Opinion ID: 1362793
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Senate Committee Staff Memo

Text: Justice Clark says that the Legislative Counsel's paragraphs are consistent with a staff memo stating that the bill (apparently as introduced on Jan. 23) Prohibits, without exception, the granting of probation to persons who have carried or used firearms in connection with certain crimes, for which probation may be obtained under existing law in unusual cases in the interests of justice. Unfortunately that quotation has been bobtailed. The memo appears in appendix B of the Attorney General's brief filed on October 8, 1976. As therein set forth its opening paragraph reads: Prohibits, without exception, the granting of probation to persons who have carried or used firearms, in connection with certain crimes, for which probation may be obtained under existing law in unusual cases in the interests of justice (paras. (1) & (2), subd. (d), Sec. 1203, Pen. C.). What is the significance of that closing citation (paras. (1) & (2), subd. (d), Sec. 1203, Pen. C.), which is not mentioned in the majority opinion? It tells us that the writer of the Senate committee memo, like the Legislative Counsel, was concerned with ง 1203 only. His reference was to the existing ง 1203(d) and its exclusion of unusual cases in the interest of justice. Nothing in the six-page memo or in any other document suggests that the writer or the Senate committee ever considered the impact of the August 28th amendment on ง 1385 or on the cases stressed by Justice Tobriner. (See the memo's full text in annex A, infra. The words  without exception  in comment 2 on page 553 clearly involve the reference in comment I on page 552 to ง 1203(d)'s exclusion ( Except in `unusual cases' where probation would serve `the interests of justice'). No words in the memo express or imply any knowledge of or concern with any other Penal Code section. [3] )