In Re Nicholson

California Court of Appeal Dec 10, 1937 No. Crim. 1597Published

Before: Plummer

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Holding. The court held that a habeas corpus petition cannot rely on evidence outside the trial record to challenge a judgment that is regular on its face, and that claims of procedural irregularity must be raised on appeal.

Issues

Whether a habeas corpus petitioner may use evidence outside the trial record to challenge the legality of a commitment.
Whether the court may look beyond a regularly certified trial record to determine if a defendant entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity.

Disposition. writ discharged

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“We do not need to cite authorities to the effect that where the record of the trial before us is regular upon its face and shows jurisdiction, no further inquiry can be made.”

PLUMMER, J.

The petition in this cause alleges that one E. V. Nicholson is illegally confined and restrained of his liberty in the state prison at Folsom, Sacramento County, California, and alleges in that behalf the illegality of a certain commitment issued out of the Superior Court of the •County of Riverside, State of California. The ground upon which the alleged illegality is based is that the petitioner at the time he was arraigned upon an information charging him with the crime of burglary, entered a plea of not guilty to the charge, and also, not guilty by reason of insanity, and that the judgment of the court sentencing him to the state prison at Folsom was pronounced after the verdict of the jury was rendered finding him guilty of the offense of burglary and fixing the degree therein and before his trial on the plea of not guilty by reason of insanity.

In behalf of the petition the attention of the court is called specially to the ease of

People

Marshall,

99 Cal. App. 224 [278 Pac. 258], and the same case before the court on a subsequent appeal reported in 209 Cal. 540 [289 Pac. 629]. In those cases it was held that the irregularity in the pronouncing of sentence preceding the trial of the defendant on *he question of insanity necessitated the remanding of the cause to the trial court for the repronouncing of senténee. Those cases, of course, were where the defendant had presented the question of irregularity upon an appeal from a judgment rendered against him where the record at the trial showed the irregularity of the proceedings.

The record of the trial in this cause, however, shows no such irregularity. The effort to establish the irregularity appears from a proceeding had in the superior court for the purpose of giving information to the board of prison terms and paroles, and not upon the trial of the defendant in whose behalf this petition was filed.

While in the case of

In re Lake,

65 Cal. App. 420 [224 Pac. 126], it is held that for the purposes of ascertaining

[17]

In Re Nicholson

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PLUMMER, J.

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