Court Opinion

ID: 9744513
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 22:04:54.026437+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:49.785433
License: Public Domain

PIERCE, P. J.
I dissent in part and concur in part. I am unable to agree with that portion of the majority opinion which holds that Penal Code sections 4501 and 4502 do not apply to Deuel inmates. As the majority opinion points out, both sections relate to persons “confined in a state prison,” and I agree that Deuel Vocational Institution cannot be regarded as “a state prison” for all purposes. I disagree, however, that the Legislature did not intend it to be so regarded under sections 4501 and 4502.
It is true that Penal Code section 6082 does not effect that result in the case at bench. That section refers only to “faeili*599ties . . . for the confinement ... of persons in the legal custody of the Department of Corrections. ’ ’ Defendant Romo was not one of those inmates of Deuel who are under the legal custody of the Department of Corrections. There arc, as the majority opinion states, inmates at Deuel who are, as well as those under the custody of the Youth Authority.
Penal Code section 2041, however, provides that “The provisions of Part 3 of this code [included within which are sections 4501 and 4502] apply to the Deuel Vocational Institution and to the persons confined therein so far as such provisions may be applicable.” (Italics added.) Where I part company with the majority opinion is in the interpretation of section 2041, and particularly with the interpretation of the legislative intent as regards the italicized portion. We also differ as to the relevance of the rationale of In re Smith (1966) 64 Cal.2d 437 [50 Cal.Rptr. 460, 412 P.2d 804], It, of course, did not relate to a person then an inmate of Deuel. Smith, like Romo, had been committed to the Youth Authority, but at the time he obtained and wielded his home-made knife he was at San Quentin. In In re Smith the court said (at pp. 439-440) : “ [T]he purpose of section 4501 of the Penal Code is to promote prison safety by discouraging assaults by prison inmates [citation], and to except any inmates from its operation would lessen its effectiveness and to some extent defeat its objective.”
We deal with an obviously ambiguous statute. The interpretation the majority opinion places upon it means this: 1. The Legislature intended to give the guards and inmates of Deuel lesser protection against vicious assaults by inmates like Romo than it did to the guards and inmates of Chino, Folsom, San Quentin. 2. It intended to protect them against knife wielding inmates who represent that portion of the prison population which happens to be under the custody of the Department of Corrections but not against that portion under the custody of the Youth Authority. Such distinctions are unreasonable. T cannot believe that was the legislative intent. By use of the phrase “so far as such provisions may be applicable” in section 2041, it did not intend to exclude sections 4501 and 4502.
I would hold, therefore, that both Penal Code sections 4501 and 4502 are applicable to Deuel inmates through section 2041. As the majority has held, the verdict and judgment under section 4501 cannot be affirmed because Romo was not charged under that section, and it is not a lesser included *600offense under Penal Code section 217. Penal Code section 245 IS a lesser included offense. My obduracy regarding the validity of Penal Code section 4502 would lead necessarily to a ruling that the ease should be returned to the trial court to arraign defendant and pronounce judgment and sentence under section 4502—the greater of the two offenses, section 245 and section 4502.1
A petition for a rehearing was denied December 27, 1967. Pierce, P. J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted. Respondent’s petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied January 24, 1968. Burke, J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted.

 Although the jury returned a guilty verdict under section 4502, no judgment was pronounced thereunder under the correct appraisal of the trial court that to pronounce judgment under both section 4501 and section 4502 would constitute double punishment in violation of Penal Code section 654. I do not believe that Penal Code section 1191 or Penal Code section 1202, under the circumstances of this ease, prevents the delayed pronouncement of judgment.