People v. Redford

SHEPARD, Acting P. J.,

This is an appeal from a judgment finding defendant guilty of the crime of kidnapping and sentencing defendant to the custody of the Director of Corrections for the period provided by law.

Facts

The facts shown by the record before us are substantially as follows: Defendant was charged with, and pleaded guilty to, the crimes of kidnapping (violation of Pen. Code, § 207 (count 1), and sexual perversion by force with a 5-year-old girl child, as is described in Penal Code section 288a (count 3). Other counts were dismissed.

It appears that defendant, in the early evening of December 31, 1960, went into the yard of a home in Santa Ana, where he saw through the window a 5-year-old girl. He attracted her attention and enticed her out of the house. He then grabbed

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her and carried her away in his truck. At a later time that night, he repeatedly, by force, committed the act of oral copulation on her sex organ. In the early morning hours of January 1, 1961, in a city in another county a considerable distance from her home, he abandoned her on a deserted street, where she eventually was found, cold, hungry and crying, by a milkman evidently making his early morning rounds. All of these acts were fully and freely admitted by defendant.

It further appears that defendant already had a long criminal record, he having been convicted in 1947 of drunken joyriding ; in 1950 of grand theft, auto; in 1951 of indecent exposure; in 1956 of disturbing the peace resulting from exhibitionism; and in 1957 of drunken joy-riding. In addition, in 1958 in another county he was convicted of an offense similar to the one charged in count 3, above noted. Sexual psychopathy proceedings were therein instituted. He was found to be a sexual psychopath, and committed to the state hospital for treatment in accordance with the provisions of Welfare and Institutions Code sections 5500 et seq. He had been released from the hospital as no longer a menace to society, and had been granted probation by the court in which he had been found guilty, and was on probation at the time he committed the present offenses.

Upon the plea of guilty, entered January 10, 1961, to count 1 (kidnapping), defendant requested probation, the matter was referred to the probation officer for report, and the time for hearing the probation officer’s report and for judgment was set for February 10, 1961, at 9:30 a. m. On the plea of guilty to count 3 (violation of Pen. Code, § 288a), entered also on January 10, 1961, a hearing on sexual psychopathy pursuant to sections 5500 et seq. of the Welfare and Institutions Code was set for hearing February 10, 1961, at 9 :30 a. m. Doctors were appointed, and a report ordered. At the time set, both matters were heard on the same calendar by the same judge. On count 1, defendant’s application for probation was denied and he was sentenced to the custody of the State Director of Corrections for the period provided by law. In the sexual psychopathy proceeding under count 3, he was adjudged a sexual psychopath and committed to the state hospital for the preliminary examination period provided by law. The court, at the same time, ordered that the execution of the sentence on count 1 take precedence over the sexual psychopathy commitment under count 3.