Court Opinion

ID: 9792674
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:34:03.047702+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:44.612956
License: Public Domain

WHITE, J.
I concur in the judgment, but do so only because of the positive identification of the defendants as perpetrators of the crime charged, coupled with the fact that the testimony placed the time of the commission of the offense at “approximately 5:45 p. m.” on the date charged in the information, as well as the fact that notwithstanding the challenged instruction the court gave the correct and proper instruction set forth in the main opinion. In my judgment the jury in the instant case were not misled.
However, I am firmly convinced that in cases where the defendant relies upon an alibi for his defense the instruction here under attack should not be given. And that is particularly true when the prosecution, as here, relies for conviction upon a specific date and hour. When a defense of alibi is interposed and an alleged offense is so narrowed as in this case, the date and even the hour may become important. The challenged instruction in such circumstances can have no applicability to the evidence in the ease, may prove confusing to the jury, and in some cases, constitute prejudicial error. (People v. Waits, 18 Cal.App.2d 20, 21 [62 P.2d 1054].) As was so aptly and pertinently stated by Mr. Justice McComb in the case just cited, “In the light of appellant’s alibi defense, the time the alleged offenses were committed became *442material, and it was the duty of the trial court to limit the jury in its consideration of the evidence to the period which the prosecution selected as the time of the commission of the offenses.”