Jones v. Superior Court
Decision Date | 27 August 1979 |
Citation | 157 Cal.Rptr. 809,96 Cal.App.3d 390 |
Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
Parties | Mark Alma JONES, Petitioner, v. SUPERIOR COURT OF SANTA CLARA COUNTY, Respondent; PEOPLE of the State of California, Real Party in Interest. Civ. 46644. |
Alan W. Tieger, Miller, Morton, Caillat & Nevis, San Jose, for petitioner.
George Deukmejian, Atty. Gen. of Cal., Robert H. Philibosian, Chief Asst. Atty. Gen., Crim. Div., Edward P. O'Brien, Asst. Atty. Gen., W. Eric Collins, Nathan D. Mihara, Deputy Attys. Gen., San Francisco, for real party in interest.
Petitioner seeks a writ of prohibition to restrain the respondent, the Superior Court of Santa Clara County, from proceeding to trial on two charges stated in the information. The information charges the petitioner and a codefendant, Billy Edward Ratliff, with possession of a sawed-off shotgun (Pen.Code, § 12020), attempted robbery (Pen.Code, § 664/211), and attempted false imprisonment (Pen.Code, § 664/236). Use of a firearm in connection with the latter two charges was also alleged (Pen.Code, § 12022.5). Petitioner filed a motion to set aside the information pursuant to Penal Code section 995 on the ground, inter alia, that the prosecution had failed to establish the corpus delicti of the crimes of attempted robbery and attempted false imprisonment. The motion was denied by the respondent, and the cause was set for trial. Petitioner then filed a petition for a writ of prohibition in this court. We issued an alternative writ and stayed further proceedings in the superior court pending determination of this petition.
We have concluded that the prosecution has not sustained its burden of establishing the corpus delicti of the crimes, and therefore respondent is without jurisdiction to proceed to trial against petitioner on the charges of attempted robbery and attempted false imprisonment.
It is an elementary rule of law that before a defendant may be held to answer in the superior court, it must appear from the testimony at the preliminary examination that a public offense has been committed. (Hall v. Superior Court (1953) 120 Cal.App.2d 844, 847, 262 P.2d 351; Pen.Code, § 872; In re Schuber (1945) 68 Cal.App.2d 424, 425, 156 P.2d 944.) It is also elementary that a court has no jurisdiction to proceed with the trial of an offense without a valid indictment or information. (Greenberg v. Superior Court (1942) 19 Cal.2d 319, 321, 121 P.2d 713; Rogers v. Superior Court (1955) 46 Cal.2d 3, 7, 291 P.2d 929.) Prohibition is an appropriate method to test the right of the People to proceed with a prosecution when the validity of an indictment or information is challenged. (Pen.Code, §§ 995, 999a; Greenberg, supra, 19 Cal.2d at p. 323, 121 P.2d 713; Rogers, supra, 46 Cal.2d at p. 7, 291 P.2d 929; Hall, supra, at p. 850, 262 P.2d 351.)
The corpus delicti, the body or elements of the crime, must be established by the prosecution independently of and without considering the extrajudicial statements, confessions or admissions of the defendant. (People v. Mehaffey (1948) 32 Cal.2d 535, 544-545, 197 P.2d 12; People v. Ramirez (1979) 91 Cal.App.3d 132, 137, 153 Cal.Rptr. 789.) The elements of the corpus delicti (1) the injury or loss or harm, and (2) the criminal agency that has caused that injury, loss or harm need only be proven by a reasonable probability or, in other words, by slight or prima facie proof. (People v. Mehaffey, supra, 32 Cal.2d at p. 545 197 P.2d 12; People v. Ramirez, supra, 91 Cal.App.3d at p. 137, 153 Cal.Rptr. 789.) The corpus delicti need not be proven by direct evidence; it may be established by circumstantial evidence and the inferences that may reasonably be drawn therefrom. (People v. Ives (1941) 17 Cal.2d 459, 463, 110 P.2d 408; Hall v. Superior Court, supra, 120 Cal.App.2d at p. 849, 262 P.2d 351; People v. Ditson (1962) 57 Cal.2d 415, 445-446, 20 Cal.Rptr. 165, 369 P.2d 714.) The prosecution need not establish the accused as the perpetrator of the offense, for in California proof that the defendant was the person engaged in the criminal conduct is not an element of the corpus delicti. (People v. Cullen (1951) 37 Cal.2d 614, 624, 234 P.2d 1; People v. Ramirez, supra, 91 Cal.App.3d at p. 137, 153 Cal.Rptr. 789.)
Applying these standards to the facts of this case at the preliminary examination the prosecution had the burden of establishing by a reasonable probability that an attempted robbery and an attempted false imprisonment occurred.
The People maintain that they have satisfied this requirement in two ways: (1) the evidence produced at the preliminary examination and the inferences that they suggest can be drawn from the evidence established the corpus delicti of the crimes; and (2) the extrajudicial statements of codefendant Ratliff established the corpus delicti of the crimes as to petitioner.
We conclude that neither of these contentions has merit.
At the preliminary examination, the following evidence was presented to the magistrate, excluding for the moment the extrajudicial statements of the defendants. At approximately 1:52 a. m. on November 30, 1978, Officer William Silva responded to a call about a shooting at a trailer park. At space 204 he found defendant Ratliff on the porch of the trailer with a gunshot wound in his arm. Ratliff told the officer that his friend was inside the trailer, and Silva entered it to find defendant Jones giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to Samuel Miller who was dead from a gunshot wound. Miller was wearing leather gloves, five shirts, and had surgical tape wrapped around his knuckles. Two large knives were found on his body.
Officer Aubrey Parrott entered the trailer later that same morning and noticed an overturned television set and stand, beer bottles and glasses on the floor, a cowboy hat with a bullet hole, two small caliber bullet holes in the living room ceiling, and a bullet hole in the kitchen cabinet. The officer also saw a bloody shirt and a trail of blood leading to the back of the trailer and he found evidence of narcotic paraphernalia in the living room, kitchen, and the rear bedroom.
The police later that same morning found an automatic pistol, cocked, with one round of ammunition in the chamber under a bed in a separate bedroom from the one Miller was found in, and an operable sawed-off shotgun with a broken stock behind the couch in the living room. A bag containing folded women's clothing was found between the living room and the kitchen.
From this evidence the People suggest, Mirabile dictu, that it is reasonable to draw the following inferences:
We repeat the rule that the corpus delicti of the crime may be established by circumstantial evidence and the reasonable inferences that may be drawn therefrom. However, the word "reasonable" has never been defined to include the fantastic, which is, in effect, what the People are suggesting that we do....
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