Court Opinion

ID: 9567780
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:57:40.356742+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:20:36.920811
License: Public Domain

SPENCE, J.
I concur in the judgment remanding petitioner “to the custody of the Adult Authority, subject to his status on parole.” I further agree with the conclusions that “Petitioner, serving a life sentence, is not entitled to be released from the restraint of parole,” and that he has “been accorded every right to which he has shown himself entitled. ’ ’
When petitioner commenced this proceeding on habeas corpus, he was not on parole but was serving a life sentence in the state prison as an habitual criminal. Since the commencement of this proceeding, he has been released on parole under the authority of section 3048.5 of the Penal Code, enacted in 1945, (Stats. 1945, ch. 934, p. 1747.) The effect of that section was to make petitioner eligible for parole after serving seven years, regardless of whether he had suffered two or three prior convictions. As petitioner is now unquestionably eligible for parole under the provisions of that section and as he has been released on parole pursuant thereto, it appears unnecessary to determine, as the majority opinion purports *409to do, what may have been the effect of the judgment of the trial court upon his eligibility for parole under the law applicable prior to the enactment of section 3048.5.
Petitioner, however, originally sought, and still seeks by this proceeding on habeas corpus, to nullify the portion of the judgment adjudicating his status as an habitual criminal. As it does not affirmatively appear from the face of the record in the criminal proceeding in which the habitual criminal adjudication was made that the trial court was without jurisdiction to make such adjudication, I believe petitioner should be denied such relief for the reasons stated in my dissenting opinions in In re McVickers, ante, p. 264 [176 P.2d 40], and In re Seeley, ante, p. 294 [176 P.2d 24]. While the majority opinion denies such relief, I believe that the majority opinion should have confined the inquiry to the face of the record in the criminal proceeding in arriving at the conclusion that petitioner was not entitled thereto.
Edmonds, J., and Traynor, J., concurred.