People v. Coombs

CHIPMAN, P. J.

Defendant was informed against for the crime of perjury alleged to have been committed in register

[263]

ing as a voter. When called upon to plead in the superior court he demurred to the information and also filed a motion to set it aside upon the following grounds: That prior to the filing of the information against him he had not been legally-committed by a magistrate because of the insufficiency of the complaint filed in the magistrate’s court. This alleged insufficiency consisted in the claim that the said complaint was not based upon the personal knowledge of the complaining witness; that no depositions of persons knowing the facts of the case of their own personal knowledge were attached to said complaint or made part thereof, and hence the issuance of the warrant of arrest was illegal and void; that the commitment and the succeeding proceedings were illegal and void; “that the testimony of the two witnesses, H. P. McBeth and W. M. Cleveland, consisted entirely of questions and answers touching their qualifications to administer oaths and regarding statements made by defendant at two different times and in a manner contradictory to each other, but no attempt was made or was any evidence offered to prove which of the two statements was true or which was false. ’ ’

The information charged that defendant, in making oath at the time his name was placed upon the great register, in 1908, declared that he was born in San Francisco, California, whereas in truth he was born in England. No objection was made as to the sufficiency in point of form either of the information, the warrant of arrest or commitment. But it was further objected “that though the complaint (filed in the magistrate’s court) appears on its face as sworn to, that M. C. Kerr, the complainant (district attorney), makes complaint upon his own personal knowledge and not upon information and belief, his affidavit of registration on file in the office of the county clerk of Plumas county shows that at the time of the birth of the defendant the complaining witness was an infant of the age of about one year, ’ ’ and hence he could not have made the complaint otherwise than upon information and belief, which it is claimed is wholly insufficient. The trial court made an order setting aside the information, and the people appeal.