Ex parte Flodstrom

• Citation: 45 Cal.2d 307,288 P.2d 859
• Decision Date: 21 October 1955
• Docket Number: Cr. 5689
• Court: United States State Supreme Court (California)
• Parties: In re Shirley Ann FLODSTROM on Habeas Corpus.

Page 859

288 P.2d 859

45 Cal.2d 307

In re Shirley Ann FLODSTROM on Habeas Corpus.

Cr. 5689.

Supreme Court of California, In Bank.

Oct. 21, 1955.

Byron J. Snow, Santa Clara, Stephen P. Gazzera, Jr., Mountain View, and Sidney L. Berlin, Redwood City, for petitioner.

Edmund G. Brown, Atty. Gen., Clarence A. Linn, Chief Asst. Atty. Gen., Arlo E. Smith and Raymond M. Momboisse, Deputy Attys. Gen., and N. J. Menard, Dist. Atty., San Jose, for respondents.

SHENK, Justice.

This is a proceeding in habeas corpus. In a complaint filed in the Municipal Court for the San Jose-Alviso Judicial District, County of Santa Clara, the petitioner, Shirley Ann Flodstrom, was charged with the murder of her infant son. The preliminary examination was held on October 22, 1954. The petitioner was held to answer to the superior court where she moved to set aside the information under Penal Code, § 995, which provides that an information 'must be set aside by the court in which the defendant is arraigned, upon his motion' if before the filing of the information 'the defendant had been committed without reasonable or probable cause.' The motion was denied.

The petition herein was filed in the District Court of Appeal, First District, Division Two. It alleged that there was not sufficient competent evidence before the magistrate to support the holding order. In this she was sustained. The court considered the showing made by the petitioner and the return to the writ, concluded that the petitioner was in custody without warrant of law and pursuant to an opinion filed on December 14, 1954, ordered her discharge. 277 P.2d 101. On a petition for hearing filed by the Attorney General the matter was transferred to this court. We have concluded that the order of transfer was improvidently made and that the proceeding should be dismissed.

Prior to 1927 there was no appeal from an order of the superior court discharging a petitioner in a proceeding in habeas corpus, Matter of Hughes, 159 Cal. 360, 113 P. 684, nor was there any provision in law for a petition for hearing in the supreme court after an order of a district court of appeal discharging a petitioner in such a proceeding originally instituted in that court. Matter of Zany, 1913, 164 Cal. 724, 130 P. 710. This was said to result from the concurrent constitutional power in habeas corpus vested in the superior court, the district courts of appeal, and the supreme court. It was stated in the Zany case in 164 Cal. at pages 726 and 727, 130 P. 710: 'The result has been that, with reference to such (habeas corpus) proceedings, the Supreme and superior courts, to each of which was given the power to issue writs of habeas corpus, stood upon the same plane; neither being inferior to the other in any other sense than that a superior court, in determining any such matter, would naturally follow a precedent established by the highest court in the state, if any such precedent had been established. It, however, had the power to disregard it; and its determination, whether in accord with the law as laid down by the Supreme Court or not, was an end of the particular proceeding, and in case of a discharge of the petitioner from custody was final and conclusive. Such is still the law with relation to the superior court of the state, as was recently decided by this court in bank, Mr. Justice Shaw writing the opinion. See In re Hughes, 159 Cal. 360, 113 P. 684. Where a petitioner was remanded to custody by a superior court, and the proceeding instituted in that court was thus terminated, and was no longer a matter pending therein, he could inaugurate a new proceeding for relief in another court, and can still do so, but is now limited in the making of a new application, by statutory provision, to a higher court; either the District Court of Appeal having jurisdiction, or the Supreme Court. Such was the only remedy afforded by our law to the petitioner when remanded, and, as we have said, a discharge from custody by a superior court was final and conclusive.

'When our District Courts of Appeal were established, power was expressly conferred upon them by the Constitution 'to issue writs of * * * habeas corpus' within their respective jurisdictions. As was already the situation with reference to Justices of the Supreme Court, each of the Justices of the Court of Appeal was given power to issue such writs returnable 'before himself.' It is self-evident that by these provisions it was intended to place such courts and the justices thereof in the same position with reference to habeas corpus matters that the Supreme and superior courts were already in. It is not conceivable that it was intended that these appellate courts should have less power than the inferior superior courts in such matters, as would be the case if their determination in habeas corpus proceedings were reviewable by the Supreme Court. As a matter of fact, the power to issue writs of habeas corpus was conferred in practically the same language as is used with reference to superior courts and the Supreme Court; and the language used must be taken as indicating the intention to confer the same power that had already been given to the superior and the Supreme Courts, with all the incidents thereof.'

The court then went on to hold in 164 Cal. at page 729, 130 P.2d 710 that a proceeding in habeas corpus was not a 'cause' transferable to the supreme court after decision by a district court of appeal as contemplated by the Constitution.

The necessary result of the ruling in the Zany case was that it was within the power of the superior court or a...