People v. Superior Court In and For San Francisco County
| Decision Date | 22 November 1955 |
| Citation | 289 P.2d 813,137 Cal.App.2d 194 |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of California, Petitioner, v. SUPERIOR COURT of the State of California, IN AND FOR The CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO, Respondent. Civ. 17004. |
Thomas C. Lynch, Dist. Atty., City & County of San Francisco, Irving F. Reichert, Jr., Deputy Dist. Atty., San Francisco, for petitioner.
Mervyn Schneider, San Francisco, for respondent (real party in interest).
The petition alleges that Verne Peacock was lawfully arrested and booked on charges of drunkenness and suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon; that the accused was searched at the scene of the arrest and then taken to the police station; that there, pursuant to normal police procedure, the accused was directed to empty his pockets; that among the objects in Peacock's possession was a glass vial containing marijuana; that thereupon, the charge of possession of narcotics was added to those already made; that subsequently, the drunk and assault charges were dropped, and Peacock proceeded to trial on the felony narcotic charge; that the trial judge, on such trial, sustained an objection to the admission into evidence of the marijuana on the ground that such evidence was not admissible under the rule of People v. Cahan, 44 Cal.2d 434, 282 P.2d 905, because, so the trial court ruled, the search at the police station during which the narcotic was discovered was not incidental to the lawful arrest on the drunk and assault charges. The trial court, however, agreed to the request of the prosecutor to continue the trial until November 28, 1955, so that the present writ of mandate could be filed to test the correctness of the ruling. Thereupon, this petition was filed requesting that the trial court be compelled by mandate to admit the evidence.
While a writ of mandate may, in a proper case, be used to correct an abuse of judicial discretion, it cannot be used to control a discretionary act of a superior judge. In particular, the writ may not be used to compel a judge to admit or exclude evidence during a trial, even if such ruling is an erroneous one. It is elementary that a trial judge has the jurisdiction to decide matters before him erroneously as well as correctly. That is one reason why we have appellate courts. A ruling on the admission of evidence, even if wrong, is not an abuse of discretion but simply an erroneous ruling.
That mandamus will not issue in such cases is well settled in this state. Short v. Superior Court, 94 Cal.App. 664, 271 P. 783; Gubin v. Superior Court, 104 Cal.App. 331, 285 P. 1071; Lyders v. Superior Court, 129 Cal.App. 635, 19 P.2d 300. Petitioner, while recognizing the force of these cases, correctly...
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