197 P. 965 | Cal. Ct. App. | 1921
The petitioner is held in durance under a warrant issued by a magistrate of the county of San Joaquin, upon a complaint charging him with the crime of forgery. The allegations of the complaint are positive and not on information and belief.[1] He urges the single point in support of his plea for liberty that a magistrate should not, on the complaint alone, unfortified with depositions, issue a warrant for the arrest of a person charged with the commission of a felony. He *39
cites sections 811, 812, and
We quote from that case the following instructive language: "Of course, where there was some evidence upon which the magistrate acted, we would not interfere. It may also, be true that the original information might be treated as a deposition; and in such view, if it contained positive evidence of facts tending to show guilt, it might be sufficient as a basis for the issuance of a warrant."
This case has been cited as authority in many later decisions, and it has never, so far as we are informed, been either overruled or doubted. It is quoted with approval inMatter of the Application of Mills Sing,
The Dimmig case received consideration at the hands of the court in the case of Modern Land Co. v. Police Court,
It is possible that this quotation may be treated, in view of the ultimate conclusion of the court, as a dictum, still it is not without value in this connection. In the Staples case, the precise point involved in the instant case was raised, and in passing thereon Chief Justice Beatty, sustained by *40
the entire court, said: "One ground of the motion was that the magistrate before whom the examination was had issued his warrant of arrest without having taken any depositions of witnesses in support of the charge laid in the complaint, thus violating — as he claims — the provisions of sections 811, 812, and
We find no case in the seventy years of our state's history in which an accused person has been discharged by any court of general appellate jurisdiction for the sole reason that the complaint was not corroborated with depositions, and we are confident that no such case can be found. Where the same point arises in tens of thousands of cases and it meets with the uniform acquiescence of the bench and bar, a strong inference arises that their acquiescence is justified.
In addition to the Dimmig case, the petitioner refers us to a number of cases which he insists support his position. Some of these will be briefly noticed. In Ex parte Blake,
This authority does not support the claims of the petitioner herein; on the contrary, the plain implication therefrom is that the verified information would have been held sufficient if it had shown the necessary facts. It seems that in proceedings under section
No more does Ex parte Hartwell,
People v. Lee Look,
Ex parte Spears,
Petitioner cites with some confidence the case ofChurch v. Calhoun,
Our conclusion is that an uncorroborated verified complaint, stating sufficient facts, justifies the magistrate in issuing a warrant of arrest. He must be "satisfied" therefrom that a crime has been committed, and furthermore, he must find therefrom reasonable cause to believe that the accused is guilty. These things must be shown fully and by positive statement; but the legislature did not intend to require close technical accuracy in discriminating between probative and ultimate facts. A less satisfactory rule would permit many guilty persons to escape and would render it difficult to apprehend criminals who commit certain classes of crimes.
The petitioner is remanded and the writ discharged.
Hart, J., and Burnett, J., concurred.