The defendant herein was charged in an information filed in the superior court of the city and county of San Francisco with the crime of misdemeanor, namely: Practicing dentistry without a license in violation of the provisions of an act of the legislature regulating the practice of dentistry in the state of California (Stats. 1915, p. 698). The defendant pleaded not guilty, waived a trial by jury, and after a trial by thе court was adjudged guilty and sentenced to pay the minimum fine provided by the statute, namely: one hundred dollars. The appeal is from the judgment and from an order denying the defendant a new trial.
The testimony of Edith McDonnell and Louise St. John, witnesses for the people, did not require corroboration. Although employed by the state to seek and submit to the services of the defendant, they were not аccomplices of the defendant in the perpetration of the crime charged within the meaning of section 1111 of the Penal Code, as amended in 1915 (Stats. 1915, p. 760), which defines an accomрlice “as one who is liable to prosecution for the identical offense charged against the defendant on trial in the cause in which the testimony of the accomplice is given.”
*504 Whenever the commission of a crime by one person involves the co-operation of another person, the latter becomes an accomplice only in the event that his cо-operation in the commission of the crime is corrupt. The participation by the two witnesses in question in the dental practice of the defendant, one as the subject of treatment аnd the other paying for the same, was not by the law denounced as a crime, and clearly, therefore, it was lacking in the criminal intent necessary to the corrupt co-operation thаt would make them liable to prosecution and conviction for the identical offense charged against the defendant.
Even though they were feigned accomplices, still their testimony needed no corroboration, for it is the settled law that the uncorroborated testimony of one who, under the direction of officers of the law, feigns complicity in the commission of a crime merely for the purpose of detecting and prosecuting the perpetrators thereof will support a conviction.
(People
v.
Farrell,
The defendant claims that the evidence shows that he was praсticing dentistry at and prior to the time the act of 1901 was passed and took effect, and that inasmuch as that act expressly repealed all preceding acts governing and controlling thе same subject matter as does the act of 1915, under which the defendant was prosecuted, and exempted from .its provisions those persons who had “the lawful right” to practice dentistry at the time of its passage, hе could not be charged with and convicted of the crime of practicing dentistry without a license. More precisely stated, the contention of the defendant in this behalf is that he was actually practicing dentistry between March 23, 1901, and September 1, 1901; that section 25 of the Dental Act of 1901 should be construed to mean that all prior acts regulating the practice of dentistry in the state of California were repealed sixty days after March 23, 1901; and that inasmuch as the act of 1901 did not by its terms go into effect until September 1, 1901, there was between May 23d (sixty days after the passage of the аct of 1901) and September 1st (the time when the act was by its terms to go into effect), an interregnum in the law during which time it was not unlawful for him to practice dentistry without a license.
*505 We are not satisfied that the evidence shows that the defendant was actually practicing dentistry between March 23, 1901, and September 1, 1901. But however that may be, the contention just "stated is untenable. Section 323 of the Political Cоde provides that “Every statute, unless a different time is prescribed therein, takes effect on the sixtieth day after its passage.” This section was in effect at the time of the passage of the Dеntal Act of 1901, and if no provisions to the contrary were contained in said Dental Act, it would, therefore, have taken effect sixty days after March 23, 1901. But section 25 of that act declared that it shоuld “take effect September '1, 1901, ’ ’ that is to say, the entire act should take effect September 1, 1901, and not that one portion thereof should take effect oh that date and another рart thereof on some other day. The entire act for all purposes went into effect September 1, 1901, and on that date, and not before, the prior acts regulating the practice of dentistry became absolutely and finally repealed.
In this construction of the statutory situation there was no interregnum in the law, and the defendant, as the record shows, never having been licensеd as a dentist, did not have the lawful right to practice dentistry at the time charged in the information.
The defendant’s demurrer to the information was properly disallowed. It was not necessary that the information should traverse the exceptions contained in the act.
(Ex parte Hornef,
The objection presented by the demurrer that the Dental Act of 1915 contravened section 25 of article IV of the state constitution is answered by the provisions of article VI, section 5, of. the constitution, which provide that the superior court shall hаve original jurisdiction in cases of misdemeanor not otherwise provided. See, also,
People
v.
Fortch,
The provisions of section 5 of the Dental Act of 1915, prescribing who shall be eligible to take an examination before the board of dental examiners, is not unconstitutional upon the ground that it is discriminatory. In disposing of precisely the same objections as the defendant makes here to subdivision 12 of the act of 1901, which also prescribed the conditions upon which a person might take examination for a license, the supreme court of the state in the ease of
Ex parte Whitley,
The defendant does not point out in his brief how or in what manner the information fails to substantially conform to sections 950, 951, and 952 of the Penal Code, nor in what respect the information fails to contain in ordinary and concise languаge a statement of the acts constituting the offense, etc, *507 Our reading of the information satisfies us that it meets with all of the requirements of the rules of criminal pleading.
There is no merit to the contеntion that section 11 of the Dental Act of 1915 renders the entire act unconstitutional because, as it is alleged, that section violates subdivision 3 of section 25 of article IY of the Constitution of the stаte of California, in that it specifies what shall constitute sufficient evidence to convict a person under the law, and therefore is special legislation. That section does no morе than define what shall constitute the practice of dentistry in the state of California and “The legislature has the power to thus define what is meant by the term ‘practicing dentistry,’ and to thus make clear what acts it intended to make unlawful. ’ ’
(People
v.
Fortch,
Nor is there any merit in appellant’s contention that the court erred in sustaining certain objections made by the people to questions propoundеd by defendant’s counsel to Albert Meyer, the purpose of which was to show by the character of the work performed by defendant that he was a good dentist, etc. This evidence was not responsive to any issues in the case. The defendant was not being prosecuted for being a bad dentist, but for practicing dentistry—good, bad, or indifferent—without first having obtained a license to do so.
What we have thus far said disposes of every point made in support of the appeal which is worthy of discussion.
The judgment and order appealed from are affirmed.
Kerrigan, J., and Richards, J., concurred.
A petition to have the cause heard in the supreme court, after judgment in the district court of appeal, was denied by the supreme court on February 7, 1918.