People v. Helton

GRIFFIN, P. J.

Defendant-appellant was charged in an information with escaping from a state prison camp on July 19, 1959, in violation of Penal Code, section 4531. He was represented by the public defender, who, previous to trial, moved to dismiss the action under Penal Code, section 1381, requiring that when a defendant has been convicted in any court of this state of a felony and has been sentenced and has entered upon a term of imprisonment and at such time there is pending in any court of this state any other information charging defendant with a crime, it is made mandatory upon the district attorney of the county where the charge is pending to bring the same to trial within 90 days after such defendant shall have delivered to said district attorney written notice of the place of his imprisonment and of his desire to be brought to trial upon said charge, and, if not, the court must, on motion, dismiss the charge. This motion was denied. Defendant pleaded not guilty. A jury trial resulted in a verdict of guilty. Defendant appealed, in propria persona, and claims he offered to prove at the trial that he was, while in the prison camp, informed of his father’s illness and that he went to attend his father’s funeral in Fresno, and that the court wrongfully refused evidence as to why he escaped and that he also offered to prove, at the. trial, that in 1960 he was arrested in New Mexico and that he informed the authorities there that he was a California escapee and signed a waiver of extradition and that the California authorities sent word that he was not wanted in California. Both offers of proof were refused. He also claims on appeal that on July 11, 1960, he was picked up in Oakland, was returned to San Quentin, and later sent to Folsom State Prison, and that about that date he claims he signed a demand for trial in the presence of a parole officer, but that it apparently was not received by the district attorney in San Bernardino County, or that it was lost and accordingly he was entitled to a dismissal of the action under Penal Code, section 1381, since the trial was

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not had within the 90 days at the time of making the motion on January 27, 1961.

It was established that the district attorney did receive, on November 25, 1960, a written demand to be tried, and it was dated November 18, 1960. According to this demand, defendant was tried within the 90 days. Defendant relies upon the former claimed written demand in support of his motion. Defendant, testifying in his own behalf on the motion, said that on July 28, 1960, while in San Quentin Prison, he sent to one of the officers a request to furnish him with a form, “demand for trial,” and he received the form, signed it on July 28, 1960, placed it in an envelope addressed to the legal adviser, and turned it over to the clerk in his office.