People v. Lyle

JENNINGS, J.

—The appellant was accused by information filed in the Superior Court of San Diego County on February 14, 1934, of having committed the crime of bur

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glary and also with having suffered three' prior convictions of a felony, for each of which he had been sentenced to imprisonment and had served a term therefor in a penal institution. On arraignment appellant, who was represented by counsel, entered a plea of guilty of the offense charged and admitted the prior convictions alleged in the information. Thereafter on March 8, 1934, the court pronounced judgment against him. This judgment, which was entered on the minutes of the court, after reciting that appellant had entered a plea of guilty of the offense charged in the information and had admitted the three prior convictions alleged therein and that the court had determined the degree of burglary to be that of second degree, ordered that appellant be punished by imprisonment in the state prison of the state of California and that he be delivered to the warden of the state prison at Folsom. On April 4, 1936, the board of prison terms and paroles of Folsom prison determined that appellant should be confined in said prison for life as an habitual criminal, reserving to itself the right to redetermine said term of confinement as the circumstances of the ease or the prisoner’s conduct might in the interest of justice require. On July 13, 1936, which was more than two years after the above-mentioned judgment was pronounced appellant presented to the trial court a motion to vacate and set aside said judgment. The motion was denied and this appeal was thereupon taken from the order of denial.

The basis for the primary contention advanced by appellant on this appeal is the following statement allegedly made by the trial court at the time judgment was pronounced: “The Court will not adjudge you to be an habitual criminal, but the judgment will be that you will be committed to the State Prison at Folsom for the term prescribed by law.”

Appellant’s first contention is stated by him as follows : “That the court having erroneously informed the defendant as to the true legal effect of said judgment and sentence pronounced against him, the defendant was denied the due process of law, in that relying on such information, he took no appeal from that portion of the judgment and sentence, which as construed by the Supreme Court, subjects him to the provisions of section 644 of the Penal Code as an habitual criminal.”