Court Opinion

ID: 9737307
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:21:30.308997+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:23:57.988045
License: Public Domain

KINCAID, J. pro tem.*
I dissent.
The two principal questions presented are: (a) whether our state Constitution or statutes authorize or permit a member of the bar, or a member of the bar who is also a court commissioner, pursuant to stipulation and order purportedly empowering him to act as judge pro tempore and as committing magistrate, to conduct a preliminary examination, to hold the defendant to answer and commit her; and (b) whether petitioner is precluded from attacking the validity of her commitment by reason of her stipulations herein. I would answer both questions in the negative.
It seems clear to me that our Constitution and statutes (Cal. Const., art. I, § 8; Pen. Code, §§ 858-883) require that preliminary examinations must be conducted and commitments must be made by officers who are designated by statute to act as “magistrates,” unless the provisions of article YI, section 5 of our Constitution hereinafter referred to, permit others to so act.
Said article I, section 8 of our Constitution specifies in part: “Offenses heretofore required to be prosecuted by indictment shall be presented by information, after examination and commitment by a magistrate, or by indictment ...” (Emphasis added.) Section 872, Penal Code, provides that, if it appears from the examination that a public offense has been committed and there is sufficient cause to believe the defendant guilty thereof, “the magistrate must make or indorse on the *351complaint an order, signed by him,” ordering that the defendant he held to answer. (Emphasis added.) Section 876, Penal Code, further specifies that, “ [i] f the magistrate order the defendant to be committed, he must make out a commitment, signed by him, with his name of office ...” (Emphasis added.)
Our statutes further expressly designate the persons who are and can act as “magistrates.” Section 807, Penal Code, states: “A magistrate is an officer having power to issue a warrant for the arrest of a person charged with a public offense”; (emphasis added) and section 808, Penal Code, provides that the justices of the Supreme Court and the district courts of appeal, and the judges of the superior, municipal and justice courts, are “magistrates.”
It has long been settled that the office of magistrate is purely statutory; that the powers and duties of a magistrate are solely those given by statute; that the office, powers and duties of a magistrate are essentially different from those of a court or of a judge as such; and that a judge or justice does not act as a court or judge when he sits as a magistrate. (People v. Brite, 9 Cal.2d 666, 683-685 [72 P.2d 122]; (People v. Cohen, 118 Cal. 74, 78-79 [50 P. 20] ; People v. Swain, 5 Cal.App. 421, 424-425 [90 P. 720] ; 13 Cal.Jur.2d 455-456; 1 Witkin, California Procedure, 136.)
In view of the essential difference between the office, powers and duties of a magistrate and those of a judge or a court, the contention that article VI, section 5, of our Constitution, which authorizes a member of the bar under certain circumstances to act as a “judge pro tempore” to try a cause, also authorizes a member of the bar upon stipulation and court order to act as a “magistrate pro tempore,” cannot be sustained.
Nor does the fact that the attorney so designated is a regularly appointed commissioner of the municipal court authorize him to assume the powers of a magistrate. Section 259a, subdivision 4, Code of Civil Procedure, authorizes a court commissioner in Los Angeles County to act as a judge pro tempore when appointed for that purpose but only when otherwise qualified so to act.
In order to hold that such or any member of the bar might be designated by stipulation or order to act as a magistrate pro tempore, for the purpose of conducting a preliminary examination in the case of a person charged with commission of a felony, it must necessarily be held that such person has the power to issue warrants for arrest. A magistrate, however, *352is the sole officer having the statutory power to issue a warrant. (Pen. Code, §§ 813, 807.) Only a magistrate as defined by said section 807, Penal Code, can qualify, and only such a magistrate is empowered to conduct the preliminary examination of petitioner, hold her to answer for trial or order her committed. (Pen. Code, §§ 872, 876.)
It seems unnecessary for determination of the questions here presented to consider the contention that the aforesaid provisions of article VI, section 5, of the Constitution authorize the designation of members of the bar to try “criminal” as well as “civil” causes. (Quezada v. Superior Court, 171 Cal.App.2d 528 [340 P.2d 1018], is not in point, since such decision was based upon the ground that the cause involved therein was a civil contempt proceeding. Further, even if we assume for purposes of present consideration, that the provisions of article VI, section 5, authorize the designation of a member of the bar to try criminal causes as a judge pro tempore, said provisions cannot be reasonably construed as also authorizing the designation of a member of the bar to act in the totally different capacity of magistrate. (Pen. Code, § 807; Cal. Const. art. I, § 8; People v. Swain, supra; People v. Cohen, supra; People v. Brite, supra.)
Respondent’s further contention that petitioner should be precluded from attacking the validity of her commitment by reason of her stipulations herein, cannot be sustained.
Granting that a defendant can waive certain personal statutory and even constitutional rights, the specific provisions of the statutes and Constitution heretofore cited require a defendant be held to answer and committed only by a person of authorized competent authority. As is stated in People v. Cohen, supra, 118 Cal. 74, 81-82, where an oath was administered by a court clerk having no authority to administer oaths, “We are satisfied that the section [i.e., Pen. Code, § 121 providing that ‘ [i]t is no defense to a prosecution for perjury that the oath was administered or taken in an irregular manner . . . ’] does not excuse the necessity of an oath in substantial form administered by a person of competent authority.”
Neither the parties by stipulation, nor a judge by order, are legally empowered to invest a stranger with power to act as a magistrate, where the office is purely statutory, where a magistrate must be an officer having power to issue warrants for arrest and where there are no provisions authorizing a member of the bar or a court commissioner to act as a magistrate.
*353The mere circumstance that a defendant may waive his right to a preliminary examination does not in any way excuse the necessity that the defendant has to be committed by a competent magistrate. (Pen. Code, §§ 860, 876; Cal. Const., art. I, § 8.)
Respondent’s further point that a person designated by stipulation and order to conduct a preliminary examination should be considered a de facto magistrate, is without substance.
There must exist some constitutional or statutory authority for the appointment of a magistrate for the de facto doctrine to be applicable. (30 A, Am.Jur. 132; 41 Cal.Jur.2d 113-115.) In my opinion, the purported appointment and designation herein was wholly unauthorized, without any color of right, and therefore the de facto doctrine is inapplicable.
I favor an order to let a writ of prohibition issue restraining the respondent court from taking further proceedings against petitioner on the information and commitment heretofore filed and made, such writ to issue without prejudice to the People to take further proceedings permissible under the law to have petitioner legally indicted, or given a preliminary hearing before a competent magistrate.
Petitioner’s application for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied August 24, 1960.

 Assigned by Chairman of Judicial Council.