Opinion ID: 1192452
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Legislative History of Section 969a

Text: (1c), (2c) If the meaning of section 969a is not sufficiently clear after considering the section in context, an examination of its legislative history provides a more definite answer. Both the legislative history of the statute and the wider historical circumstances of its enactment may be considered in ascertaining the legislative intent. ( Dyna-Med, supra, 43 Cal.3d at p. 1387.) Section 969a was first enacted into the Penal Code in 1927. (Stats. 1927, ch. 631, § 1, pp. 1064-1065.) The statute was part of a slate of recommended changes to the Penal Code proposed by the Commission for the Reform of Criminal Procedure (hereafter the Commission), a commission created in 1925 by then Governor Friend W. Richardson at the recommendation of the California Bar Association, a precursor to the present State Bar of California. ( Speeding Up the Criminal Machinery (Dec. 1926) 1 State Bar J. 93; The Reform of Criminal Procedure (Dec. 1926) 1 State Bar J. 103.) The Commission presented a report of its recommendations to the Legislature in 1927. Regarding the addition of section 969a, the report stated: It is recommended that this new statute be adopted[,] designed to cover cases where, after the filing of an indictment or information, it is discovered that defendant has previously been convicted of felonies which were not known at the time of the filing of the indictment or information. If the discovery is made before sentence, the pending indictment or information shall be amended upon order of the court and the case proceed as if such prior convictions had been charged in the original indictment or information.... [¶] The justice of this provision seems to require no argument. If a defendant has in fact been convicted of one or more previous felonies he ought not escape the consequences thereof simply because he has succeeded in concealing them. (Com. for the Reform of Criminal Procedure, Rep. to Legislature (1927) pp. 15-16, italics added (hereafter Report).) As the Commission's report makes apparent, the framers of the original section 969a expressly stated their intent that the proposed new statute permit the amendment of an indictment or information up until sentencing, not just until the verdict is received. This interpretation, obvious from the Commission's report to the Legislature, was soon confirmed, albeit in dictum, in People v. Grimes (1928) 94 Cal. App. 238 [270 P. 1000] (hereafter Grimes ). In that case, the Court of Appeal considered a second amended information charging the defendant for the first time with two prior felony convictions. ( Id. at p. 239.) The defendant had already been convicted by a jury for the substantive offense, violating the State Poison Act. ( Ibid. ) The appellate court observed the additional proceedings required by the postverdict amendment of the information were permissible under section 969a. ( Grimes, supra, at p. 240.) Our conclusion as to the meaning of section 969a is bolstered by consideration of an aspect of the 1927 version of the statute that did not survive to the present day. Section 969a, as originally enacted, provided that, in addition to amending the information to charge prior convictions whenever the information was pending, [w]henever after sentence, and before the sentence has expired, it shall be discovered that the indictment or information on which defendant was convicted did not charge all felonies of which defendant had theretofore been convicted, either in this state or elsewhere, it shall be the duty of the district attorney ... to cause to be filed a supplemental information setting up such prior conviction or convictions. (Stats. 1927, ch. 631, § 1, p. 1064, italics added.) The original section 969a thus permitted filing a supplemental information after sentencing to charge a defendant with his prior convictions, so long as his sentence had not yet expired. (See People v. Ysabel (1938) 28 Cal. App.2d 259, 262-263 [82 P.2d 476], disapproved on other grounds, People v. Thomas (1959) 52 Cal.2d 521, 534 [342 P.2d 889].) The statute was amended in 1931 to eliminate this option. (Stats. 1931, ch. 485, § 1, p. 1060; see People v. Fewkes (1931) 214 Cal. 423, 425 [6 P.2d 250]; People v. Ysabel, supra, at p. 263.) The balance of the statute, however, has remained in pertinent respects unchanged from its 1927 inception to the present. [2] Assuming an historically stable definition of the word pending in section 969a, defendant's argument the word pending means pending receipt of the verdict runs afoul of the canon of statutory construction that directs us to interpret legislative enactments to avoid absurd results. ( Amador Valley, supra, 22 Cal.3d at p. 245.) Specifically, accepting defendant's definition of pending would lead to the following conclusions regarding the original 1927 version of the statute: (1) the People could have amended the information to allege prior felony convictions up to the time the verdict is received; (2) the People could similarly have filed a supplemental information following sentencing to allege prior felony convictions that were not charged in the original information, up until the time a defendant's sentence expired; but (3) the People were prohibited from amending the information (or filing a supplemental information) to allege prior felony convictions during the period between receipt of the verdict and sentencing. We can perceive no plausible purpose for the Legislature to have created such a window period during criminal proceedings in which charging additional prior felony convictions would be prohibited. Even could we find a reason for the window period, moreover, such a period would be meaningless. Under that scenario, had a prosecutor discovered an additional prior felony conviction for a defendant after the verdict but before sentencing, he or she could merely have waited until after sentencing and filed a supplemental information charging the newly discovered prior felony conviction. The Legislature could not have intended the original section 969a to authorize such an awkward and ineffective procedure. A much more likely interpretation of the 1927 version of section 969a is that the People were permitted to amend the existing information to allege prior felony convictions up to sentencing. After sentencing, the People could file a supplemental information to allege priors up until the defendant's sentence expired. After the 1931 amendment of section 969a, the People were prohibited from the postsentencing option, but still retained the power to amend the information to allege priors up until sentencing. These time limits did not change with the 1957 amendments to section 969a. (See, ante, at p. 604, fn. 2.) Even assuming our interpretation is correct, defendant contends the amendment of the information in his case was improper because legislative history shows section 969a is aimed at permitting the People to amend the information to allege previously unknown prior felony convictions, but not  as in this case  to charge prior felony convictions that were known to the prosecutor. In other words, defendant contends section 969a is intended to remedy the situation where the prosecutor belatedly learns of one or more of a defendant's prior felony convictions, and not to serve as an all-purpose fix for other trial deficiencies the prosecutor could have remedied with more timely action. (See People v. Superior Court ( Marks ) (1991) 1 Cal.4th 56, 77 [2 Cal. Rptr.2d 389, 820 P.2d 613] [The United States Supreme Court has repeatedly counseled against subjecting a defendant to further proceedings to allow the prosecution the opportunity to ameliorate trial deficiencies, evidentiary or procedural, that could have been otherwise timely corrected.].) Some language in the historical record supports this interpretation. For example, in describing the proposed section 969a in 1927, the Commission stated the new statute was recommended to address the situation, where, after the filing of an indictment or information, it is discovered that defendant has previously been convicted of felonies which were not known at the time of the filing of the indictment or information.  (Report, supra, p. 15, italics added; see also The Association's Legislative Program (Jan. 1927) 1 State Bar J. 113, 127 [describing § 969a in similar terms].) Nevertheless, defendant's reading, although consistent with this part of the legislative history, founders on the very words of the section itself. Thus, section 969a states: Whenever it shall be discovered that a pending indictment or information does not charge all prior felonies of which the defendant has been convicted.... Thus, the Legislature has written the statute in terms of discovery that the information fails to charge existing priors, not discovery of the existence of a prior felony conviction. The distinction is more than semantic, for had the statute been written in terms of discovery of the existence of a prior felony, defendant's argument would stand on firmer ground. Inasmuch as section 969a speaks in terms of discovery that an indictment or information does not charge all available priors, that section, as written, is broad enough to encompass: (i) amendment to charge prior felony convictions that were previously known; (ii) amendment to charge newly discovered prior felony convictions; and (iii) amendment to charge prior felonies omitted through clerical error, as apparently happened in this case. [3] Finally, although the decisional record on this subject is sparse, our conclusion section 969a authorizes an amendment to charge a previously known prior felony conviction is consistent with the rule in at least one published opinion. In People v. Finnegan (1961) 192 Cal. App.2d 151, 155 [13 Cal. Rptr. 264, 17 A.L.R.3d 1258], the appellate court stated: Section 969a ... [is] broad enough to permit the indictment to be amended to charge a prior conviction, even though the grand jury knew of the prior but did not charge it in the indictment. We thus reject defendant's contention that consideration of the legislative history of section 969a requires we interpret that section to authorize amendments to charge only previously unknown prior felony convictions.