People v. Brown

FOURT, J.

This is an appeal from a judgment of conviction of the crime of robbery. By information filed in Los Angeles County on July 13, 1962, defendant was charged with armed robbery (Pen. Code, § 211). He also was charged with having suffered four prior felony convictions.

Defendant pleaded not guilty to the charge of robbery as contained in the information and admitted two of the charged prior convictions (the latest of which was of nine counts of first degree robbery); the remaining two charges of prior convictions were stricken. Defendant was found guilty of robbery by a jury but it was also found that he was not armed. Motion for a new trial was denied, probation was denied and defendant was sentenced to the state prison for the term prescribed by the law.

Defendant properly does not question the sufficiency of the evidence to support the conviction, for the evidence against him is overwhelming. The one issue presented on this appeal can be stated as follows: In a situation where the prosecution, during its case in chief, seeks to introduce a purported confession of a defendant and where the defendant objects to the introduction of the purported confession on the ground that it was involuntary (the result of physical beatings with a sap) and where the trial judge refuses to hear

[741]

the matter outside the presence of the jury

1

and where the defendant, during the prosecution’s case in chief, takes the witness stand as his own witness on

voir dire

examination for the limited purpose of showing that the purported confession was obtained as the result of physical abuse, is the prosecution then entitled to impeach defendant on the

voir dire

cross-examination by showing that he has suffered two prior felony convictions ?

The Attorney General concedes that the defendant testified during the

voir dire