People v. Goodloe

FOX, P. J.

Defendants were charged with taking one hundred dollars

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and a watch from George Simmons in violation of section 211, Penal Code (robbery). Holmes admitted the prior felony conviction while Goodloe admitted two. The case was tried before a jury which could not agree. The court therefore declared a mistrial. The case was retried before a jury which found defendants guilty and fixed the offense at first degree. Pursuant to section 1181, subdivision 6, Penal Code, the degree of the robbery was reduced by the court to second degree. Motions for a new trial were denied as was probation. Defendants were sentenced to the state prison for the statutory term. They have appealed from the judgment. Defendant Holmes has also attempted to appeal from the order denying his motion for a new trial but this order is no longer appealable (Pen. Code, § 1237) and the purported appeal therefrom must be dismissed.

Defendants made a motion for a transcript of the evidence taken at the first trial. Their motion was denied. Later they

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made a motion for a transcript of their testimony only at that trial. This motion was conditionally denied.

Their sole point on this appeal is that the court erred as a matter of law in denying these motions. Defendants do not question the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain their convictions of second degree robbery.

The first motion was made on December 10, 1962. The entire record before us on this particular matter is a cryptic one sentence statement in the clerk’s transcript of that date which reads: “Defendants’ motion for court order for preparation of transcript of the first trial is argued and denied.” This motion may be regarded as in the nature of a discovery proceeding. The discovery cases, however, do not appear to look with favor on such unsupported requests. They indicate that a defendant must show some better cause for inspection than the mere desire for the benefit of all information obtained by the People.

(People

v. Cooper, 53 Cal.2d 755, 770 [3 Cal.Rptr. 148, 349 P.2d 964];