People v. Hayes

California Court of Appeal Sep 13, 1935 No. Crim. 2746Published

Before: Fricke

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Holding. The court held that consecutive sentences imposed for subsequent convictions are valid under California law, even if the defendant is already serving a life sentence, and that such sentences are governed by statute rather than requiring specific judicial designation of commencement dates.

Issues

Whether sentences are ambiguous for failing to specify a commencement date when consecutive terms are mandated by statute.
Whether a defendant serving a life sentence is immune from additional consecutive sentences for subsequent convictions.
Whether the trial court abused its discretion by failing to order sentences to run concurrently.

Disposition. affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“The fact that a prisoner who serves a life term and, while serving such, dies in prison cannot serve other sentences imposed for other offenses and running consecutively does not prevent, as a matter of law, the imposing of such consecutive sentences”

“The judgments imposed were wholly in compliance with the law and valid, and appellant has not only failed to show any legal reason why they should be vacated or set aside but has failed to show any legal defect or irregularity therein.”

FRICKE, J.,

pro tem.

Appeal from order denying a motion to set aside two judgments.

Appellant was on May 25, 1928, convicted in the Superior Court in and for the City and County of San Francisco of the crime of first degree robbery and sentenced to imprisonment in the state prison at Folsom. After having begun service of his term under said sentence, and having on March 22, 1929, been indicted in Los Angeles County upon robbery charges, appellant was brought before the Superior Court at Los Angeles and there entered pleas of guilty to two counts of robbery, each of which the court found to be a robbery of the first degree, and thereupon on April 26, 1929, the court pronounced judgment sentencing appellant on each conviction to the state prison at Folsom. No appeal was taken from either of these judgments. In April, 1935, appellant filed a notice of motion in the Superior Court in and for Los Angeles County to vacate and set aside the judgments of that court. This motion was denied.

Appellant contends that the sentences imposed by the Superior Court at Los Angeles are ambiguous and uncertain in

[160]

that they fail to state when they shall commence, and that if they commence upon the termination of the sentence under the prior conviction then the two later judgments and would be unenforceable, since the first sentence was a sentence for life to which no further period of imprisonment could possibly be added.

While it is true, as said in the cases of

In re Lee,

177 Cal. 690 [171 Pac. 958],

In re Wignall,

193 Cal. 387 [224 Pac. 452], and

In re Daniels,

106 Cal. App. 43 [288 Pac. 1109], that when a sentence is imposed under the indeterminate sentence law (sec. 1168, Pen. Code) the term of imprisonment is for the maximum period provided by law as the penalty for the offense in question, this is true only to the extent that the term of imprisonment is the maximum provided by law until action is taken by the board of prison terms and paroles, which may and is required to fix the period of at a period between the maximum and minimum penalties, and when so fixed the term of imprisonment is the period fixed by order of that board. (People v.

People v. Hayes

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FRICKE, J.,

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