People v. Lee

KNIGHT, J.

The appellant Francis Lee entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity to a charge of grand theft, stealing an automobile, and upon trial before a jury was found to be sane at the time of the commission of the act constituting the crime. Thereafter a motion for new trial was made and denied, and he was sentenced to imprisonment in the state prison. This appeal was then taken from the judgment and the order denying his motion for a new trial.

In support of his plea and as part of his case, he offered in evidence a petition for the appointment of a guardian, filed in the superior court in 1925, “in the matter of the guardianship of Francis E. Lee, incompetent”, together with the order appointing guardian and the letters of guardianship, all of which the court excluded, upon the objection of the People. The ruling is assigned as error. None of the excluded papers were made part of the record on appeal, however, and for aught we can say the guardianship proceeding may have been based upon some of the

[612]

bodily ailments or weaknesses mentioned in section 1767 of the Code of Civil Procedure, which defines the word “incompetent”, and not upon a charge that appellant was insane.

The theft of the automobile took place on July 2, 1929, and appellant introduced in evidence the judgment-rolls of two proceedings had in the superior courts of two different counties, pursuant to chapter I, title V, part III, of the Political Code, showing that in 1924 appellant was adjudged insane and committed to the state hospital at Agnews; and that in 1928 he-was again adjudged insane and committed to the state hospital at Ukiah. The trial court received in evidence the judgments of insanity and commitments to the state hospital, in each proceeding, but excluded the other documents upon which those judgments and commitments were based, namely, the petitions for the commitments and the certificates of the doctors who conducted the examination as to appellant’s mental condition. There was no error in so doing, because those documents contained nothing more than opinions, conclusions and

ex parte

statements of the doctors and others, which at best constituted hearsay evidence.