10 P.2d 770 | Cal. Ct. App. | 1932
Petitioner was on March 2, 1932, tried and convicted in the Superior Court of Los Angeles County of the crime of contributing to the delinquency of a minor (sec. 21, Juvenile Court Act), and sentenced to serve two years in the county jail, the last year of such sentence to be suspended.
The sole contention of petitioner is that the superior court had no jurisdiction of the subject matter and that the jurisdiction of the offense charged is vested exclusively in the Municipal Court of the City of Los Angeles.
The state Constitution declares that "the superior court shall have original jurisdiction . . . in all criminal cases amounting to a felony, and cases of misdemeanor not otherwise provided for. . . ." (Art. VI, sec. 5.) This language has remained unchanged since the adoption of the Constitution. [1] Its effect is to confer upon the superior court original jurisdiction to try and determine all criminal cases, misdemeanors as well as felonies, with the proviso that as to misdemeanors jurisdiction thereof may be taken from the superior court. When, therefore, the legislature has conferred upon a court other than a superior court original jurisdiction of certain misdemeanors, such other court has exclusive jurisdiction of such misdemeanors and, as to them, the superior court is without jurisdiction. (Green v.Superior Court,
Section 11 of article VI of the Constitution provides for the establishing of municipal courts, and as to their jurisdiction in criminal cases declares: "Municipal courts shall have original jurisdiction except as hereinafter provided . . . in all criminal cases amounting to misdemeanor punishable *727
by fine and imprisonment in the city or city and county or county jail, or punishable by fine or such imprisonment." Section 28 of the Municipal Court Act (Stats. 1925, p. 648) made the same provision. Section
Such was the status of the law at the time that the jurisdiction of the superior court to try a case of misdemeanor was challenged in the case of In re Luna,
Following the decision of In re Luna, supra, the legislature in 1929, under its constitutional authority to provide by law for the jurisdiction of municipal courts, amended section
It is elementary that in dealing with an alleged repeal of a statute by implication the intent of the legislature is an important factor for consideration. The history of the legislation here involved most strongly tends to show that the effect of the Municipal Court Act, to take from the jurisdiction of the juvenile court those misdemeanors, which had long been assigned to it by law, was wholly unintended by the legislature, and that as soon as the inadvertence was discovered, no doubt through the medium of the Luna case, prompt action was taken by that body to return to the juvenile court the jurisdiction, which it never was the legislative intent to transfer to any other tribunal. Certainly *729 there is nothing to indicate any intent to repeal any part of the Juvenile Court Act, especially since municipal courts can, under the law (Stats. 1925, p. 648, sec. 1), be established only in cities having a population in excess of forty thousand and the Municipal Court Act could operate to deprive the juvenile court of jurisdiction only in those counties where municipal courts were lawfully established. [2] The adoption of the Municipal Court Act did not, therefore, repeal any portion of the Juvenile Court Act, but had the effect only of superseding the jurisdiction of the juvenile court to try misdemeanors in counties where municipal courts were established. In all other counties the provisions of the Juvenile Court Act were not in any degree affected. The legislation of 1929, excepting from the jurisdiction of municipal courts the misdemeanors "of which the juvenile court is given original jurisdiction", removed from the jurisdiction of municipal courts the latter class of misdemeanors, and, there being no longer any other provision therefor, the jurisdiction returned to the superior court, of which the juvenile court is a division and which, under the Constitution, has jurisdiction of all misdemeanors "not otherwise provided for". (Const., art. VI, sec. 5.) This the legislature clearly had power to do under its authority to fix by law the jurisdiction of municipal courts. (Const., art. VI, sec. 13.) The intent of the legislature of 1929 to restore to the juvenile court and superior court the entire jurisdiction over misdemeanors, which it possessed prior to the adoption of the Municipal Court Act, is clear and must be given effect. The juvenile court, therefore, had jurisdiction to conduct the proceedings herein up to the time that petitioner entered his plea of "not guilty", and therefore the superior court had jurisdiction to try and sentence petitioner upon his conviction. (People v. Superior Court of San Bernardino County, supra.)
The writ is denied and the petitioner is remanded.
Works, P.J., and Thompson (Ira F.), J., concurred. *730