People v. Singh

KAUFMAN, P. J.

Appellant Donald S. Singh was charged by information on June 22, 1956, with one count of violating Penal Code, section 476a, issuing a check without sufficient

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funds on April 20, 1956. To this charge appellant, after informing the court that he was obtaining counsel, entered a plea of not guilty. On August 17, 1956, appellant was charged by information with two additional counts of issuing checks without sufficient funds in July while he was out on bail on the prior charge. Appellant, with his counsel present, entered pleas of not guilty to these two counts. After several continuances and a change of counsel, the case was set for trial on January 22, 1957. On that date, appellant, again represented by counsel, requested and was granted permission to withdraw his prior pleas of not guilty and enter a plea of guilty to all counts of the two informations. After several additional continuances, appellant’s application for probation was set for hearing on February 21, 1957. At this time, appellant made a motion to withdraw his plea of guilty and enter a plea of not guilty, which motion was set to be heard on March 1,1957.

At the hearing on this motion, appellant’s counsel offered to show that he had discovered new évidenee which would indicate that the appellant had a reasonable basis for believing he had sufficient credit with the bank, as it appeared that an official of the bank had, without appellant’s knowledge, paid appellant’s checks out of his own pocket in the amount of $870 and that at the time of the prior change of plea the bank had refused to cooperate with the appellant and appellant did not have access to the checks or his records (which had been in his apartment at the time of his arrest in April and somehow had gotten to the bank). Appellant’s counsel admitted that he had issued additional bad checks while he was out on bail after being arraigned on the first charge and further stated that appellant would not have changed his initial plea to guilty if he had known that the checks had been paid. Upon the above evidence, the court denied appellant’s motion to change his plea and sentenced appellant to a term in the state prison. As the order denying appellant’s motion is not appealable

(People

v.