People v. Collins

WOOD, P. J. By an information the defendant was accused of forgery. His motion, under section 995 of the Penal Code, to dismiss the information was granted and the case was dismissed. The People appeal from the order of dismissal.

The motion to dismiss was made upon the ground that there was no probable cause for the order of the committing magistrate holding the defendant for trial in the superior court. The asserted basis for the order of dismissal was that the magistrate had received in evidence an exemplar of defendant’s handwriting which had been obtained by police officers after the arrest and without having advised the defendant of his right to counsel or his right to remain silent.

Section 995 of the Penal Code provides, in part, that an information must be set aside if the defendant has “not been legally committed by a magistrate,” or if the defendant has “been committed without reasonable or probable cause.”

The transcript of the preliminary examination shows, in substance, as follows:

On July 10, 1964, the defendant presented to a clerk in a Whittier store a check, dated July 9, 1964, for $96.69, payable to James Walter Ross, and purportedly drawn on a La Mirada bank on an account of “Whittier Sports Cars” by “R. Lee.” The defendant presented the check (Exhibit 1) to the clerk and, in the presence of the clerk, wrote on the back of the check the name “James Walter Ross.” The clerk cashed the check for the defendant—giving him $96.69.

Roger Lee, who formerly had been manager of the “Whittier Sports Cars” company and had been authorized to sign its checks, testified that the name “R. Lee” on the cheeks was not his signature; that the “printed check form” of Exhibit 1 was a form that had not been used by the company for the past two or three years; that the company’s account in the La Mirada bank had been closed two or three years; and that he did not know the defendant.

Mr. Block, the present manager of the company, testified that the defendant had been an employee of the company during the first part of July 1964; and that no person asso[474]eiated with, the company was authorized to sign the name “R. Lee” on any check.

Deputy Sheriff Boyd, who was a booking officer in the identification section of the sheriff’s office, testified, in substance, that an identification card, referred to as Exhibit 2 herein, was a handwriting card of the kind which the sheriff takes from defendants who come into the county jail on a forgery charge; the card, Exhibit 2, which bears the date October 29, 1963, contains some handwriting of a defendant who was in custody in the jail on that date;1 the handwriting on "Side A” of the card, except the name and badge number of Deputy Boyd and the date, is the handwriting of a defendant who was then in custody; also, the handwriting on “Side B” of the card, below the words “County of Los Angeles, Sheriff’s Department,” is the handwriting of that defendant who was then in custody; the handwriting of that defendant was placed on the card on October 29, 1963, in the presence and at the request of the deputy; the deputy, in having the “card filled out” by that person, was acting under a departmental procedure of the sheriff’s office; after that person had filled out the card, the deputy (witness) placed the thumb print of the person on the card, and then the deputy signed the card; the deputy did not recall whether the person who was then in custody protested regarding the matter of filling out and signing the card; the deputy did not use any force or make any threat or promise, in order to induce the person to write on the card, the deputy did not inform that person as to his constitutional rights, or inform him that the card might be used against him in a prosecution.