Williams v. City of Oakland

25 Cal. App. 3d 346, 101 Cal. Rptr. 137, 1972 Cal. App. LEXIS 1036
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedMay 8, 1972
DocketCiv. No. 29788
StatusPublished

This text of 25 Cal. App. 3d 346 (Williams v. City of Oakland) 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
Williams v. City of Oakland, 25 Cal. App. 3d 346, 101 Cal. Rptr. 137, 1972 Cal. App. LEXIS 1036 (Cal. Ct. App. 1972).

Opinion

Opinion

RATTIGAN, J.

This appeal is from a permanent injunction purporting to regulate some aspects of the procedure by which certain persons are released on bail after having been arrested on criminal charges.

The appeal has been taken on the judgment roll alone, which (as defined in Code Civ. Proc., § 670, subd. 2) consists of the complaint and answer, the trial court’s findings of fact and conclusions of law, and the injunction; there is no evidentiary record. (See fn. 1 and accompanying text, post.) As the underlying facts and the effect of the injunction are not ade[348]*348quately disclosed by the judgment-roll documents or in the briefs, we are required to reconstruct them from an interpretation of the limited record. It shows as follows:

Plaintiffs are Theodore R. Williams and Lelma L. Williams. The named defendants are the City of Oakland, its police department, and its police chief. Plaintiffs alleged in their complaint, among other things, (1) that they operate a bail bond agency in Oakland; (2) that “[defendants, and each of them,” had refused “to accept United States Treasury Bonds in lieu of surety bond or cash as and for bail for various defendants,” and (3) that “said acts are directly in conflict with Section 1298 of the Penal Code . . . and defendants have thereby violated Plaintiffs’ legal right pursuant to said Section to post United States Treasury Bonds in lieu of cash or surety bonds.” In the prayer, plaintiffs sought a permanent injunction requiring defendants to desist in the refusal practice mentioned.

Defendants having filed an answer setting forth various denials, the cause came on for hearing.1 The trial court thereafter made findings of fact and conclusions of law generally favorable to plaintiffs,2 and entered a “Permanent Injunction” substantially as prayed.3 Defendants appeal.

[349]*349As pertinent here, the statutory provisions on the subject of bail are found in the various articles (1 through 9, inclusive) of chapter 1 of title 10 of part 2 of the Penal Code (commencing with § 1268 thereof).4 The parties reached by the injunction include “the defendants.” (See fn. 3, ante.) The named defendants are a city, its police department, and its po.lice chief, none of whom, as such, has any authority or duty under the bail chapter.

In addition to the “defendants,” however, the injunction reaches their “agents, servants, employees, and representatives” and, more specifically, “the officer in charge of the Oakland City Jail.” (See fn. 3, ante.) The bail chapter refers to the last-mentioned official, and vests him with certain authority relative to bail, in section 1296b. (Quoted in fn. 9, post.) It fairly appears, thus (from an analysis of the record in light of that section, and although the record itself is silent or unclear on the points next mentioned), that the “officer in charge of the Oakland City Jail” is an Oakland police officer; that the action and the injunction are in reality addressed to the named defendants only insofar as they act or refuse to act through him as one of their “agents, servants, employees, and representatives”; that, for practical purposes, it is he whom the injunction requires to accept “United States Treasury Bonds in lieu of cash or surety bonds for the purpose of bail as set forth in Penal Code section 1298 ... as to arrested persons held in custody” in the Oakland City jail (see fn. 3, ante); and that we are dealing with the limited—but commonplace—extra-judicial situation which permits the release of an arrested person on bail prior to his first court appearance, and wherein section 1269b authorizes a city jailer (hereinafter “jailer”)5 to effect such release subject to certain conditions and limitations. (See § 1269b as quoted in fn. 9, post. See also Gustafson, Bail In California (1956) 44 Cal.L.Rev. 815, 827-828.)

The foregoing reconstruction of the record defines the broad question on appeal as to whether the jailer may be compelled to accept United States bonds as bail, pursuant to section 1298 and “in lieu of cash or surety bonds” (see fn. 3, ante), and in the exercise of the authority vested in him by section 1269b. Having analyzed these two statutes historically (as set forth infra), we must answer the question in the negative; this requires the reversal hereinafter ordered.

Section 1298 provides that, “[i]n lieu of a deposit of money, the de[350]*350fendant or any other person” may deposit certain government bonds (which include the United States Treasury bonds involved here) as bail, and that, for the same purpose, “the defendant may give as security any equity in real property which he owns”; it extends the stated privileges to the persons it names (“the defendant or any other person,” or “the defendant,” respectively), but does not expressly refer to the duty or authority of a jailer to accept such bonds for the purpose of bail.6

The authority of a jailer to accept bail in any form, as presently expressed in section 1269b (see fn. 9, post), has been developed by the Legislature in the sequence next set forth. Such authority was first created, in 1951, by the enactment of former section 737.1 of the Vehicle Code. That statute applied only where a person had been arrested for a “misdemeanor violation” of the Vehicle Code and had been taken to a jail because no magistrate was available. It required the jailer to “admit him to bail” upon the deposit of cash or of a surety bond, in an amount predetermined by a bail schedule fixed and circulated by the magistrates of the county involved, and to release the arrestee when this had been done.7 Similar, but more limited, authority was vested in a jailer, as to persons arrested and booked on misdemeanor charges not involving Vehicle Code violations, by amendment of section 1295 of the Penal Code in 1955. As then amended, sec[351]*351tion 1295 authorized a jailer to accept bail for such person in cash only, in an amount fixed (1) by a bail schedule adopted by the judges of the court with jurisdiction of the offense or (2) in the warrant of arrest (if the amount it mentioned did not exceed $1,000), and to release the person from custody.8

In a single enactment at its 1957 Regular Session, the Legislature changed the jailer’s authority in several respects. It eliminated the separate procedure, applicable to- persons arrested for misdemeanor violations of the Vehicle Code, by amending section 737.1 thereof to provide that he (the jailer) was to admit such persons to bail “in accordance with a schedule, fixed as provided in section 1269b of the Penal Code”; deleted the reference to his authority in this respect as formerly stated in section 1295 (of the Pen. Code); and removed the definition, of such authority to a substantially rewritten version of section 1269b thereof, where it has appeared since.9

Having originally been enacted in 1919 (see its history as detailed in fn. 6, ante), section 1298 appeared, in the Penal Code at all times during the progressive development (commencing in 1951) of a jailer’s statutory authority to accept bail as now defined in section 1269b. (See text at fns. 7, 8, and 9, ante.)

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Bluebook (online)
25 Cal. App. 3d 346, 101 Cal. Rptr. 137, 1972 Cal. App. LEXIS 1036, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/williams-v-city-of-oakland-calctapp-1972.