People v. Green

Opinion

COBEY, Acting P. J.

This appeal, from a municipal court order denying the pretrial motion of defendant, Melray Green, to suppress certain

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evidence, is before us pursuant to our order filed on November 24, 1980, transferring the case to us on our own motion for hearing and decision following notification from the Appellate Department of the Los Angeles County Superior Court of its certification of its decision herein for publication.

1

We issued our order of transfer under rule 62(a) of the California Rules of Court.

2

Our Jurisdiction

Melray Green, defendant and appellant herein, challenges our jurisdiction to issue our order of transfer in view of the fact that by memorandum and order filed November 6, 1980, we had denied transfer of this case under the aforementioned subdivision as being unnecessary.

Under rule 24(a) a decision of this court becomes final as to it 30 days after filing, except in 4 situations. One of these is the denial of a transfer to this court after certification for transfer of a case within the original jurisdiction of a municipal or justice court. Similarly, rule 27(a) provides that we may not grant a rehearing of our denial of a transfer of a case to this court “after certification in a case within the original jurisdiction of a municipal or justice court.”

In the case at bench the appellate department refused to certify the case to us for transfer pursuant to rule 63, although the People so requested.

3

That is why we transferred the case to us on our own motion. Such a transfer is not specified in rule 24(a) as final immediately. Likewise rule 27(a) expressly authorizes us to grant a rehearing on our own motion prior to but not after the time within which our decision becomes final. Our aforementioned decision refusing transfer of this case, filed on November 6, 1980, had not become final when by our aforementioned order filed November 24, 1980, we vacated the prior order and transferred this case to us on our own motion. Thus, this case is properly before us now and we have jurisdiction to hear this appeal on its merits. We now turn to the merits.