In Re Boyd

California Court of Appeal Sep 26, 1930 No. Docket No. 1592.Published

Before: Nourse

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Holding. Sections 1026 and 1026a of the Penal Code are constitutional, as they provide a valid procedure for felony cases involving pleas of not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity, and the classification of such defendants is not arbitrary.

Issues

Whether sections 1026 and 1026a of the Penal Code are unconstitutional because they do not provide for non-jury trials.
Whether section 1026 violates the equal protection clause by creating an arbitrary classification of defendants.

Disposition. dismissed and remanded

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“The section is therefore “constitutional” legislation so far as it goes and is applicable to all eases where a jury is not waived.”

“The classification of these individuals is neither arbitrary nor unreasonable and does not offend any of the petitioner’s constitutional rights.”

NOURSE, P. J.

Petitioner sued in

habeas corpus

alleging that he had been tried on an information charging a felony; that he had entered a plea of “not guilty” and one of “not guilty by reason of insanity” under the provisions of sections 1026 and 1026a of the Penal Code; that both trials were had before the same jury, and that he was found guilty of the crime charged and also was found to have been sane when the crime was committed. He seeks his release from the state penitentiary on the ground that these sections of the Penal Code are unconstitutional.

His first point is that the amendment to section 7 of article I of the state Constitution, which was adopted at the general election in 1928, and which permits a defendant in a felony case to waive a jury trial, renders these code sections inoperative, as they cover proceedings in a trial by jury only. The section of the Constitution, as amended in 1928, reads in part as follows: “The right of trial by jury shall be secured to all, and remain inviolate. ... A trial by jury may be waived in all criminal cases, by the consent of both parties, expressed in open court by the defendant and his counsel, and in civil actions. ...” Section 1026 of the Penal Code, which covers the procedure when a plea of “not guilty by reason of insanity” is entered, was enacted by the legislature in 1927 along with an amendment to section. 1016 which specially authorizes such a plea. Among other things section 1026 provides that when this

[543]

plea is entered along with another plea and the jury finds the defendant guilty, “then the question whether the defendant was sane or insane at the time the offense was committed shall be promptly tried,

either before the same or before a new jury,

in the discretion of the court”.

The argument is that as there is no provision for a trial of this issue before a court when a jury has been waived the entire section must fall.

There are two answers to the argument. First, the Constitution secures to every defendant charged with a felony the

In Re Boyd

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NOURSE, P. J.

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