State v. Ceja

• Decision Date: 05 August 1931
• Docket Number: 2924.
• Citation: 2 P.2d 124,53 Nev. 272
• Parties: STATE v. CEJA.
• Court: Nevada Supreme Court

2 P.2d 124

53 Nev. 272

STATE v. CEJA.

No. 2924.

Supreme Court of Nevada

August 5, 1931

Appeal from District Court, Humboldt County; Hon. L. O. Hawkins Judge.

On petition for rehearing.

Rehearing denied.

For former opinion, see 298 P. 658.

John W Burrows and Frame & Raffetto, all of Reno, for appellant.

Gray Mashburn, Atty. Gen., W. T. Mathews, Deputy Atty. Gen., and Merwyn H. Brown, Dist. Atty., of Winnemucca, for the State.

COLEMAN C.J.

A petition for a rehearing has been filed in this case aggregating something over 24,000 words and citing many decisions.

The burden of the petition is to the effect that our government is divided into three branches, legislative, judicial, and executive, and that article 1, § 3, of our state Constitution, guarantees a trial by jury, and that the petitioner has had none. Without following the devious course of counsel, or considering any of the authorities cited, we desire it understood that we thoroughly agree with the contention that a trial by jury in a criminal case is guaranteed, if a trial is had. What we sought to point out in our former opinion was that there was nothing to try; hence there was no necessity for a trial.

We did not undertake in our former opinion, 298 P. 658, to elaborate. The American Bar Association nearly twenty years ago went on record in favor of concise opinions, for the reason that neither courts nor lawyers have the time to read long, rambling ones. We have sought to conform to the view of the association, and, if that body could only induce members of the profession to do likewise, we think those lawyers who have a good cause would profit by it.

We have always understood it to be hornbook law that, when one pleads guilty to a charge, there is no issue to try; hence a jury will not be called for the ridiculous purpose of establishing what the defendant, in the most solemn manner, has admitted.

Clark's Criminal Procedure (Hornbook Series, 2d Ed.), at paragraph 129, says: "A confession of the defendant may be either express or implied. An express confession is where he pleads guilty, and thus directly, in the face of the court confesses the accusation. This is called a plea of guilty, and is equivalent to a conviction. The court must, however, pronounce judgment and sentence as upon a verdict of guilty, but it will hear the facts of the case from the prosecuting officer, and any statement that the defendant or his counsel may wish to make. In the absence of a statutory provision to the contrary, the defendant may plead guilty in a capital case as well as in any other, and the court must pronounce the proper judgment and sentence, though it may be death. It cannot compel him to plead not guilty, and submit to a trial, but it may, and generally will, advise him to withdraw his plea, and plead not guilty, and, instead of immediately directing the plea to be entered, will give him a reasonable time to consider and retract it."

Sir William Blackstone, for whom we have always entertained a very high regard, speaking nearly two hundred years ago, said: "The other incident to arraignment, exclusive of the plea, is the prisoner's confession of the indictment. Upon a simple and plain confession, the court hath nothing to do but to award judgment." Vol. 4, Blackstone's Com., p. 324, Ed. 1769.

Mr. Chitty, in his work on Criminal Law, says: "The last incident of the arraignment is confession. This may be either express or implied. An express confession of the indictment is where the party pleads guilty, and thus directly, in the face of the court, confesses the accusation. This is the highest kind of conviction of which the case admits." 1 Chitty's Criminal Law (Ed. 1847), p. 428.

In Hawkins' Pleas of the Crown (volume 2, Ed. 1824, p. 466), it is said: "An express confession is where a person directly confesses the crime with which he is charged, which is the highest conviction that can be, and may be received after the plea of 'not guilty' recorded."

If a plea of guilty is the "highest conviction," what can be the necessity of a further conviction?

Counsel call our attention to the case of People v. Bruner, 343 Ill. 146, 175 N.E. 400, which, they say, decides the precise question involved in the instant case. Counsel then say of the opinion in that case: "In that case the Court pointed out that the vesting of the judicial power of the state in certain courts was an exclusive grant of power, and that the Court consisted of the judge, who at the time of the adoption of the constitution was the exclusive judge of the law, and the jury, which was also a common law institution, were the sole judges of the questions of fact."

In that case the defendant pleaded not guilty and had a trial before a jury. Certainly the jury in such a situation was the sole judge of the questions of fact involved. The distinction between that case and this one is that there an issue was raised by the plea of not guilty, whereas in the instant case there was a confession, a plea of guilty to the crime charged. If the court in that case had decided the identical question here involved contrary to the conclusion we have reached, it would have no weight with us, as it would be clearly erroneous. In our former opinion, we cited several authorities supporting our position, among them Hallinger v. Davis, 146 U.S. 314, 13 S.Ct. 105, 36 L.Ed. 986, by the Supreme Court of the United States, which passed upon the constitutional phase of the question; and the decision of that court is the last word on federal questions. Another case, which we did not cite in our former opinion, but which goes at length into the question...