People v. Ragsdale

California Court of Appeal Feb 8, 1960 No. Crim. 3630Published

Before: Dooling

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Holding. The court held that the defendant's right to a speedy trial was not violated, that a defendant may consent to a trial by fewer than twelve jurors in a felony case, and that Penal Code section 288a is constitutional as applied to prison inmates.

Issues

Whether the defendant's right to a speedy trial was violated by the delay in returning the indictment.
Whether a defendant can constitutionally consent to a trial by fewer than twelve jurors in a felony case.
Whether Penal Code section 288a is unconstitutional as applied to persons confined in prison.

Disposition. affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“Appellant was not a “party accused” within the meaning of this section until the indictment of the grand jury was returned.”

“Appellant’s claim that he could not constitutionally or under Penal Code, section 1123, consent to trial by a jury of less than twelve in a felony case is foreclosed by the previous decisions.”

“The making of unnatural sexual relations a crime is embedded in the history of the common law and finds its sanction in the broader basis of the settled mores of our western civilization.”

DOOLING, J.

Appellant is represented by court-appointed counsel who has presented his arguments with commendable zeal and lawyer-like completeness. Appellant Ragsdale and his codefendant Underhill were charged by indictment with the felony denounced by Penal Code, section 288a (oral sexual copulation). Defendant Underhill’s appeal has been voluntarily dismissed. The two defendants were prisoners in San Quentin Prison at the time the alleged offense occurred. There was explicit eyewitness testimony of the commission of the prohibited act in a prison cell on March 9, 1958. Forthwith commencing on that day the defendants were disciplined for the offense as a violation of prison regulations by being placed in solitary confinement. The indictment charging this offense was returned by the grand jury on September 15, 1958. After the close of the evidence one of the jurors was confined to his bed by illness. The two defendants personally, their counsel and the prosecuting attorney all stipulated that the case might be decided by the eleven remaining jurors and the jury as so constituted returned its verdict of guilty as charged.

Counsel presents three arguments for reversal: 1. The appellant’s right to a speedy trial guaranteed by the Constitutions of California and the United States was violated by the lapse of over six months in returning the indictment; 2. The trial by eleven jurors violated the rights guaranteed by section 7, article I, California Constitution and Penal Code, section 1123; 3. As applied to persons confined in prison

[678]

Penal Code, section 288a, is an unconstitutional violation of the due process clauses of the state and federal. Constitutions.

1. The ready answer to the argument that appellant was not speedily brought to trial is that no objection was made at the trial on that ground and that being so it is now too late to raise that question for the first time on appeal.

(People

Jordan,

45 Cal.2d 697, 708 [290 P.2d 484].) But passing this consideration the provision of the California Constitution upon which appellant relies (Cal. Const., art. I, §13) guarantees “the party accused” a speedy trial. Appellant was not a “party accused” within the meaning of this section until the indictment of the grand jury was returned.

People v. Ragsdale

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DOOLING, J.

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