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Calvillo-Silva v. Home Grocery12/17/1998
onvicted of misdemeanor trespass would be barred from civil recovery. Proponents assert that this provision is necessary to accommodate cases where the defendant pleads to a lesser offense or is convicted of a lesser included offense." (Sen. Com. on Judiciary, analysis of Assem. Bill No. 200 (1985-1986 Reg. Sess.) as amended July 8, 1985, p. 5.) The cited Assembly report observes merely that " he bill also accommodates those cases in which a felony charge is reduced to a lesser offense by plea-bargaining and a conviction is subsequently obtained." (Assem. 3d reading analysis of Assem. Bill No. 200 (1985-1986 Reg. Sess.) p. 3.)
To my reading, these comments in staff reports fall far short of stating, or even implying, that the existence of a prior conviction, obtained by a plea of guilty or no contest, would legally preclude the convicted person from explaining his or her plea or from denying, in order to avoid application of section 847, that he or she committed the crime to which he or she pled. Of course, relitigation of guilt issues is precluded when the conviction was the result of a trial (see Teitlebaum Furs, supra, 58 Cal.2d at pp. 603-605), and legislators may have assumed, for that reason, that by requiring an existing conviction for application of section 847 they would in most cases avoid relitigation of guilt. To the extent any members also assumed that relitigation of guilt would be precluded even when the prior conviction was by plea-a premise I do not find particularly reflected in the cited legislative reports-their assumption was unwarranted, for they neglected to enact any provision so stating, and the general law of California is, as discussed earlier, to the contrary.
In interpreting a statute, our role "is simply to ascertain and declare what is in terms or in substance contained therein, not to insert what has been omitted, or to omit what has been inserted." (Code Civ. Proc., ยง 1858.) A provision precluding relitigation of factual guilt after conviction on the basis of a guilty or no contest plea would, no doubt, likely contribute somewhat to the pretrial Disposition of civil suits by injured criminals, a result in accord with the overall spirit of section 847. The Legislature, however, did not enact such a provision. Unless we are to overrule a long and well-reasoned line of decisions from this court and the Courts of Appeal, we can find no such preclusion as a matter of collateral estoppel.
For these reasons, I Dissent from the judgment insofar as it precludes plaintiff, on remand, from litigating the facts behind, or the reasons for, his plea of nolo contendere to attempted grand theft. In all other respects, I concur.
WERDEGAR, J.
Unpublished Opinion Original Appeal Original Proceeding Review Granted XXX 48 Cal.App.4th 889 Rehearing Granted
Opinion No. S053418 Date Filed: December 17, 1998
Court: Superior County: San Mateo Judge: William H. Harrington, Jr.
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