Ex Parte White

84 P. 242, 2 Cal. App. 726, 1906 Cal. App. LEXIS 239
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedJanuary 24, 1906
DocketCrim. No. 22.
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 84 P. 242 (Ex Parte White) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ex Parte White, 84 P. 242, 2 Cal. App. 726, 1906 Cal. App. LEXIS 239 (Cal. Ct. App. 1906).

Opinion

CHIPMAN, P. J.

Petitioner, one Bud White, was convicted of the crime of petit larceny and was sentenced to “pay a fine of $500 or be imprisoned in the county jail one day for each dollar of said fine.” He was subsequently discharged on writ of habeas corpus heard by the judge of the superior court of Mendocino county. Thereafter the district attorney of said county served notice on the attorney for petitioner directing him to “take notice that the people of the state of California ex rel. J. H. Smith, sheriff of the county of Mendocino, state of California, and J. H.^ Smith, as sheriff of the said county of Mendocino, hereby appeal to the district court of appeal for the third district, state of California, from the order and judgment in the above-entitled action in the above-entitled court and entered on the sixth day of July, A. D. 1905, in favor of Bud White, and from the whole thereof.” Whether the district attorney or sheriff could use the name of the people of the state without the *727 consent of the attorney general first obtained is a question raised, but we will not consider it.

Will an appeal lie to this court from the order or judgment? The question arose in 1852, in Matter of Perkins, 2 Cal. 424. The court said: “The act concerning ‘Writ of Habeas Corpus,’ passed April 20, 1850 (Stats. 1850, p. 334, c. 122) has vested the power of hearing and determining writs of habeas corpus in the judge of every court of record in the state; it is a mere chamber proceeding, a summary mode of determining whether a party be properly held in custody. The final determination is not that of a court, but the simple order of a judge, and is not appealable from or subject to review. The doctrine of res adjudícala cannot apply to such determinations. . . . The statute never contemplated that a judgment upon one writ should be a bar to any further proceeding, but looks to a different result; and any prisoner may pursue his remedy of habeas corpus until he has .exhausted the whole judicial power of the state.” The question - again a arose in 1865, in Matter of Edward Ring, 28 Cal. 248. The constitution and the statute had undergone no changes in habeas corpus proceedings up to this time and the doctrine of the Perkins case was approved. Again, in 1871, People v. Schuster, 40 Cal. 627, the people appealed from an order admitting the prisoner to bail on habeas corpus proceedings. The court said: “There is no provision in the habeas corpus act permitting an appeal from the order of the judge, in proceedings had under that act; and it is apparent from the nature of that remedy, that none was intended. Nor is there anything in section 481 of the Criminal Practice Act, regulating appeals in criminal cases, which will authorize an appeal from such an order.” If the question has since been before the supreme court we have not been able to discover it, and no more recent case has been cited. It is perhaps not far from the truth that the consensus of opinion of the bar and bench of this state has, for a third of a century, been that there was no appeal allowable from an order either granting or refusing a discharge on habeas corpus and the practice has conformed to that view of the law.

But it is contended by appellant that this doctrine has been changed by the recent amendment to the constitution conferring jurisdiction on the district courts of appeal (Const., *728 art. VI, sec. 4), and by the amendment of section 1475 of the Penal Code (Stats. 1905, p. 706, c. 544); that habeas corpus is a civil proceeding whether regarded as a civil action or a special proceeding of a civil nature. (Ex parte Tom Tong, 108 U. S. 556, [2 Sup. Ct. 871]; Ex parte Milligan, 4 Wall. 142; State ex rel. Durner v. Huegin, 110 Wis. 189, [85 N. W. 1046]; Cross v. Burke, 146 U. S. 82, [13 Sup. Ct. 22].) The argument is that remedies by the Code of Civil Procedure are divided into two classes—actions and special proceedings (section 21); that an action is a legal proceeding “for the enforcement or protection of a right, the redress or prevention of a wrong, or the punishment of a public offense” (section 22); that “every other remedy is a special proceeding” (section 23); that there are only two kinds of actions, civil and criminal (section 24); that a civil action arises out of: 2. “An injury”; that a civil action “is prosecuted . . . for the enforcement or protection of a right, or the redress or prevention of a wrong”; that the fact that the provisions of our law relating to habeas corpus are found in the Criminal Code is entitled to no weight. (Lewis v. Dunne, 134 Cal. 294, [86 Am. St. Rep. 257, 66 Pac. 478].) From these premises appellant reaches the conclusion that the writ of habeas corpus, whether a civil action or a special proceeding of a civil nature, is governed by the provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure relative to appeals. The next step in the argument is that this court is given appellate jurisdiction by the constitution “in proceedings of mandamus, certiorari and prohibition, usurpation of office, contesting elections and eminent domain, and in such other special proceedings as may be provided by law.” (Art. VI, sec. 4.)» And that section 939 of the Code of Civil Procedure provides for an appeal “from a final judgment in an action or special proceeding commenced in the court in which the same is rendered within six months after the entry of judgment.” Finally, it is claimed that a judgment in a habeas corpus case is a final judgment, hence the appeal must lie. That the judgment is final is grounded on the amendment of section 1475 of the Penal Code (Stats. 1905, p. 706, c. 544), which provides that the writ may be granted: “2. By the superior court, or a judge thereof. ... If the writ has been granted by amy superior court or judge, and after the *729 hearing thereof the prisoner has been remanded, he shall not be discharged from custody by the same or any other superior court or judge, unless upon some ground not existing at the issuing of the prior writ, or unless upon some point of law not raised at the hearing upon the return of the prior writ.” The amendment is in italics. We have thus stated at some length the grounds urged in support of the appeal, first, because they seem to cover in outline about all that can be suggested on that side of the question; and, secondly, because the point has not arisen in the supreme court in recent years and is now based upon an alleged changed condition of the law. The question was suggested incidentally in the Culp Case (ante, p. 70, [83 Pac. 89],) but not definitely passed upon. There is nothing in the changes which have taken place in our constitution and statutes in recent years indicating that the order or judgment made in a habeas corpus case is any more final than formerly when it was held that such a judgment was not res adjudicata

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Bluebook (online)
84 P. 242, 2 Cal. App. 726, 1906 Cal. App. LEXIS 239, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ex-parte-white-calctapp-1906.