(F)

Taking the Case to Trial.  If a satisfactory resolution cannot be arranged through negotiations, the client may decide to take the case to trial.  Certainly, a willingness to do so creates the strongest of bargaining positions, and many cases have been dismissed by the prosecution on the eve of trial when it comes time to put up or shut up, especially if the client is a pretty decent person and has already paid the debt owing to society arising from the offense.  It may, quite simply, not be worth it to the state to take the case to trial if the offense is old, the case has long been closed, and the punishment has already been exacted, especially if the client has strong equities.

 

            Moreover, the prosecution bears the burden of proof.  If anything goes wrong, and it cannot prove each element, an acquittal will avoid any immigration problems for the client.  There is a true story of a Washington, D.C. public defender who refused on principle to plea‑bargain at all, and won dismissals or acquittals in 13 of her first 15 cases.  Misdemeanors, especially, may be dismissed on the eve of trial.

 

            The pressure can be increased by withdrawing a time waiver, and forcing the case to trial by a certain date (30 days after arraignment for in‑custody misdemeanors, 45 days for out‑of‑custody misdemeanors, and 60 days for felonies) or else charges must be dismissed.  Misdemeanors once dismissed may not be refiled.

 

            In the Wounded Knee cases, of about 300 federal felonies, dismissals or acquittals were achieved in 95% of the cases.  The virtues of being willing to take a case to jury trial are sometimes severely underestimated.

CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES " CALIFORNIA -- ARGUMENT " IDENTITY OF THE DRUG IS NOT AN ELEMENT OF CALIFORNIA DRUG OFFENSES, SO MODIFIED CATEGORICAL ANALYSIS IS IMPROPER TO IDENTIFY DRUG
Convictions under California Health & Safety Code 11377 and 11378 do not categorically qualify as generic controlled substance offenses under settled case law. Moreover, because the statute of conviction is not divisible in the sense used by the Supreme Court in Descamps v. United States, 133 S. Ct. 2276 (2013), the Court cannot proceed to examine the record of conviction under the modified categorical analysis of the statute. Consequently, the convictions do not qualify as removable offenses. The Supreme Court in Descamps clarified the operation of the categorical analysis under Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575 (1990). Descamps resolved a split in circuit authority regarding the scope and function of the modified categorical analysis (MCA). Contrary to the Ninth Circuits prior position, but consistent with the majority of other circuit courts, Descamps indicates that the MCA is not an exception to the first-stage categorical analysis of Taylor, but a supplemental tool in aid of the inquiry into the identity of the offense of conviction that is applied only in limited circumstances. See 133 S. Ct. at 2285. In particular, the MCA is resorted to: (1) only when the statute of conviction being compared to the generic offense for Taylor purposes is divisible; and (2) only to determine which alternative offense covered by the divisible statute was the basis of the conviction, not to determine what conduct underlies the predicate conviction. Under Descamps, the reasoning of the majority in United States v. Aguila Montes de Oca, 655 F.3d 915 (9th Cir. 2011) (en banc) (per curiam), is firmly rejected, so that the MCA cannot be consulted where the statute of conviction is indivisible. See id. at 2286-91. Moreover, Descamps roundly disapproved the Aguila-Montes majoritys implementation of the MCA to ferret out facts about the underlying conviction. See id. at 2287 (That approach . . . turns an elements-based inquiry into an evidence-based one.). Instead, the MCA can be used only to identify the specific subpart (offense) within the divisible statute of which the defendant was convicted. See id. at 2285 (Applied in that way"which is the only way we have ever allowed"the modified approach merely helps implement the categorical approach when a defendant was convicted of violating a divisible statute.). In Descampss case, he was convicted of burglary under California Penal Code 459. That statute defines the offense in terms of an overbroad element of entry that does not require the generic element required for federal burglary of an unprivileged or unlawful entry. See id. at 2282; accord Aguila-Montes, 655 F.3d at 944. The question was whether the statute would qualify as generic if the MCA were consulted. However, unlike the majority in Aguila-Montes, the Supreme Court clarified in Descamps that the second-stage analysis could never be employed to narrow Penal Code 459, because the statute was not only overbroad, but indivisible, and so the MCA is inapplicable: [W]e hold that sentencing courts may not apply the modified categorical approach when the crime of which the defendant was convicted has a single, indivisible set of elements. Id. at 2282. The Court also made clear that although Penal Code 459 contains a number of alternative locations which can be burgled (e.g., a house, a room, a mill, an outhouse, an airplane, a mine, etc.), these were just alternate target locations, different means for satisfying the one element of entry. Because the element entry was overbroad and indivisible, the MCA has no role to play in this case. The dispute here does not concern any list of alternative elements. Rather, it involves a simple discrepancy between generic burglary and the crime established in 459. The former requires an unlawful entry along the lines of breaking and entering. The latter does not, and indeed covers a lawful entry into a store, for example, with intent to commit simple shoplifting, as even the Government acknowledges. In Taylors words, then, Penal Code 459 define[s] burglary more broadly than the generic offense. And because that is true"because in California, to get a conviction, the prosecution need not prove that Descamps broke and entered"a 459 violation cannot serve as an ACCA predicate. Whether Descamps did in fact break and enter makes no difference. And likewise, whether he ever admitted to breaking and entering is irrelevant. Id. at 2285-86 (citations omitted). Applying Descamps, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals recently refused to employ the MCA for a Maryland sexual abuse of a child statute, holding that the enumerated list of ways to violate the law were alternative means rather than elements, and, as such, were irrelevant to our inquiry. United States v. Cabrera-Umanzor, 728 F.3d 347, 353 (4th Cir. 2013)(citing Descamps, 133 S.Ct. at 2285 n. 2). The same considerations apply here to California Health & Safety Code 11377 and 11378. Just like the overbroad entry in 459, the term controlled substance encountered in Health & Safety Code 11377 and 11378 is recognized as categorically overbroad, since it includes a broader range of substances than is found in the generic schedules of the federal Controlled Substances Act. See Ruiz-Vidal v. Gonzales, 473 F.3d 1072, 1076-78 (9th Cir. 2007); United States v. Leal-Vega, 680 F.3d 1160, 1167 (9th Cir. 2012). Thus, when a state complaint or information charges an offense involving a controlled substance, that term is overbroad and indivisible as is the entry in the burglary statute. Although controlled substance, like entry, can be subdivided into additional means by which the element can be satisfied, this does not create alternative elements in the sense used in Descamps, 133 S. Ct. at 2283-85. This is clear in both federal and state law. The Ninth Circuit has held that the identity of the specific controlled substance is not an element of a federal drug crime. See United States v. Hunt, 656 F.3d 906, 912 (9th Cir. 2011) (holding that pleading to a count alleging cocaine was not an admission to that fact, since We have held, however, that drug quantity and type are not formal elements of the offenses set out in 21 U.S.C. 841.). The same is true in California law: the identity of the drug is not an element that must be charged in the information, but simply a means of committing the offense. See Ross v. Municipal Court, 122 Cal. Rptr. 807, 809-10 (Ct. App. 1975)(the name of drug need not be charged in complaint because it is only a means by which [defendant] committed the crimeof being under the influence.) In fact, the California courts have held there is no fatal variance if the type of drug charged differs from the one proved at trial, which could not be the case if the identity of the drug were an element. See People v. Martin, 86 Cal. Rptr. 3d 858, 861 (Ct. App. 2008); People v. Bryant, 2007 WL 2356072, at *2 (Cal. Ct. App. 2007) (unpublished); People v. Howington, 284 Cal. Rptr. 883, 888 (Ct. App. 1991); People v. Gelardi, 175 P.2d 855, 857 (Cal. Ct. App. 1946) (calling the specification of the drug type in the information mere surplusage), disapproved on other grounds in People v. Perez, 401 P.2d 934 (Cal. 1965). As the Court held in Gelardi, [W]ithout any specification of either opiates or morphine the accusation is sufficient, for it follows the language of the statute, and nothing beyond that is required in the absence of a special demurrer. Ibid. (citing People v. Kinsley, 118 Cal.App. 593, 596)(emphasis added). And because the jury need only find that a controlled substance listed in the statute was involved, and so need not unanimously agree on which drug it was in order to convict, the various substances listed do not create alternative elements rendering the statute divisible and so amenable to the MCA. On this point of requiring jury unanimity, the Descamps majority and dissent were in agreement See Descamps, 133 S. Ct. at 2290 (noting as a reason why a hypothetical, overbroad element of weapon is not narrowed by a jury verdict because [t]he jurors need not all agree on whether the defendant used a gun or a knife or a tire iron); id. at 2296 (Alito, J., dissenting) (By an element, I understand the Court to mean something on which a jury must agree by the vote required to convict under the law of the applicable jurisdiction.). In a broader sense, both the Supreme Court and the Ninth Circuit have at least made clear that for a fact to be employed in the MCA, it must be necessary to sustain the prior conviction. See Moncrieffe v. Holder, 133 S.Ct. 1678, 1684-85 (2013): In other words, to satisfy the categorical approach, a state drug offense must meet two conditions: It must necessarily proscribe conduct that is an offense under the CSA, and the CSA must necessarily prescribe felony punishment for that conduct. Id. at 1685. Likewise, [i]t is not enough that an indictment merely allege a certain fact or that the defendant admit to a fact; the fact must be necessary to convicting that defendant. Aguila-Montes, 655 F.3d at 937. Because under federal and state law, the identity of the specific drug is not necessary to a proper pleading, a valid plea, or jury verdict, drug specifications in 11377 and 11378 do not create alternative elements rendering the statute amenable to the MCA under Descamps, and even if it did, is not a dispositive fact under the second-stage analysis as laid out in Moncrieffe and the surviving portions of Aguila- Montes. See United States v. Cazares, 123 F.3d 1241, 1246-47 (9th Cir. 1997) (guilty plea admits only allegations necessary to be proved for a conviction); Hunt, 656 F.3d at 912 (citing Cazares to hold that a guilty plea to a count containing a to wit: . . . cocaine allegation did not admit the type of drug). Convictions under California Health & Safety Code 11378 and 11377 are not categorically offenses relating to a controlled substance because the California schedule of controlled substances includes substances not federally regulated and, under Descamps, the Court may not use the modified categorical approach for these offenses because the identity of the drug involved in the offense is not an element of the offense. See Descamps v. United States, 133 S. Ct. 2276 (2013). Thanks to Michael Mehr.

CAL POST CON " SAFE HAVENS " CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES OFFENSES " UNIDENTIFIED DRUG " PRACTICE ADVISORY
Summary. It is unnecessary to the validity of a guilty or no contest plea to identify the exact controlled substance, as long as the defendant admits that the substance s/he possessed is on the appropriate California controlled substances schedules. People v. Guy (1980) 107 Cal.App.3d 593, 601, 165 Cal.Rptr. 463 (knowledge of the character of a controlled substance means that the defendant knew it was a controlled substance, but s/he need not have known its precise chemical composition); People v. Garringer (1975) 48 Cal.App.3d 827 [121 Cal.Rptr. 922] (knowledge for the purpose of conviction under Health and Safety Code 11377, is knowledge of the controlled nature of the substance and not its precise chemical composition); CALCRIM 2300, p. 204 (Spring 2008) ("The People do not need to prove that the defendant knew which specific controlled substance (he/she) (sold/ furnished/ administered/ gave away/ transported/ imported), only that (he/she) was aware of the substance's presence and that it was a controlled substance."). Analysis. To convict a defendant of a California controlled substances offense, the District Attorney need not prove that the defendant knew the exact nature or chemical composition of the specific controlled substance at issue. The prosecution need only prove that the defendant knew that the substance was a controlled substance under California law. To establish possession of a controlled substance, the prosecution must prove two kinds of knowledge: (1) knowledge of the fact of possession, and (2) knowledge of the character of the thing possessed. (Witkin, Summary of Cal. Law (2d ed.1988) Criminal Law, 1006, p. 1139.) Proof of knowledge of the character of the thing possessed is almost invariably circumstantial"e.g., physical custody of the drug, attempts to conceal or dispose of it, evasive or contradictory explanations, admissions, etc. (See, e.g., People v. Williams (1971) 5 C.3d 211, 214 [insufficient evidence of knowledge that tablet in defendants constructive possession was restricted dangerous drug].) The only knowledge required to sustain a controlled substance conviction is knowledge of the controlled nature of the substance. Knowledge of the character of a controlled substance means that the defendant knew it was a controlled substance; he or she need not have known its precise chemical composition. (People v. Guy (1980) 107 Cal. App. 3d 593, 601]; see also People v. Garringer (1975) 48 Cal. App. 3d 827, 834"835 [Defendant need not know the chemical name or nature of substance, and may have even been incorrect as to which controlled substance it was, as long as he or she knew it was some controlled substance.].) Any more stringent rule as to knowledge would, for all practical purposes, make the statute inapplicable to anyone who had not personally performed a chemical analysis of the contraband in his possession. Needless to say, such was not the Legislatures intent (People v. Garringer, supra, 48 Cal.App.3d at p. 835.) In People v. Guy, the defendant was stopped for speeding but was found to be in possession of phencyclidine (PCP). He claimed that he thought the PCP was cocaine, having found the substance in a trash can, but he was convicted of possession for sale of PCP. The court of appeals upheld his conviction, finding that knowledge for the purpose of conviction . . . is knowledge of the controlled nature of the substance and not its precise chemical composition. (People v. Guy, supra, 107 Cal. App. 3d at p. 600; see also People v. Romero (1997) 55 Cal. App. 4th 147, 155 [finding defendant guilty of sale and transportation of cocaine, even if he thought he was trafficking exclusively in marijuana, because cocaine and marijuana are both controlled substances.].)

Ninth Circuit