04F6567. Following the court’s ruling, the parties proceeded with the remaining pre-trial motions and began jury selection.
The Superior Court of Shasta County, Local Rules, rule 7.05(C) provides: “All cases shall be settled as soon as reasonably practicable. The home court judge may set cut-off dates for accepting negotiated dispositions.”
When court convened the following morning, defense counsel announced that he and the prosecutor had reached an agreed disposition of 12 years. He continued, “I don’t know where the Court’s at on that.”
The court indicated that it could not accept the negotiated plea unless there were “articulable circumstances that were not known or knowable at the time of the trial readiness conference.” Defense counsel cited witness Mullenary as the change of circumstance. The court responded, “as you folks are aware, we have a process by which we consult with the home court judge from which the case came” in deciding whether to accept a plea in this circumstance. After making the call, the court reported to counsel: “I have conferred with Judge Ruggerio [sic] and we have reached a consensus that the circumstances that counsel have articulated don’t constitute that kind of change in circumstances insofar as known or knowable circumstances are concerned that would warrant consideration of a settlement offer at this juncture. [¶] Plainly, Counsel and parties, the Court can accept dismissals of actions, the Court can accept unqualified pleas to one or more actions per our protocols at any time after the trial readiness conference has occurred. And you’re welcome to confer with one another about those kinds of things and alert the Court if there’s any progress in that regard. [¶] But as far as a specific disposition goes of the kind that you’ve related, the circumstances that have arisen since the time of the trial readiness conference were, in Judge Ruggerio’s [sic] and my view, not those that would arise [sic] to that occasion.”
Jury selection continued.
DISCUSSION
I.
The Court Properly Refused To Consider the Negotiated Plea
Defendant notes that not all counties have local rules that limit acceptance of negotiated pleas after the readiness conference (see People v. Cobb (1983) 139 Cal.App.3d 578, 581 (Cobb)), and argues that the trial court’s refusal to accept his negotiated plea on the second day of trial deprived him of the right to equal protection under the law and constituted an abuse of discretion. There is no merit in defendant’s arguments.
A. Equal Protection
Defendant takes his equal protection argument from the dissent in Cobb, which the majority properly rejected. (139 Cal.App.3d at pp. 586-587, 591-593.) Defendant’s claim of error is based on the faulty premise that he has a right to have the court consider a negotiated plea after the deadline set by court policy. Although “[p]lea bargaining has become an accepted practice in American criminal procedure” (People v. West (1970) 3 Cal.3d 595, 604), “[i]t has no constitutional origin and little statutory recognition.” (Cobb, supra, at p. 586.) In other words, there is no constitutional right to a plea bargain. (Weatherford v. Bursey (1977) 429 U.S. 545, 561 [51 L.Ed.2d 30, 43].) And under statutory law, a plea agreement is “ineffective unless and until approved by the court.” (In re Alvernaz (1992) 2 Cal.4th 924, 941; Pen. Code, § 1192.5.)
In the absence of constitutional mandates – apart from the requirement that pleas be knowing and voluntary – courts balance competing interests in deciding how late in the criminal proceedings to consider plea bargains. The Cobb court observed that “the competing interests of accurately scheduling court calendars and judiciously taking pleas to avoid trial can be accommodated while reasonably restricting pleas to certain time periods. The purpose of improving calendar management justifies the setting of deadlines beyond which no conditional plea may be taken.” (139 Cal.App.3d at p. 585.) The court in this case cited similar calendar management concerns in justifying its local practice of barring negotiated pleas after the readiness conference.
“California rules on plea bargaining have a parallel in the federal rules.” (Cobb, supra, 139 Cal.App.3d at p. 583.) Different judges within the same federal court may apply different rules regarding when they will accept plea bargains. (See United States v. Jackson (4th Cir. 1977) 563 F.2d 1145 (Jackson).) The defendant in Jackson claimed that the judge “arbitrarily declined to consider any plea bargain” that included a proposed sentence. (Id. at p. 1146.) The court explained that Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, rule 11(e) “spells out the guidelines to be observed by the court and counsel in plea agreement procedures, but the Rule leaves to the court the option of whether it will accept or reject the plea agreement.” (Jackson, supra, at p. 1147.) The court in Jackson acknowledged “the dilemma of the U.S. Attorney and defense counsel in conducting plea negotiations where there is a marked divergence among the several judges in one division [of a federal district court] with respect to plea bargains,” but nonetheless concluded that each judge was “free to decide whether, and to what degree, he will entertain plea bargains, and his refusal to consider any plea bargaining whatsoever will not vitiate a guilty plea which has otherwise been knowingly and voluntarily entered.” (Id. at p. 1148.) The fact that defendants appearing before different judges were subjected to different rules regarding conditional plea bargains (id. at p. 1146) did not give rise to a constitutional claim.
The same is true in California where superior courts in different counties apply different rules regarding late pleas. Although California statutes and rules set forth the procedure for “how” and “when” the prosecution and defense may present the court with a negotiated plea agreement, “[t]he ‘if’ cannot be legislated with any certainty because of prosecutorial discretion in selecting the original charges and the limitations obvious in ‘bargaining’ without the prosecutor’s express approval. [Citation.] Even between codefendants the law has not contemplated equality in plea bargaining. A grant of immunity, or a less formal plea agreement, which is arranged to obtain the testimony of one defendant against the other, may greatly distort the end result so that one defendant may be jailed and the other imprisoned. Plea bargains, having such uncertain conceptions, are subject to reasonable time constraints on their delivery to the court.” (Cobb, supra, 139 Cal.App.3d at pp. 586-587.)
Based on Cobb and the other cited authority, we conclude that the court did not violate defendant’s right to equal protection by refusing to consider the negotiated plea on the second day of trial.
B. Abuse of Discretion
Defendant also contends that the court abused its discretion when it refused to consider the proposed plea bargain presented by the parties on the second day of trial. He stresses that the issues involving the witness Mullenary and other evidentiary matters did not surface until immediately before trial. Defendant maintains that “[t]he parties did not foresee those issues, so they can not [sic] be held responsible for failing to resolve the case earlier.” Thus, defendant challenges the court’s express finding that the circumstances described by defendant did not constitute new circumstances that would justify an exception to the home court judge’s policy and Shasta County local rule 7.05(C).
The issues concerning Mullenary and the admissibility of certain evidence arose as a result of the prosecution’s motion to consolidate trial of this case [04F6567] with case No. 04F7290, which was filed on December 20, 2006, nine days before the readiness conference. The court noted on the first day of trial that the parties had worked for a period of time to resolve a “series of cases” involving defendant, but had been unsuccessful. We note defense counsel was aware that the prosecution might call Mullenary as a witness to the single car accident and/or defendant’s concealment of contraband in case No. 04F7290. Even though defense counsel did not learn of Mullenary’s December 2006statements until the day before defendant’s trial began, as the court stated, “everybody knew the potentials” and still confirmed on December 29, 2006, that they were ready to proceed with trial in case No. 04F6567. The record supports the court’s ruling that there were no “new circumstances . . . that were unknown or unknowable” as of the trial readiness conference. There was no abuse of discretion.
II.
The Court Did Not Violate Defendant’s Sixth Amendment Right To Counsel
Defendant argues that the court violated his right to counsel when it consulted the home court judge by telephone outside the presence of defendant or his attorney concerning the right to plead guilty after the readiness conference had been held. There are several difficulties with defendant’s argument.
First, defendant forfeited the claim of error by failing to object to the procedure at trial. (People v. Garcia (1984) 160 Cal.App.3d 82, 89 [ex parte interview with two jurors]; People v. Chagolla (1983) 144 Cal.App.3d 422, 432-433 [ex parte response to jury question].) The court offered to contact the home court judge on the first day of trial immediately after it denied the motions for consolidation and continuance. The court told the parties: “[I]f you believe that the rulings that I’ve made here, one, change the posture of the parties, and two, present new circumstances that would warrant my contacting whichever home court it came from, I’ll be glad to do so and explain that.” (Italics added.) Counsel opted to proceed. The court repeated the offer, and did, in fact, contact the home court judge immediately after the court stated that it would not accept the plea absent articulable “circumstances that arose since [the readiness conference].” The court reminded counsel of the procedure and stated: “I will commit now to take a moment’s break and contact Judge Ruggerio [sic] and seek his advice concerning [the claim of new circumstances.]” Rather than object, or proclaim ignorance of the procedure of the local rule defense counsel informed the court that Judge Ruggerio (sic) was likely available at that moment.
Second, defendant’s argument fails on its merits. “Under the Sixth Amendment’s confrontation clause, a criminal defendant does not have a right to be personally present at a particular proceeding unless his appearance is necessary to prevent ‘interference with [his] opportunity for effective cross-examination.’ [Citations.] [¶] Similarly, under the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause, a criminal defendant does not have a right to be personally present at a particular proceeding unless he finds himself at a ‘stage . . . that is critical to [the] outcome’ and ‘his presence would contribute to the fairness of the procedure.’ [Citation.] [¶] Under section 15 of article I of the California Constitution, a criminal defendant does not have a right to be personally present ‘either in chambers or at bench discussions that occur outside of the jury’s presence on questions of law or other matters as to which [his] presence does not bear a “‘“reasonably substantial relation to the fullness of his opportunity to defend against the charge.”’”’ [Citations.]” (People v. Waidla (2000) 22 Cal.4th 690, 741-742 (Waidla).) The Sixth Amendment also guarantees a criminal defendant the right to assistance of counsel in “the adversary factfinding process.” (Herring v. New York (1975) 422 U.S. 853, 858 [45 L.Ed.2d 593, 598].) Here, the court consulted the home court judge to confirm its ruling on a procedural matter. The court’s action did not involve cross-examination of witnesses or limit defendant’s opportunity to otherwise defend against the charges. (Waidla, supra, at pp. 741-742.)
Third, defendant does not explain how he was prejudiced by the procedure. The court had lectured counsel about the policy the day before when it rejected the claim that new circumstances justified a continuance after the parties had announced they were ready to proceed with trial. The court properly sought to confirm its understanding of the local policy the following day as it related to the circumstances of this late plea bargain. The court described in one sentence the neutral substance of the conversation before denying consideration of the untimely plea agreement.
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
I concur: HULL, Acting P.J.
ROBIE, J.
I respectfully dissent.
In addressing defendant’s argument that the trial court abused its discretion in refusing to consider the proposed plea agreement the parties presented on the second day of trial, the majority opinion misses the heart of defendant’s argument. Defendant is not, as the majority states, simply “challeng[ing] the court’s express finding that the circumstances described by defendant did not constitute new circumstances that would justify” consideration of a plea agreement after the trial readiness conference -- although defendant’s argument certainly contains a whiff of such a challenge. No -- the heart of defendant’s argument lies in its reliance on Justice Franson’s dissenting opinion in People v. Cobb (1983) 139 Cal.App.3d 578 (Cobb). However inartfully, by reference to that dissent defendant contends the trial court abused its discretion here, not simply by failing to find that new circumstances existed to justify consideration of a belated plea agreement under the court’s local rule and the policy of the particular home court judge, but by relying on that local rule and that policy in the first place as a basis for refusing to consider the plea agreement on its merits, in light of all the relevant facts and circumstances. Because I agree it was an abuse of discretion for the trial court to reject the plea agreement out of hand solely because of when it was proffered, I would reverse the judgment.
I begin with a discussion of Cobb. At issue there was a rule in the Fresno County Superior Court, promulgated by the presiding judge, that no plea agreement would be considered after the readiness conference, which was “to be held a week or so prior to trial.” (Cobb, supra, 139 Cal.App.3d at p. 581.) The defendant and the prosecutor in Cobb reached an agreement after the readiness conference for no more than a local time commitment, but no judge, including the trial judge, would consider it. (Id. at p. 582.) Found guilty by a jury and sentenced to three years in prison instead, the defendant appealed, arguing “that he was forced to undergo jury trial and imprisonment because of an arbitrary local court rule.” (Id. at pp. 580-581.) He contended “that the Fresno rule prevents the exercise of discretion, is a form of coercion, and does not ‘necessarily . . . increase the efficiency of the criminal process’” and sought a ruling “that plea bargains must be considered by the court at any time.” (Id. at pp. 580, 582.)
In rejecting the defendant’s challenge to the Fresno rule, the Cobb majority first noted a section from the Standards of Judicial Administration adopted by the Judicial Council, which (at that time) recommended local court adoption of “‘a rule or policy providing that the readiness conference is the last possible point of negotiation and that thereafter a defendant may plead only to the principal charge against him.’” (Cobb, supra, 139 Cal.App.3d at p. 582.) The majority noted that it had found “no inconsistent constitutional or statutory law or rule which would nullify the standard and local rule to which [the defendant] objects.” (Id. at p. 582.) The majority then discussed various rules, statutes, and cases (none of which were dispositive), leading eventually to the following conclusion: “It appears that the competing interests of accurately scheduling court calendars and judiciously taking pleas to avoid trial can be accommodated while reasonably restricting pleas to certain time periods. The purpose of improving calendar management justifies the setting of deadlines beyond which no conditional plea may be taken. However, contrary to the federal rule apparently permitting an anticonditional plea policy irrespective of time, we hold that section 10(a)(7) of the Standards of Judicial Administration limits the preclusion period to that reasonable time which follows the readiness conference and ends upon the completion of trial. The justification for the rule is as applicable after commencement of trial as just before trial.” (Cobb, at p. 585.) The majority also held, however, “that the standard does not preclude the exercise of discretion at any time under exceptional circumstances.” (Ibid.)
In his dissent, Justice Franson concluded that “Penal Code section 1192.5 and the California cases construing the statute give [the defendant] the right to have the bargain considered by the court. The Fresno rule must yield to this statutory right.” (Cobb, supra, 139 Cal.App.3d at p. 588.) Justice Franson explained that under “Penal Code section 1192.5 and the cases construing the statute,” “regardless of when a plea bargain is presented to a court, the court must exercise its discretion by considering the bargain in the light of the substantive facts of the case; it may not reject the bargain out of hand solely because of the tardiness of its presentation under a local rule. . . . ‘Although it is within the discretion of the court to approve or reject the proffered offer, the court may not arbitrarily refuse to consider the offer. . . .’ Nothing is more arbitrary than depriving a defendant of the right to plead to a lesser punishment because of a local readiness conference deadline rule, particularly when the prosecutor did not make the offer until the eve of trial.” (Cobb, supra, 139 Cal.App.3d at pp. 589-590.)
Justice Franson also concluded that enforcement of the Fresno rule denied the defendant his right to equal protection. (Cobb, supra, 139 Cal.App.3d at p. 588.) Like the majority here, however, I disagree with Justice Franson on the equal protection issue.
Justice Franson asserted, “[t]he fallacy of the majority opinion [wa]s that it exalts an administrative rule ostensibly designed to expedite trials over a defendant’s statutory right to seek a lesser punishment with the prosecutor’s consent--with potentially disastrous consequences to the defendant. This is not a battle between the People and the defendant since the People have agreed to the bargain--rather it is conflict between a judicial desire for administrative efficiency and a defendant’s right to have the bargain considered by the court. The defendant’s right should prevail.” (Cobb, supra, 139 Cal.App.3d at p. 590.)
Justice Franson also explained that “[t]he Standards of Judicial Administration (§ 10(a)(7) enacted by the Judicial Council in 1972) constitute only policy guidelines ‘recommended’ to the trial courts as a means to insure the prompt disposition of criminal cases. The standards are not court rules. The standards cannot override the statutory and case law giving a defendant the right to plead to a particular disposition of his case provided the prosecutor and the court approve the disposition. The Judicial Council has no authority to promulgate rules for court administration which conflict with a statute. (Cal. Const., art. VI, § 6.) And, of course, local rules may not be adopted which conflict with statute or case law. (Gov. Code, § 68070.)” (Cobb, supra, 139 Cal.App.3d at pp. 590-591.)
I find Justice Franson’s reasoning persuasive. Penal Code section 1192.5 recognizes the right of a criminal defendant to offer a conditional plea, which (of course) must be accepted by the prosecutor and approved by the court or it is deemed withdrawn. Where (as here) the defendant offers such a plea, and the prosecutor accepts it, I believe the trial court is obligated to exercise reasonable and sound discretion, based on all of the relevant circumstances, in determining whether to exercise its power under the statute to approve or reject the plea. Further, I do not believe the trial court properly exercises such discretion when it rejects a plea solely because of when it was offered.
Here, it is apparent that the trial court did not exercise the discretion I believe California law requires. Local Rule 7.05(C) of the Shasta County Superior Court provides that “[t]he home court judge may set cut-off dates for accepting negotiated dispositions.” Apparently the policy of the home court judge (and perhaps the entire superior court bench) was “that the last opportunity to settle the case is on the trial readiness calendar” with an exception “if new circumstances arose that were unknown or unknowable as of the trial readiness [conference] and would otherwise warrant a different disposition or a continuance.” Finding no such circumstances in this case, the trial court rejected out of hand the plea agreement offered by the parties on the second day of trial without considering any other relevant circumstances.
What this meant, of course, is that even though defendant and the People were willing to accept a sentence of 12 years without finishing the trial, the trial had to go on, and everyone had to be tied up for several more days. The trial court made clear it would accept an unconditional plea, but if the parties -- both parties -- wanted to condition the plea on a particular sentence, the trial court would not even consider it because the parties’ agreement came too late.
Although the trial court ended up sentencing defendant to 15 years, the three additional years hardly justifies the time and expense of trying a case that was ready to settle. With our courts and judges overburdened as they are, does this make sense?
It is all the more ironic that the justification for these kinds of plea deadlines is supposedly judicial efficiency. In Cobb, the majority asserted such deadlines serve the interest of “accurately scheduling court calendars” and “improving calendar management.” (Cobb, supra, 139 Cal.App.3d at p. 585.) According to them, “The priority of the criminal calendar and the frequency of pleas in lieu of trials often place civil litigants in a trailing position, which on trial day is at best an uncertain one. When pleas are taken at this time, the practice may well have a domino effect on other cases. It may leave courtrooms vacant if the calendar judge has failed to overschedule trials.” (Id. at p. 581.)
I do not believe vacant courtrooms are a serious danger any more, if they ever were. In any event, on the issue of whether administrative benefits justify plea agreement deadlines, I agree with the following analysis from the Iowa Supreme Court: “In balancing the need for deadlines against the fundamental principles which are impacted by deadlines, we further recognize that the underlying rationale supporting the deadlines is flawed. While deadlines are imposed as a means to eliminate the expense and time of assembling witnesses, jurors, and others for a trial that never occurs because the defendant pleads guilty on the morning of trial, the refusal to accept such a plea on the morning of trial only compounds the time and expense when the parties are forced to try the case. The trial may last several days or weeks, and the expense is actually increased exponentially. Moreover, the function of a jury and the other components of a trial can at times extend beyond those matters that ultimately result in a verdict. At times, the very presence of a jury on the morning of trial can engender a desire from the defendant to plead guilty that cannot be replicated at any prior time in the process. Thus, the jury’s function to help resolve cases can be performed at times by its mere presence on the morning of trial. If the process results in a conclusion to a case on the morning of trial which was not possible the day before, the time and resources devoted to the case were not wasted. It is also important to consider that a criminal case that concludes by a trial often continues to burden the court system with the expense of an appeal, as in this case, or other postconviction proceedings. On the other hand, a plea of guilty results in the waiver of a variety of rights, and normally concludes the case without the expense of further proceedings.” (State v. Hager (Iowa 2001) 630 N.W.2d 828, 836.)
Thus, I believe the interest in judicial efficiency actually supports rejecting uniform deadlines for considering plea agreements that prevent trial courts from exercising the sound and reasonable discretion implicitly required of them by Penal Code section 1192.5.
Lest I be misunderstood, let me make clear that I do not discount the importance of trying to discourage defendants from rejecting early plea offers in the hope of getting a better one later. Obviously, judicial (not to mention prosecutorial) efficiency benefits from early settlement of criminal cases. But the importance of encouraging early settlements does not justify putting unreasonable constraints on the presentation of conditional pleas, such as by implementing rules or policies that require the trial court to dismiss such a plea out of hand unless changed circumstances are shown since the trial readiness conference.
On this point, it is significant to note that one of the primary underpinnings of the majority decision in Cobb -- the Standard of Judicial Administration that encouraged the adoption of such rules and policies -- no longer exists, and has not existed for over 20 years, having disappeared in 1985 with a reworking of the standards applicable to criminal cases. Thus, local rules like the one applied here no longer carry the imprimatur of the Judicial Council.
In any event, as Justice Franson noted, the Judicial Council has no authority to promulgate rules for court administration which conflict with a statute.
Giving trial judges more discretion in cases like this will not open the floodgates of late pleas. The most obvious reason for this is that the People will not make late offers if they are not in the interest of justice, and if defendants are attempting to work the system the People can stop the process in its tracks simply by refusing to accept any late conditional pleas. Furthermore, the trial judge, in exercising his or her discretion, never has to accept a proposed settlement and may very well reject it because it is not fair and equitable to either or both sides.
Application of rules like this one in Shasta County make it easy on judges -- find no changed circumstances and just go on with the trial. No exercise of discretion is necessary. But the purpose of our system is not to make judges’ jobs easy, but to make certain that each case is adjudicated fairly and equitably, on its own unique facts, and with a minimum of resources consistent with this objective. Only faithful adherence to the implicit requirements of Penal Code section 1192.5 will fulfill this purpose.
By rejecting the proposed plea agreement out of hand based only on its untimeliness under the local rule and policy, the trial court failed to exercise its discretion under Penal Code section 1192.5 to approve or reject the plea. The failure to exercise discretion is an abuse of discretion. (E.g., Kahn v. Lasorda’s Dugout, Inc. (2003) 109 Cal.App.4th 1118, 1124.) Accordingly, I would reverse the judgment.