People v. Pokrajac

THE COURT.

The defendant was charged by an information in three counts with the murder of Elmer L. Gustafson, and with assaults on Neal Hultslander and Lorenzo F. Luckie with intent to commit murder. He entered a plea of not guilty and a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, but, during the selection of the jury, made no attempt to examine the jurors touching their qualifications to try the issue of his sanity. The immediate circumstances connected with, and the events leading up to, the various offenses charged were fully shown, and the jury returned a verdict finding the defendant guilty of the charges contained in the first two counts of the information. Over the objection of the defendant, the court thereupon ordered the question of the state of mind of the defendant at the time he committed the offenses to be forthwith submitted to the same jury. The defendant’s counsel then, for the first time, demanded the right to examine the jurors on a

voir dire

as to their qualifications to try the defendant on the issue as to his sanity at the time the offenses were alleged to have been committed, and the privilege of exercising peremptory challenges and challenges for cause, which were denied. On submission of the issue raised by the insanity plea, the jury returned its verdict that the defendant was sane at the time he committed the acts. Defendant made a motion for a new trial on various statutory grounds, which was denied, and judgment on the first count

[261]

of the information was entered, imposing the death penalty on the defendant for the murder of Gustafson.

On this appeal two points are urged. The first is that the law (Pen. Code, see. 1026, regulating the procedure when a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity is interposed) under which the defendant was tried and convicted is unconstitutional in that it prevents a trial by a fair and impartial jury. The second is that the trial court committed reversible error by commending the jury in open court for rendering its verdict of guilty at the conclusion of the first phase of the trial and before submitting to it the issue of defendant’s state of mind at the time he committed the acts complained of.