People v. Garcia

JAMES, J.

Defendant was convicted of the crime of kidnaping. A motion for a new trial was denied. Defendant has appealed from the judgment and from the order denying the motion.

It may be stated at the outset that not only was the evidence showing the guilt of the defendant most ample and complete, but it showed further that the crime was accomplished in a particularly cruel and brutal manner. The facts may be briefly adverted to: About the 1st of June, 1921, Cruz Moreno Singh resided with her husband, Dewan Singh, at a point in Imperial County about six hundred feet from the Mexican border. She was a young woman and had been married about a month at the time of the occurrence hereinafter referred to. With her resided her young sister, aged sixteen years. The husband was engaged in farming, and on the day in question was at work a mile or more from his home. Late in the afternoon the appellant herein, in company with another man (both being Mexicans), entered the house where Mrs. Singh and her sister were, exhibited revolvers and a knife, seized Mrs. Singh and the girl and proceeded to drag them out of the house. The latter resisted to the utmost of their strength until finally

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one of the men struck Mrs. Singh a hard blow on the head with a revolver and she became unconscious. The men then carried and dragged their victims across the line into Mexico. From that point they were compelled to walk to a Mexican settlement some eight or nine miles toward the interior of the country. They were placed in a house occupied by a Mexican family, from which, the second night thereafter, with the aid of a Mexican whose assistance they procured with an offer of fifty dollars, they escaped and returned to the house of friends on the American side. The appellant here was not arrested for some months afterward, although his identity was known to the officers, for he remained on Mexican ground. He was finally caught after having driven an automobile across the line, and his trial and conviction followed.

Appellant’s claims for reversal are based upon highly technical grounds, and after a careful examination of each of them we are convinced that they have no substantial merit. At the time the cause came on for trial there was no regular panel of jurors in attendance, and the court ordered a special venire to be summoned by the sheriff, and in the order required that the jurors be selected “from the body of the county and not from the bystanders.” Appellant insists that such language in the order is only authorized where the object is to complete a panel where a sufficient number of persons have not been summoned, as in a case covered by the provisions of section 227 of the Code of Civil Procedure. The action taken by the court was under the provisions of section 226 of the Code of Civil Procedure, which provides that where no jurors are drawn or summoned to attend, or a sufficient number fail to appear, the court may direct the sheriff to summon “so many good and lawful persons of the county, ... as may be required.” Assuming that under the latter provisions the order would not exclude bystanders from selection, it is not shown how the appellant was or could have been prejudiced at all. There is no constitutional right in a defendant to have procedure respecting the summoning of a jnry which may sit at his trial strictly and exactly followed. The procedure is statutory and a substantial compliance therewith is all that the parties are entitled to insist upon.