People v. Planavsky

In People v. Planavsky (1995) 40 Cal.App.4th 1300, the court held that, where the record is silent concerning whether the trial court considered civil proceedings under Welfare and Institutions Code section 3051, any claim of error is waived absent a request for CRC commitment at the trial level. ( Id. at p. 1315.) In so holding, the court criticized the Flower line of decisions as resting on "a self-contained legal fiction" concerning the presumption, on a silent record, that the trial court had considered a CRC commitment. ( Id. at pp. 1307-1311.) The Planavsky court decided to take a "more 'practical and straightforward' approach toward waiver recently enunciated by the California Supreme Court in People v. Scott (1994) 9 Cal.4th 331, 353, 885 P.2d 1040." (Id. at p. 1302.) The court reasoned: "It is wasteful -- and, frankly, an incentive for gamesmanship -- to allow easily correctable sentencing errors to be raised for the first time on appeal where an appellate court has 'no choice' but to remand when there is prejudicial error. It is an expensive, time-consuming process that could be easily avoided by simply calling something to the trial court's attention." (Id. at p. 1311.)