People v. Uribe

Opinion

DUFFY, J. In April 2008, this court reversed the judgment entered against defendant Augustin Santillah Uribe, who had been convicted two years earlier of sex crimes involving his granddaughter, Anna. (People v. Uribe (Apr. 24, 2008, H030630) [nonpub. opn.] (Uribe).)1 Our reversal was based on the failure of the Sexual Assault Response Team (SART) to disclose to the defense a videotape of a medical examination of Anna. There was no [841]suggestion from the record in that case that the prosecutor himself knew about the videotape before defendant was convicted. We concluded, however, that the SART unit was part of the prosecution team, and therefore its nondisclosure of the videotape constituted Brady error (Brady v. Maryland (1963) 373 U.S. 83 [10 L.Ed.2d 215, 83 S.Ct. 1194]) that was prejudicial to the defense.

On remand, defendant filed a motion to recuse the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office, claiming that the district attorney and members of the SART unit had conspired to violate state law by not documenting that the latter had videotaped its examinations of alleged victims of sexual assault, • thereby preventing members of the defense bar from obtaining critical information in sexual assault cases. Defendant also filed a nonstatutory motion to dismiss the information based upon the alternative grounds of double jeopardy and outrageous prosecutorial misconduct in violation of his due process rights. Defendant argued in the motion to dismiss that members of the SART unit and the prosecutor had been aware of the videotape at the time of the first trial and had suppressed it in order to thwart defendant’s effort to obtain an acquittal.

After extended evidentiary hearings and briefing on the motions, the court denied the motion to disqualify the district attorney. It denied the motion to dismiss made under double jeopardy principles, but it granted the motion on the ground of prosecutorial misconduct. The court concluded that Troy Benson, the deputy district attorney who had prosecuted the first trial, had testified untruthfully in the hearings on the motions. In a strongly worded opinion, the court found the existence of “egregious prosecutorial misconduct committed following reversal for a Brady violation [that was] ... so grossly shocking and outrageous that it offends the universal sense of justice to allow prosecution in this matter to proceed.” (Original italics.)

The People contend that the court erred in dismissing the information. We agree. A court may dismiss an information in an extreme case to address outrageous governmental conduct. A prosecutor’s false testimony in any court proceeding is a grave affront to the judicial system. It is undoubtedly an act that is “outrageous” in a general, nonconstitutional sense. When such prosecutorial misconduct impairs a defendant’s constitutional right to a fair trial, it may constitute outrageous governmental conduct warranting dismissal. But here the false testimony occurred in a peripheral hearing and was not shown to have prejudiced defendant’s right to a fair trial. The misconduct thus did not constitute outrageous governmental conduct in violation of due process. Accordingly, while we acknowledge the trial court’s understandable and profound concern about the former prosecutor’s misconduct, including his false testimony, the court chose the wrong remedy. We will reverse the dismissal order.