People v. Saad

• Decision Date: 08 August 1951
• Docket Number: No. 2768,Cr. A,2768
• Court: California Superior Court
• Parties: 105 Cal.App.2d Supp. 851 PEOPLE v. SAAD. Appellate Department, Superior Court, Los Angeles County, California

Page 785

234 P.2d 785

105 Cal.App.2d Supp. 851

PEOPLE v. SAAD.

Cr. A. No. 2768.

Appellate Department, Superior Court, Los Angeles County, California.

Aug. 8, 1951.

J. T. Forno, Los Angeles, for appellant.

S. Ernest Roll, Dist. Atty., Jere J. Sullivan, Ralph Bagley, Deputy Dist. Attys., Los Angeles, for respondent.

PER CURIAM.

On the same day that he was sentenced to serve ten days in the county jail and to pay a fine of $300, the defendant, appearing in propria persona, filed a notice that he appealed 'from the verdict and conviction and from the denial of defendant's motion for a new trial made this 23d day of April, 1951.' There is, of course, no appeal from the verdict. See Penal Code section 1466, which lists the judgments and orders from which defendants may appeal in criminal cases in the inferior courts and does not include the verdict, and People v. Ormes, 1948, 88 Cal.App.2d 353, 354, 198 P.2d 690, 691, which gives the same effect to identical language appearing in section 1237 in relation to appeals from superior courts. Nor does section 1466, Penal Code, include in the list a 'conviction.' Provision is made, however, for an appeal from the 'judgment of conviction.' It is not far-fetched to conclude that by 'conviction' in his notice of appeal, the defendant meant to point to the 'judgment of conviction.' As we said in People v. Lopez, 1941, 43 Cal.App.2d Supp. 854, 867, 110 P.2d 140, 147, where we held an appeal from a 'sentence' to be an appeal from a 'judgment of conviction': 'Notices on appeal should not be construed more strictly in criminal cases than they are in civil cases, where the rule is that 'notices of appeal are liberally construed to preserve the right of review unless it appears that the respondent has been misled by the misdescription.'' Not only does it not appear that the respondent has been misled, in this case, but we find counsel for the People magnanimously supplying these cases in support of the thesis that we should interpret the notice of appeal as being one from the judgment of conviction: People v. Yates, 1931, 114 Cal.App.Supp. 782, 790, 298 P. 961, 964; People v. Hawthorne, 1944, 63 Cal.App.2d 262, 264, 146 P.2d 517, 518; People v. Aresen, 1949, 91 Cal.App.2d 26, 28, 204 P.2d 389, 390, 957; Holden v. Calif. Emp. etc. Com., 1950, 101 Cal.App.2d 427, 430-431, 225 P.2d 634, 636. We so interpret it.

On such an appeal we may, of course, consider whether or not the complaint, upon which the conviction is based, states a public offense. It seems plain to us that no public offense was stated, in this case, for the charge is limited to those provisions of section 337.5, Penal Code, which are void because, in their uncertainty, they violate the due process provision of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Section 337.5 reads as follows: 'Any person who has been convicted of touting, and the record of whose conviction on such charge is on file in the office of the California Horse Racing Board or in the Criminal Record Bureau of the State or of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or any person who has been ejected from any race track of this or any other State for touting or practices inimical to the public interest shall be excluded from all race tracks in this State. Any such person who refuses to leave such track when ordered to do so by inspectors of the California Horse Racing Board, or by any peace officer, or by an accredited attache of a race track or association is guilty of a misdemeanor.' Of the defendant it was charged that he refused to leave Santa Anita Race Track when told to do so by an accredited attache, he being known to have been ejected from this and other race tracks in California, said ejections...