People v. Frank

HOUSER, J.

By respective counts in an indictment filed against him, defendant was accused of the commission of each of the criminal offenses of robbery and burglary. By a separate information, defendant also was accused of the crime of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to commit murder, alleged to have been committed more than four months after the date when the robbery and the burglary offenses were committed. Over the objection of defendant, by order of the trial court, all the several charges against defendant were consolidated for the purpose of trial. Following his conviction on each of the said charges, defendant has appealed to this court from the ensuing judgment, as

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well as from the order by which his motion for a new trial was denied.

Appellant urges the point that in ordering the consolidation of the two actions the trial court committed error which was prejudicial to the substantial rights of defendant.

It seems to be conceded by respondent that, in the absence of a statute by which a consolidation of causes of the nature of those herein involved is authorized, the trial court was in error in making the order in question. But it is asserted that the provisions of section 954 of the Penal Code are sufficient in the premises. That part of said section upon which the respondent relies is as follows:

"An indictment, information, or complaint may charge two or more different offenses connected together in their commission, or different statements of the same offense or two or more different offenses of the same class of crimes or offenses, under separate counts, and if two or more indictments or informations are filed in such cases the court may order them to be consolidated. ...”

The particular language of the statute to which attention is directed is that wherein the trial court is authorized to consolidate "two or more different offenses of the

same class

of crimes or offenses”. In that connection, the reasoning by respondent is to the effect that since in title VIII of the Penal Code, which concerns "Crimes Against the Person”, are included provisions which relate respectively to many different criminal offenses,—the enabling portion of section 954 of the Penal Code which provides for the consolidation of offenses "of the same class” justifies the action of the trial court herein wherein the several charges against defendant were consolidated and, in effect, tried as one action. In other words, that because each of the several offenses of which defendant was charged is defined and denounced in title VIII of the Penal Code, such crimes constitute a "class”, and therefore are subject to the provisions of section 954 of the Penal Code to which reference has been had.