People v. Barrett

THE COURT.

An information filed against the defendant in the county of San Bernardino charged him with having permitted his wife to remain in a house of prostitution, and with pimping. The jury found him guilty as charged, and also found that he had suffered three prior felony convictions, as specified in the information. He was thereupon adjudged to be an habitual criminal and sentenced to the penitentiary for “not less than life” for each offense. From the judgment and order denying his motion for new trial this appeal has been prosecuted.

The principal point urged on the appeal has to do with the trial court’s method of conducting the

voir dire

examination of the talesmen summoned to try the cause, it being contended by the appellant that he was denied the right secured to him by the provisions of section 1078 of the Penal Code, as amended in 1927 (Stats. 1927, p. 1039), of reasonably examining the prospective jurors. In this particular there is presented a situation strikingly similar to the one developed upon the trial of the case of

People

v.

Estorga,

206 Cal. 81 [273 Pac. 575], recently decided

[49]

by this court. This similarity is attributable to the fact that both causes arose in the same county, and were tried before the same judge. In fairness to the trial judge, however, it must be said that the trial of this cause antedated the filing of our decision in the Estorga case,

supra,

wherein we expressed our disapproval of his method of collectively examining the entire panel before the drawing of any names from the jury-box', and then restricting counsel’s examination to such matters as had not been covered by the court’s rather general examination. Primarily because the defendant in the Estorga case had taken the stand and admitted the commission of the grave offenses with which he stood charged, we hesitated to declare the error so prejudicial, within the meaning of section 4½ of article VI of the constitution, as to require a reversal. We, therefore, affirmed the judgment and order in that case.