People v. Kennedy

WHITE, P. J.

By information filed in the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, petitioner was charged in Count I with the crime of robbery, and in Count II with the offense of kidnapping for the purpose of robbery. He was convicted on both counts and from such judgments of conviction he appealed.

This court affirmed the judgment of conviction of kidnapping for the purpose of robbery and reversed the judgment of conviction of armed robbery

(People

v.

Kennedy,

101 Cal.App.2d 709 [226 P.2d 359]).

Thereafter, petitioner filed a petition for a writ of error

coram nobis

in the superior court of the county in which he had been tried, and the court there denied the petition on the ground that the superior court had no jurisdiction to hear the matter, as the judgment had been affirmed on appeal. The petitioner filed an appeal from the order denying his petition, and the appeal was dismissed. On September 24, 1952, this court issued an order stating that the petition for writ of error

coram nobis

which was filed in the superior court, and which was contained in the clerk’s transcript on the appeal which had been dismissed, would be considered as a petition for writ of

coram nobis

made directly to the District Court of Appeal.

As his first ground for the issuance of the writ herein prayed for, petitioner alleges that the information filed against him did not accuse him of aiding and abetting in the kidnapping, which was all that the evidence adduced at his trial proved that he did. That the information was therefore void for uncertainty and that the pleading failed to allege facts constituting the crime of kidnapping for the purpose of robbery.

[275]

In this contention petitioner cannot be sustained. Penal Code, section 971, as it read in 1950, when the information was filed, provided, insofar as here pertinent: “. . . and all persons concerned in the commission of a felony, whether they directly commit the act constituting the offense, or aid and' abet in its commission, though not present, shall hereafter be prosecuted, tried, and punished as principals, and nó other facts need be alleged in any indictment or information against such an accessory than are required in an indictment or information against his principal.”