Court Opinion

ID: 9558547
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:12:03.297887+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:09:22.903832
License: Public Domain

SCHAUER, J.
I dissent.
The majority hold that the “sanity hearing has none of the elements of a criminal proceeding but rather is collateral thereto, and, as such, has been designated a ‘special proceeding of a civil nature,’ to which the rules prevailing in criminal trials have no application,” that the defendant has no right of appeal, and, accordingly, dismiss what they designate as the “purported appeal.”
But section 963 of the Code of Civil Procedure provides that “An appeal may be taken from a superior court in the following cases: 1. Prom a final judgment entered in an action, or special proceeding,- commenced in a superior court. ...” (Italics added.) In Aldrich v. Superior Court (1901), 135 Cal. 12, 14 [66 P. 846], it was succinctly held that “if the proceeding [in this case for restoration of sanity] sought to be instituted by the said application to the superior court . . . was one provided for in our system of procedure or in any way recognized by our law, it was either an ‘action’ or a ‘special proceeding’ (Code Civ. Proc., §§ 20, 21, 22, 23); and, under either view, the final judgment entered therein was appealable (Code Civ. Proc., § 963).” In the light of the specific and inclusive language of sections 201, 212, 223, 234, and 963 of the Code of Civil Procedure it is impossible for me to understand how any contrary holding could reasonably be reached. (See, also, In re Bank of San Pedro (1934), 1 Cal.2d 675, 680 [37 P.2d 80].)
*520It is also to be noted that this court has held (and the holding does not appear ever to have been challenged) that “The proceedings provided by the Penal Code for the determination of the question of present sanity in order to determine whether a defendant possesses sufficient mental capacity to be tried, or having been tried and convicted, to be adjudged to punishment (§ 1367 et seq.), or having been adjudged to suffer death, is sane within the meaning of our law precluding execution of such a judgment upon an insane person (Pen. Code, §1221 et seq.), are special proceedings of a civil nature.” (People v. Lawson (1918), 178 Cal. 722, 728 [174 P. 885].) It is section 1367 of the Penal Code which expressly adopts into our statutory law the humanitarian principle, old and respected even in the days of Blackstone5, which prohibits the trial or punishment (including execution) of an insane person. A comparison of the procedure provided for trial in the superior court of the issues raised on a question of insanity when it arises before, during or after trial, but before judgment6, with that to be taken when the question is raised after judgment of death and before execution7, discloses no substantial ground for allowing an appeal in the one case and denying it in the other. Both procedures show legislative recognition of a necessity for, and a right to pursue, judicial enforcement of the rights *521declared in section 1367. The right of appeal in the first ease has heretofore consistently been upheld (see e.g., People v. West (1914), 25 Cal.App. 369 [143 P. 793]; People v. Lawson (1918), supra, 178 Cal. 722) but if the majority view now announced is to be consistently applied the right of appeal in any case based on the humanely recognized right (the majority say not “right,” but mere “merciful dispensation, an act of grace”) declared in section 1367 should be denied.
As far back as People v. Ah Ying (1871), 42 Cal. 18, 21, this court, in reversing a conviction for murder in a case wherein the trial court had failed of its own motion to suspend the trial pending determination of a question of present sanity, said, “There is no plea of present insanity required. If at any time a doubt arose as to the sanity of the defendant, it was the duty of the Court, of its own motion, to suspend the trial or further proceedings in the case, at whatever stage the doubt arose, until the question of sanity was determined. Common humanity requires that one should not be tried for his life while insane ...” No more should an ■ insane man be put to death. The majority holding here seems to me to be a regrettable retrogression in the standards of civilization.
Since the majority decision dismisses the appeal no useful service would be rendered by a discussion herein of its merits.
For the reasons stated the motion to dismiss the appeal should be denied.
Shenk, J., and Carter, J., concurred.

Section 20 provides: "Judicial remedies are such as are administered by the courts of justice, or by, judicial officers empowered for that purpose by the constitution and statutes of this state. ’

Seetion 21 provides: "These remedies are divided into two classes: 1. Actions; and, 2. Special proceedings."

Seetion 22 provides: "An action is an ordinary proceeding in a court of justice by which one party prosecutes another for the declaration, enforcement, or protection of a right, the redress or prevention of a wrong, or the punishment of a public offense."

Seetion 23 provides: "Every other remedy is a special proceeding."

As stated in 4 Blaekstone’s Commentaries, page 24: "Also if a man in his sound memory commits a capital offense, and before arraignment for it, he becomes mad, he ought not to be arraigned for it; because he is not able to plead to it with that advice and caution that he ought. And if, after he has pleaded, the prisoner becomes mad, he shall not be tried: for how can he make his defence? If, after he be tried and found guilty, he loses his senses before judgment, judgment shall not be pronounced; and if, after judgment, he becomes of non-sane memory, execution shall be stayed: for peradventure, says the humanity of the English law, had the prisoner been of sound memory, he might have alleged something in stay of judgment or execution. Indeed, in the bloody reign of Henry the Eighth, a statute was made, which enacted that if a person, being compos mentis (of sane mind) should commit high treason, and after fall into madness, he might be tried in his absence, and should suffer death, as if he were of perfect memory. But this savage and inhuman law was repealed by the statute 1 and 2 P. and M., e. 10. Eor, as is observed by Sir Edward Coke, ‘the execution of an offender is for example, ut poena ad paucos, metus ad omnes perveniat (that the punishment may reach the few, but the fear of it affect all): but so it is not when a madman is executed; but should be a miserable spectacle, both against law, and of extreme inhumanity and cruelty, and can be no example to others. ’ But if there be any doubt, whether the party be compos or not, this shall be tried by jury. ’ ’

See Pen. Code, §§ 1368 et seq.

See Pen. Code, §§ 3701 et seq.