People v. Cox

California Court of Appeal Dec 28, 1936 No. Crim. 1914Published

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Holding. The court held that a writ of error coram nobis cannot be granted on the basis of newly discovered evidence, as such evidence must be addressed through the statutory remedies of appeal or motion for new trial.

Issues

Whether the issuance of a patent after a criminal conviction constitutes a mistake of fact sufficient to warrant a writ of error coram nobis.
Whether newly discovered evidence can serve as a basis for a writ of error coram nobis in California.

Disposition. affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“the law of California is well settled that because of the existence in this state of the remedies of right of appeal and motion for new trial, newly discovered evidence cannot be made to serve as the basis for the granting of a writ of error”

THE COURT.

This is an appeal by James Cox, R. K. Weatherill and J. E. Soderholm from an order of the superior court denying their application for a writ of error

coram nobis,

after indictment, trial and conviction in said court on five counts of grand theft and five counts of violation of the Corporate Securities Act. Indicted jointly with appellants on the five counts charging violation of the Corporate Securities Act was one W. EL Gregory, and he too was found guilty on those counts. Gregory alone appealed, and on February 19, 1936, the judgment of conviction as to him was affirmed.

(People

Gregory,

12 Cal. App. (2d) 7 [54 Pac. (2d) 770].) Subsequently and on May 8, 1936, the appellants herein filed and later presented their petition for a writ of error

coram nobis,

alleging facts upon which they based the contention that the judgments of conviction against them were founded on a mistake of fact; and after a hearing before the same judge who had presided at the trial of the action, the petition was denied.

The record on appeal herein does not contain a transcript of any of the evidence taken or proceedings had at the trial of the action on the merits; but the essential facts upon which the defendants were found guilty appear in the opinion affirming the judgment in the Gregory case, and they are as follows: In 1929 the appellant Cox, claiming to have developed a new secret process for dehydrating and decarbonizing crude oil, entered into a contract with the appellant Weatherill to finance the building of a plant to carry on the oil processing operations in accordance with the Cox formula. Under the terms of said contract Weatherill was given the right to purchase the formula and an oil lease owned by Cox, in consideration of which Weatherill agreed, among other things, to erect the plant and organize a corporation to take over the operation of the enterprise, one-fourth of the capital stock in which corporation was to be issued to Cox and his wife. Thereupon and before such a corporation was organized the appellants and others associated with them, without having first applied for or ob

[285]

People v. Cox

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THE COURT.

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