Albori v. Sykes

STURTEVANT, J. From a judgment against it in a mandamus proceeding the state board of prison terms and paroles has appealed. Except as to the parties defendant the facts are the same as in Albori v. Smith, Civil No. 10326 (ante, p. 615, [65 Pac. (2d) 81]), this day filed. However, in the instant case there was an agreed statement of facts which, among other things, set forth the following proceedings had when the judgments in question were pronounced:

“The Court: It will be the judgment of the court that for the offense of which you have been convicted, towit, the crime of assault with a deadly weapon, an offense necessarily included in the offense alleged in indictment No. 34,233, that you be confined in the State Prison at San Quentin for the term prescribed by law and that for the offense of which you stand convicted, towit, assault with a deadly weapon, an offense necessarily included in the offense alleged in the indictment No. 34,266, it will be the judgment of the court that you be confined in the State Prison at San Quentin for the term prescribed by law, I think, Mr. White (attorney for defendant), that under the new law the term under such circum-

[621]“Mr. Clark (the Assistant District Attorney) : That is my opinion, your Honor. ’ ’ [622]neither power upon the court to order nor right upon the litigant to seek a modification of such judgment as the court may have advisedly given. There remains the only other question whether or not the court has, as asserted in the motion and here argued, the inherent power at any time to enter such a judgment. We think it has not such power. The object of entering judgments and decrees as of some previous date is to supply matters of evidence and to rectify clerical misprisions, but not to enable the court to correct judicial errors. If the court has not rendered a judgment that it might or should have rendered, or if it has rendered an imperfect or improper judgment, it has no power to remedy such errors by ordering an amendment nunc pro tunc of a proper judgment. (Freeman on Judgments, secs. 61, 68; Morrison v. Dapman, 3 Cal. 255; In re Skerrett, 80 Cal. 62, 63 [22 Pac. 85]; Leonis v. Leffingwell, 126 Cal. 369, 372 [58 Pac. 940]; Cowdery v. London etc. Bank, 139 Cal. 298 [73 Pac. 196, 96 Am. St. Rep. 115].)