People v. Pierro

JAMES, J.

Defendant was prosecuted under the provisions of the juvenile court law of 1909 for having committed acts of a lewd and lascivious character with an alleged dependent child named Valita Rhinehart. Otherwise expressed, the offense of contributing to the dependency of a minor under the age of eighteen years was the crime intended to be charged by the information. The appeal is taken from a judgment of imprisonment, and from an order made by the trial court denying defendant’s motion for a new trial.

The act of the legislature referred to defines a dependent child to be one who is found committing, or who engages in the performance of, a variety of acts, all of which are specified in some fifteen subdivisions of the first section of the law. A child of the character therein described, or who does any of the different acts enumerated in either or any of such subdivisions, is declared to be dependent. By section 26 of the act it is then provided that ‘ ‘ in all eases where any child shall be dependent or delinquent under the terms of this act, the

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parent or parents, legal guardian or person having custody of such child, or any other person who shall, by any act or omission, encourage, cause or contribute to the dependency or delinquency of such child shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.” Under the terms of the statute, then, it is essential that before a person can be convicted of contributing to the dependency of a child, the fact that such child has become a dependent must be alleged and proved. The condition of the child as having become impressed with the character of a dependent is an indispensable prerequisite to the maintenance of a charge like the one made against the defendant in this case. The district attorney appreciated this requirement of the law and alleged in his information “that on or about the thirty-first day of November, 1910, at and in the county of San Diego, one Valita Rhinehart was a minor female child under the age of eighteen years, and was then and there a dependent child within the meaning of that certain act of the legislature of said state entitled, ‘An Act concerning dependent and delinquent minor children; providing for their care, custody and maintenance’; approved March 8, 1909.” Allegations then followed in which were enumerated the various acts alleged to have been committed by defendant with and in the presence of the child. The defendant, by demurrer, objected to the sufficiency of this information on the ground that the particular acts or conduct chargeable against Valita Rhinehart by reason of which the child became a delinquent were not set out in the information, and that therefore defendant was not informed of the particulars of the charge he was called upon to meet. In our opinion, there was merit in this objection and the demurrer to the information should have been sustained. The child, if dependent, may have become a vagrant, or a beggar; she may have become incorrigible or destitute; she may have frequented the company of criminals, or become an inmate of a house of prostitution ; or deported herself in many other ways by reason of which the character of a dependeút child may have become affixed to her within the meaning of the juvenile court law. Defendant was entitled to have the information show the particulars in this regard, for he was called upon to meet the issue,“first, as to whether the child had in fact become a delinquent. If she had not, the charge of contributing to