Court Opinion

ID: 9738611
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:58:18.906203+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:07.305516
License: Public Domain

*871KINGSLEY, J.—I dissent.
I concur wholeheartedly with everything in the majority opinion except for one matter; unfortunately that partial disagreement necessitates, in my judgment, a reversal of the action of the trial court.
My dissent is directed to the holding that the complaint need not identify even the class or kind of “material" with which defendant is alleged to have dealt. Section 311 subdivision (a) is a part of Chapter 7.5 of the Penal Code, added by Chapter 2147 of the 1961 Statutes. The first section of that chapter, section 311, provides a set of definitions of the terms used in the subsequent sections, including section 311 subdivision (a). It follows that the allegation in the complaint that defendant dealt with “material” means that he dealt with material as that word is defined in section 311, subdivision (b). But when we read that subdivision into the complaint, we find that defendant is charged with conduct with reference to an obscene book, or magazine, or newspaper, or other printed or written material, or a picture, or a drawing or a photograph, or a motion picture, etc., etc. But it is a well settled rule of criminal pleading that, although the several alternatives set out in a statute may properly be pleaded in the conjunctive, they may not (with an exception not here applicable) be pleaded in the disjunctive. (People v. Tomlinson (1868) 35 Cal. 503; People v. Goodspeed (1948) 85 Cal.App. 2d Supp. 821 [192 P.2d 130]; C.J.S., Indictments and Informations, § 101.) To this much information, defendant was entitled, even under the most liberal rules of pleading; a complaint failing in this particular should not have been allowed to stand.
A petition for a rehearing was denied June 7, 1967. Kingsley, J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted. Appellant’s petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied Jufy 5. 1967. Peters, J., Tobriner, J., and Mosk, J., were of the opinion that the petition should be granted.