People v. Tallman

163 P.2d 857, 27 Cal. 2d 209, 1945 Cal. LEXIS 230
CourtCalifornia Supreme Court
DecidedNovember 9, 1945
DocketCrim. 4658
StatusPublished
Cited by58 cases

This text of 163 P.2d 857 (People v. Tallman) 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. Tallman, 163 P.2d 857, 27 Cal. 2d 209, 1945 Cal. LEXIS 230 (Cal. 1945).

Opinion

GIBSON, C. J.

While on her way to school a fourteen-year-old girl was grabbed by a man as she walked through a hole in a hedge that surrounded the school grounds. The offender placed one of his hands under her skirt and his other hand was upon her body outside of her clothes. The child pulled herself free and ran to the school. On the following morning, at the same place and at approximately the same time a man committed a similar attack on a second school girl. She likewise pushed or kicked herself free and as the man departed from the scene in an automobile the girl’s companion repeated the license number, which the girl then wrote on the cover of one of her books. Three days later defendant was traced through this license number and identified by the girls in a police line-up. Upon the trial, the girls also pointed to defendant as their assailant and described and identified his automobile as the one in which he had approached and departed from the scene of the offenses. The school book on which the license number had been inscribed was also introduced in evidence.

The jury rejected defendant’s claim that he was elsewhere at the times in question and convicted him on two counts of simple assault, lesser offenses included in those charged against him. He was sentenced to serve six months in the county jail on each count, the sentences to run consecutively.

The verdicts are amply supported by the evidence and *212 its sufficiency is not challenged by defendant. His first contention concerns the manner in which he was charged by the information filed by the district attorney. It appears that following his preliminary examination defendant was held to answer on two counts (one with respect to each girl) of assault with intent to commit rape. An information charging these offenses was thereupon filed and upon his arraignment defendant pleaded not guilty. Before the commencement of trial, however, the district attorney was permitted, over defendant’s Objection, to file an amended information and the trial was continued to a later date. As amended, the information contained six counts and also charged a prior felony conviction of larceny which defendant admitted. The six counts describe three offenses against each of the two girls involved and all relate to the two occurrences above mentioned which were the subject of the evidence produced at the preliminary hearing. The amended information charged assault with intent to commit rape in counts 1 and 4; attempted rape in counts 2 and 5; and assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury in counts 3 and 6. Inasmuch as defendant was acquitted on four counts (1, 2, 4 and 5) we need not concern ourselves with them.

Defendant contends that the evidence at the preliminary examination showed at the most two offenses of simple assault, a misdemeanor, and that it was therefore improper to permit the filing of the amended information charging the offense of assault with force likely to produce great bodily injury, a felony. It is settled that the offense of assault with force likely to produce great bodily injury (charged in counts 3 and 6) may be perpetrated by means of the hands alone. (People v. Hinshaw, 194 Cal. 1, 14-18 [227 P. 156]; People v. Bumbaugh, 48 Cal.App.2d 791, 796-797 [120 P.2d 703]; see, also, People v. McIlvain, 55 Cal.App.2d 322, 331 [130 P.2d 131].) The evidence taken at the preliminary examination which was before the trial court when it permitted the filing of the amended information, disclosed that defendant seized his victims and moved his hands in a clawing manner over their bodies. In order to support the filing of a charge the evidence before a committing magistrate need not require conviction but is adequate if it appears that a public offense has been committed and there is sufficient cause to believe defendant guilty thereof. The evidence taken at the preliminary hearing supports the filing of the charges contained in counts 3 and 6.

*213 This brings us to a consideration of the question whether the court erred in allowing the information to be amended to add the two counts charging assault with force likely to produce great bodily injury. Section 1008 of the Penal Code governs the amendment of an information. It permits an amendment without leave of court at any time before the defendant pleads. At any stage of the proceeding, however, the court may order an amendment for any defect or deficiency unless the substantial rights of the defendant would be prejudiced, in which event a reasonable continuance is to be allowed. An information is deficient within the meaning of section 1008 so as to permit of its amendment, when it fails to charge one or more of the offenses shown by the evidence at the preliminary examination. (People v. Shutler, 15 Cal.App.2d 704, 708 [59 P.2d 1050].) The section forbids, however, an amendment which charges “an offense not shown by the evidence taken at the preliminary examination.” Here, as already shown, the addition of counts 3 and 6 by amendment charged only offenses covered by the evidence produced at the preliminary hearing. They were offenses against the same girls named in the original information and were predicated upon their testimony as to the same two occurrences which underlay the charges set forth in the original information. The defendant was not caught unawares, since the evidence taken upon the preliminary examination disclosed the offenses with which he might be charged.

It is established that the provision of the section allowing an amendment of an information so as to add an offense shown by the evidence at the preliminary examination, does not violate a defendant’s constitutional rights. (People v. Foster, 198 Cal. 112, 119-121 [243 P. 667]; People v. Shutler, 15 Cal.App.2d 704, 705-708 [59 P.2d 1050]; People v. Roth, 137 Cal.App. 592, 607-608 [31 P. 813]; see, also, People v. Bird, 212 Cal. 632, 638 [300 P. 23].) Section 809 of the Penal Code which governs the filing of an original information was amended in 1927 to make it conform to section 1008 governing the filing of an amended information. As amended, section 809 provides in part that the original information “may charge the offense, or offenses, named in the order of commitment, or any offense, or offenses, shown by the evidence taken before the magistrate to have been committed.” This section likewise has been held to do no violence to either federal or state constitutional provisions. (People *214 v. Bird, 212 Cal. 632, 636-645 [300 P. 23]; People v. Sanders, 102 Cal.App. 237, 239-246 [283 P. 136]; People v. Malowitz, 133 Cal.App. 250, 260 [24 P.2d 177

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
163 P.2d 857, 27 Cal. 2d 209, 1945 Cal. LEXIS 230, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-tallman-cal-1945.