People v. Brooks

California Supreme Court May 29, 1884 No. No. 10,906Published

Before: Thornton

AI Brief

AI-generated · verify before citing

Holding. The court held that a defendant may voluntarily confess to a prior conviction during arraignment under Penal Code section 988, and that such a confession obviates the need for a jury finding on the prior conviction under section 1158.

Issues

Whether a defendant may be arraigned under Penal Code section 988 following the repeal of section 1025.
Whether a voluntary confession of a prior conviction during arraignment is valid and sufficient for sentencing purposes.
Whether a thirty-five-year sentence for assault with intent to commit robbery with a prior conviction is authorized by law.

Disposition. affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“The defendant was arraigned in the mode required by section 988 of the Penal Code. This was allowable.”

“It was not necessary after the voluntary confession of the defendant, that the jury should find specially as to the previous conviction.”

“The court, by its judgment, selected as the period of imprisonment the term of thirty-five years. This sentence is then in accordance with the sections just above referred to, and is valid.”

Synopsis

Criminal Law — Assault with Intent to Commit Robbery—Arraignment — Previous Conviction—Confession of Defendant.—The repeal of section 1025 of the Penal Code extinguished the right of the court to ask a defendant • in a criminal case whether he had suffered a previous conviction; but where a previous conviction is charged, and the defendant is arraigned in the mode required by section 988 of the Penal Code, and in his plea voluntarily confesses the prior conviction, it is not necessary that the jury find specially as to the charge of previous conviction. A general verdict and the voluntary confession are sufficient.

Id. — Punishment. — A defendant found guilty of an assault with intent to commit robbery, and a prior conviction of grand larceny, may be punished by imprisonment in the State prison for any term of years not less than ten.

Thornton, J. The defendant was accused by information of an assault with intent to commit robbery, and was further charged in the same information with having been, before the commission of the offense above mentioned, convicted of. the. crime of grand larceny.

The defendant was arraigned in the mode required by section 988 of the Penal Code. This was allowable. This court so held in People v. Lewis, 64 Cal. 401. The ten hundred, and twenty-fifth section of the Penal Code, which prescribed the mode of arraignment where a previous conviction was charged, having been repealed before the arraignment of the defendant was had, such arraignment of defendant could only be made under section 988 of the Penal Code, which applied to all cases where arraignment was requisite. (People v. Lewis, supra.)

This mode of arraignment was entirely different from that pursued in People v. King, 64 Cal. 338. In that case the defendant was asked on his arraignment whether he had suffered a previous conviction. He was then arraigned under the ten hundred and twenty-fifth section of the Penal Code, which had at that time been repealed. The court held this was error, and for that reason reversed the judgment. In People v. Lewis the defendant was arraigned under section 988, and this court held the arraignment proper. No question was put to the defendant in People v. Lewis, as in People v. King, whether or not he had suffered a previous conviction, and this court found nothing illegal in the arraignment in Lewis’ case. Lewis pleaded not. guilty, and it was held that he was not properly triable on such a plea.

The special mode of arraignment in section 1025 having been done away with by a repeal, did not leave the courts without a mode of arraignment. The section, 988, afforded a mode of arraignment applicable to this as well as other informations or [297]indictments for criminal offenses. The trial courts could do nothing else than resort to the mode pointed out by section 988.

On the arraignment of the defendant in the case under consideration, he, as it appears from the transcript, in reply to the usual question whether he pleaded “guilty- or not guilty,” pleaded as follows: “That he is not guilty of the offense charged, and confesses and admits that he was, before the alleged commission of said offense, convicted of the crime of grand larceny as set forth in the information.”

The confession as to the prior conviction was voluntarily tendered by the defendant, in response to the usual inquiry whether he pleaded guilty or not guily. No question was put to him by the court or at its instance, as to the former conviction. His guilt in that regard was by him voluntarily confessed.

People v. Brooks

AI Brief

Synopsis

More from California Supreme Court

Related research

AI Brief