Court Opinion

ID: 9794469
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:06:32.453846+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:16:33.417452
License: Public Domain

SHENK, J.
I concur in the judgment but I do not agree with the definite implication in the majority opinion that this court has the power to reduce the punishment and thus commute the sentence from death to life imprisonment even in the presence of error. The power of commutation of sentence and pardon is vested exclusively in the governor by section 1 of article VII of the Constitution and even that power is circumscribed by the provision in the same section that the chief executive may not extend executive clemency by granting a commutation of sentence or a pardon to a person twice convicted of a felony without the “written recommendation of a majority of the judges of the Supreme Court.” The provisions of the Constitution are “mandatory and prohibitory.” (Art. I, § 22.) When power is vested by the Constitution in one branch of the state government it is incompetent for another branch to exercise it. The latest expression of this court on the subject is found in In re McGee, 36 Cal.2d 592 [226 P.2d 1], where it was held that when a power has been expressly vested in the Legislature (in that case to determine the qualifications of one of its members) the courts are without authority to assume jurisdiction over the controversy. It was there stated, at page 594: “The powers of the government of the state are divided into the legislative, executive and judicial, and neither shall exercise the powers of the other 1 except as in this constitution expressly directed or permitted. ’ (Cal. Const., art III, § 1.) ” Here the power of commutation of sentence is expressly vested in the governor and it is beyond the power of the Legislature to transfer that function to the courts as was attempted by an amendment of section 1260 of the Penal Code in 1949. There is no other provision of the Constitution, express or otherwise, directing or permitting the courts to exercise the power thus vested in the chief executive. Section 4%, article VI (adopted in 1926), authorizing the Legislature to grant to the courts of appellate jurisdiction the power to make findings contrary to or in addition to those made by the trial court does not by any manner of *60means confer upon the Legislature the right to authorize this court to exercise the power of commutation of sentence and thus reduce the punishment from death to life imprisonment. Section 956a of the Code of Civil Procedure (added in 1927) is the enactment designed to carry into effect the constitutional amendment of 1926. That amendment was first construed and applied in Tupman v. Haberkern (1929), 208 Cal. 256 [280 P. 970], The power thus conferred on the courts applies only to cases where “trial by jury is not a matter of right or where a trial by jury has been waived. ’ ’ This power has never been exercised in criminal cases for the obvious reason that trial by jury in such eases is a matter of right and following a waiver of a jury trial the court is not authorized to make findings of fact as contemplated by sections 632 and 956a of the Code of Civil Procedure. In People v. Willison (1932), 122 Cal.App. 760 [10 P.2d 766], it was rightly said, at pages 762 and 763, with reference to the power to be exercised pursuant to section 4% of the Constitution, that “It was not intended that the Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court should be permitted to make findings of fact and thereby change verdicts rendered in jury trials.” (See, also, People v. Myers, 122 Cal.App. 675 [10 P.2d 498].)
Section 1181(6) of the Penal Code was amended in 1927 to authorize on appeal the reduction in the degree of the crime. There was and is no constitutional inhibition foreclosing the Legislature from conferring that power. This court recognized that fact and first exercised the power in People v. Kelley (1929), 208 Cal. 387 [281 P. 609]. There is a vast difference between a change in the degree of the crime under the law and the evidence and a change in the punishment. The former involves the application of the law to the facts and is the function of the court. The latter is a matter of executive clemency, a power exercisable exclusively by the governor under the Constitution and without restraint so far as the law and the facts are concerned, except, as stated, in the ease of a recidivist.
It is conceded by the majority that if there is no error in the record the court, under the authorities, may not reduce the punishment and thus commute the sentence from death to life imprisonment. When there is error it is a function of the court to determine whether that error, in view of the entire record, has resulted in a miscarriage of justice and is therefore prejudicial. If prejudicial error does not appear the judgment should be affirmed. If prejudicial error is deter*61mined to be present, it is the function and duty of the court to reverse the judgment or, in a proper case, to reduce the degree. There is no power in the chief executive to reduce the degree. It is his function to commute the sentence from death to life imprisonment or to some lesser period of confinement or to execute a pardon pursuant to the constitutional section. The punishment is fixed in the first instance by the jury under proper instructions as to the law or by the court where a jury has been waived. Any change in the punishment thereafter either by commutation from death to life imprisonment or to a shorter period, is just as much the exclusive constitutional function of the chief executive as the granting of a pardon, and I assume that no one would even intimate that by an amendment of the code the Legislature could transfer the pardoning power from the governor to the Supreme Court.

Section 4%: “In all cases where trial by jury is not a matter of right or where trial by jury has been waived, the legislature may grant to any court of appellate jurisdiction the power, in its discretion, to make findings of fact contrary to, or in addition to, those made by the trial court. The legislature may provide that such findings may be based on the evidence adduced before the trial court, either with or without the taking of additional evidence by the court of appellate jurisdiction. The legislature may also grant to any court of appellate jurisdiction the power, in its discretion, for the purpose of making such findings or for any other purpose in the interest of justice, to take additional evidence of or concerning facts occurring at any time prior to the decision of the appeal, and to give or direct the entry of any judgment or order and to make such further or other orders as the ease may require.”