People v. Martin

205 P. 121, 188 Cal. 281, 21 A.L.R. 1399, 1922 Cal. LEXIS 422
CourtCalifornia Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 24, 1922
DocketCrim. No. 2375.
StatusPublished
Cited by29 cases

This text of 205 P. 121 (People v. Martin) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Martin, 205 P. 121, 188 Cal. 281, 21 A.L.R. 1399, 1922 Cal. LEXIS 422 (Cal. 1922).

Opinion

SHURTLEFF, J.

The defendant and appellant was extradited from the state of New Mexico to the county of San Diego upon a charge of embezzlement. While held in said county as a prisoner under such charge the district attorney of the county filed in said county an amended information accusing the defendant of the crime of bigamy, alleged to have been committed “on or about the 15th day of November, 1920, at the County of Orange, State of California”; the information further alleged that defendant was apprehended in said county of San Diego. Upon the trial of the bigamy charge the prosecution, after producing evidence tending to prove the allegations of the information, rested, whereupon the defendant offered to prove, first, that he was arrested out of the state upon the embezzlement charge and brought into San Diego County, and there held upon such charge, and while so held was arrested for the alleged bigamy; and, second, that after the alleged marriage in Orange County he never returned to San Diego County until extradited. To each of these offers the prosecution objected upon the ground that it was incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial how he came into San Diego County, that the fact that he was there was sufficient, which objection was sustained. The jury found the defendant guilty as charged. In due time defendant filed a motion in arrest of judgment, and a motion for a new trial, both of which were denied, and judgment pronounced. It is from these orders and said judgment that this appeal is prosecuted. [1] The order denying the motion for an arrest of judgment not being appealable (Pen. Code, see. 1237), may be dismissed without discussion.

The contention of defendant that, having been extradited from New Mexico on a charge of embezzlement, he could not legally be tried on the charge of bigamy without first having been given an opportunity to leave the state, cannot be sustained. [2] It is now settled by the great weight of authority that a person charged with crime, who is extradited from one of the several states to the one from which he was a fugitive, may be tried for any criminal *284 charge which the latter state may have against him, even though it is distinct from the offense named in the extradition papers. “Although there has long been a conflict in the decisions of courts of the several states, it is now generally accepted that a fugitive from justice, surrendered by one state upon the demand of another, is not protected from prosecution for offenses other than that for which he was surrendered, but may be tried for any crimes committed in the demanding state either before or after extradition without having been given an opportunity to leave the state.” (25 Corpus Juris, p. 272, sec. 47, and cases cited.)

We pass to the consideration of the rulings of the court upon defendant’s offers to prove. It is asserted that the evidence embodied in the offers was material and admissible to show that the superior court of San Diego County was without jurisdiction to try the defendant, for the reason that the bigamy, of which he was accused, was committed in Orange County. Defendant advances a number of arguments in support of this claim, some of which, it must be conceded, are not lacking in persuasive force. [3] It is claimed that section 777 of the Penal Code as amended in 1919 (Stats. 1919, p. 81), repeals section 785 of the same code, but to this we cannot assent. The material portion of section 777 as amended is: “Every person is liable to punishment by the laws of this state, for a public offense committed by him therein, . . . and except as herein otherwise provided, the jurisdiction of every public offense is in the county wherein it is committed,” which language is followed with a single proviso, which alone constituted the amendment to the section, and referred to the jurisdiction of wards of juvenile courts, and is not germane to the present discussion. The above-quoted extract appeared verbatim in the section; indeed, it alone composed the section, prior to its amendment in 1919, and it is obvious that to have given the phrase “as herein otherwise provided,” as the section originally read, any meaning or application whatever, it must be held that it had reference at least to the title and chapter of which it formed a part, and our construction is that the insertion of the proviso touching wards ■of juvenile courts in no manner narrowed or modified its former scope. The amendment merely added another exception to the general application of the section and did not repeal section 785, which declares that “When the offense, *285 either of bigamy or incest, is committed in one county and the defendant is apprehended in another, the jurisdiction is in either county.” [4] Courts do not favor repeal by implication (People v. San Francisco & S. J. R. Co., 28 Cal. 254.) “The presumption is always against the intention to repeal where express terms are not used. To justify the presumption of an intention to repeal one statute by another, either the two statutes must be irreconcilable, or the intent to effect a repeal must be otherwise clearly expressed” (36 Cyc. 1071), neither of which conditions is present here. [5] In our opinion, when the defendant was served with the warrant of arrest issued in this case in San Diego County, where he was held as a prisoner under the circumstances already narrated, he was “apprehended” in that county within the meaning of section 785 of the Penal Code just quoted, and was legally triable there, unless the section, as defendant affirms, is unconstitutional, in that it infringes the provisions of section 7 of article I of the state constitution, which declares, so far as pertinent to this inquiry, that “The right of trial by jury shall be secured to all, and remain inviolate.” The settled construction of this clause of the constitution is that it gives a right to a trial by jury only in cases where the right existed at common law. In Cassidy v. Sullivan, 64 Cal. 266 [28 Pac. 234], this court said of this guarantee: “Under the provisions of other constitutions and statutes quite as broad as the clause above cited (Const., art. I, sec. 7), it has uniformly been held that the right to trial by jury was not intended to be extended to eases in which the right did not exist at common law.” Likewise, in Ex parte Wong You Ting, 106 Cal. 296, 299 [39 Pac. 627], referring to the same provision the court declares: “It has been held to refer generally to the right of trial by jury as it existed at common law and at the time the constitution was adopted.” Again, in the more recent case of In re Mana, 178 Cal. 213, 214 [L. R. A. 1918E, 771, 172 Pac. 986], which involved the constitutionality of the act of the legislature authorizing women to sit as jurors, we find this language: It seems “to be thoroughly settled by the unbroken line of decisions in all the states: . . . that constitutional provisions guaranteeing the right to a trial by jury establish the right to a trial by a jury as known at common law. ’ ’ People v. Powell, 87 Cal. 348 [11 L. R. A. *286 75, 25 Pac. 481], a case relied upon by appellant, is to the same effect.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
205 P. 121, 188 Cal. 281, 21 A.L.R. 1399, 1922 Cal. LEXIS 422, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-martin-cal-1922.