Court Opinion

ID: 9726916
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:12:20.00745+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:15:03.006964
License: Public Domain

SCOTT, J.
I concur in the judgment. I agree that the magistrate, after a postindictment preliminary hearing, has the authority where an offense is punishable as a felony or as a misdemeanor to determine “that the offense is a misdemeanor” pursuant to the provisions of Penal Code section 17, subdivision (b)(2). The court in Hawkins v. Superior *188Court (1978) 22 Cal.3d 584 [150 Cal.Rptr. 435, 582 P.2d 916] clearly intended that the magistrate serve the same function and with the same powers whether or not the preliminary examination has been preceded by an indictment. To hold otherwise would create chaos in the trial courts.
I also agree that the determination of the magistrate that the offense is a misdemeanor cannot be reviewed by extraordinary writ. In People v. Drake (1977) 19 Cal.3d 749 [139 Cal.Rptr. 720, 566 P.2d 622] the court held that the exercise of discretion by the trial court in reducing an offense to a lesser included offense after conviction pursuant to Penal Code section 1181, subdivision 6, was not only nonreviewable by appeal, it was nonreviewable by extraordinary writ. The court stated at pages 758-759: “Moreover, even if we believed the trial court’s actions to be erroneous and were to consider the People’s request for extraordinary relief, the request would have to be denied. The statutory restriction of the People’s right to appeal in criminal cases ‘is not merely a procedural limitation allocating appellate review between direct appeals and extraordinary writs but is a substantive limitation on review of trial court determinations in criminal trials.’ (People v. Superior Court (Howard) (1968) supra, 69 Cal.2d 491, 498; see also People v. Superior Court (Levy) (1976) 18 Cal.3d 248, 251 [133 Cal.Rptr. 624, 555 P.2d 633].) This consideration carries particular force when the People seek review of an order which on its face is a timely exercise of a well-established statutory power of trial courts, but one from which no appeal is provided in section 1238. To allow the use of mandamus in this case would ‘give the People the very appeal which the Legislature has denied them.’ (Howard, supra, at p. 499; see also People v. Valenti (1957) supra, 49 Cal.2d 199, 205.)”
Here, too, the People concededly have no statutory right of appeal and to allow review by mandamus would in the words of the Howard court “‘give the People the very appeal which the Legislature has to denied them.’” (People v. Drake, supra, at p. 759.)
I disagree, however, with that portion of the majority opinion that expresses a need to disagree with a number of Court of Appeal opinions approving review by writ of mandamus of various trial court orders. (See majority opn., p. 182, fn. 5.) By implication the majority also disapproves a number of uncited Court of Appeal opinions. (E.g., People v. Municipal Court (Gelardi) (1978) 84 Cal.App.3d 692 [149 Cal.Rptr. *18930] and cases cited therein.) All of those cases are simply different from our own and their examination is not pertinent to our decision. Their disapproval by the majority interjects unnecessary uncertainty into the law.
A petition for a rehearing was denied August 28, 1981, and petitioner’s application for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied October 22, 1981.