People v. Pace

ELLIOT CRAIG, J.,

pro tem.

Defendant was charged in count I of an amended information with violation of State Narcotic and Drug Act, a felony, and with having theretofore suffered three prior convictions of felony and terms of imprisonment therefor in penal institutions. Defendant pleaded guilty to violation of State Narcotic and Drug Act, denied the first and second alleged prior convictions and admitted the third prior conviction and imprisonment therefor. The charge of the first prior conviction was stricken out and on trial the court found the charge of the second prior conviction to be true and that defendant served a term of imprisonment therefor in a penal institution. Defendant was adjudged to be an habitual criminal under the provision of section 644 of the Penal Code, for having suffered two prior convictions of the felonies named in said section and having served terms of imprisonment therefor in penal institutions, and sentenced to imprisonment in Folsom state prison.

Defendant’s appeal is from the judgment, but on appeal he complains only that the evidence is not sufficient to sustain the court’s decision as to said second prior conviction, the adjudication of being an habitual criminal and the sentence based thereon.

The prior conviction complained of was for larceny committed in the state of Pennsylvania in 1923 and for which defendant served a term in the Western State Penitentiary of the said state. It was stipulated at the trial that the property taken in said larceny was $10. The defendant claimed on trial and now claims that the conviction for such larceny cannot be treated as a felony conviction under sections 644 and 668 of the Penal Code.

[466]

This court takes judicial knowledge of “the laws of the several states of the United States and the interpretation thereof by the highest courts of appellate jurisdiction of such states”. (Code Civ. Proc., see. 1875, subd. 3.)

The state of Pennsylvania looks to the common law for its criminal law, except where the common law has been expressly modified by statute.

The statutes of Pennsylvania prescribe: “If any person shall be guilty of larceny, he shall, on conviction, be deemed guilty of a felony and be sentenced to pay a fine not exceeding $500.00 and to undergo an imprisonment, by separate or solitary confinement at labor, not exceeding three years.” (See. 2771, title 18, of Purdon’s Pennsylvania Statutes Ann. [Permanent edition].)