People v. Hoover

PRESTON, P. J.

Defendant James Hoover was convicted by a jury in the Superior Court of Yolo County on April 7, 1930, of murder of the second degree. Having suffered a prior conviction, he was sentenced to imprisonment in the state prison at Folsom and is now incarcerated there. Long after this judgment had become final, and on September

[339]

11, 1931, he filed a motion in the Superior Court of Yolo County to set aside and vacate said judgment of conviction of murder upon the ground that he was held to answer to the superior court for the murder of

Roy

Smith and was tried in the superior court and convicted of the murder of

Ray

Smith. The motion was denied by the learned trial judge on September 21, 1931. From the order denying said motion the defendant prosecutes this appeal.

These additional facts appear in the record: A criminal complaint was filed against said defendant under the name of Jimmie Ray on February 3, 1930, in the justice’s court of Washington township, Yolo County, charging him and a man called Lester Ray with the murder of

Roy Smith,

a human being. A preliminary examination followed and they were held to answer to the superior court for the murder of Roy Smith. Thereafter the district attorney filed an information in said superior court charging defendant, whose true name is James Hoover, with the murder of

Ray Smith

instead of Roy Smith. Defendant James Hoover' was duly arraigned upon this information and, without objection of any kind, entered a plea of not guilty. On the morning of the trial the following proceedings were had in said court:

“The Court: Are you ready, gentlemen? Mr. Chalmers (district attorney): We are ready. Mr. McDonald (attorney for defendant): Ready. Mr. Chalmers: If the Court please, in looking over the information, I find that it describes the party killed as ‘Ray Smith’. That is a typographical error. It should be ‘Roy Smith’, and we move to amend the information to read ‘Roy Smith’. Mr. McDonald: No objection. The Court: Very well.”