People v. Middleworth

GRIFFIN, J. Defendant was charged in an information with, and convicted by a jury of the crime of issuing a check for $15.80 with intent to defraud. He admitted three prior convictions: (1) of robbery, first degree; (2) violation of section 6201 of the Government Code; and (3) of forgery, and of serving time on each charge in the state’s prison at San Quentin.

[783]On March 10, 1950, he was sentenced to state’s prison on the instant charge, sentence to run consecutively in relation to the unexpired portion of defendant’s previously existing sentence. No appeal was taken from the judgment.

Now, on September 11, 1950, defendant, in propria persona, filed in the Superior Court of San Diego County an application for a writ of error coram nobis alleging errors which may be summarized as follows: (1) that he was “unjustly and unlawfully convicted” in that he did not intend to defraud the bank upon which the check was drawn; (2) that he was “denied and deprived” of a fair and impartial trial, in violation of article I section 13 of the Constitution of California, the “Fourteenth Amendment, Section 1, of the United States Constitution,” and sections 476a and 1203 of the Penal Code in that his counsel and the district attorney “connived and conspired” to keep and withhold evidence from the trial court; (3) that the district attorney held conversations with the jurors during the trial and poisoned their minds against him; and (4) that the trial court, although it granted a “probation hearing,” “denied probation, ’ ’ because the ‘1 district attorney submitted evidence of defendant’s prior convictions.” As we construe defendant’s contentions in his brief, in effect, he wants the judgment of his conviction set aside and a new trial ordered, so that he may be allowed to subpoena certain named witnesses in defense of his claimed innocence.

Defendant, filed several of his own affidavits in support of his contentions, in which he stated that his wife opened a joint account and received a joint account signature from the bank for the purpose of “identifying checks”; that he agreed to “waive a single account” of his own, and that he and his wife agreed to form a joint account “for both of them”; that he went to the bank before going to Nevada to divorce his wife and receive a checkbook; that he was instructed by the clerk at the bank to cross off the words “Main Office” from the checks and write in the branch at which he had his account; that he failed to do this because he was nervous due to the threatened divorce proceeding and “overlooked many trifling” matters; that he issued these checks in good faith, without intent to defraud the bank; that he had sufficient funds in his personal account to cover all of his personal checks and that his wife had failed to inform him that she had overdrawn the account. He insists that the bank statements and records were not introduced properly in court