Court Opinion

ID: 9792215
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:25:15.642149+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:41.198818
License: Public Domain

SCHAUER, J., Dissenting.
I do not agree that (p. 561 supra, italics added) “it is the right and the duty of a judge to conduct a trial” in the manner stated in the opinion or otherwise. People v. Martinez (1952), 38 Cal.2d 556, 564 [241 P.2d 224], quoting People v. Mendez (1924), 193 Cal. 39, 46 [223 P. 65], cited in the opinion, is not authority for the above quoted statement. The right or duty the Martinez ease speaks of is “to so supervise and regulate the course of a trial that the truth shall be revealed in so far as it may be, within the established rules of evidence.” (Italics added.) To “supervise and regulate the course of a trial” is quite a different thing from assuming to himself “conduct a trial.” The latter practice should be disapproved and discouraged rather than approved and encouraged.
A vice of the practice depicted by the record is that, however proper may have been the motive of the trial judge, *561the effect of his intervention must almost certainly have tended to deprive the defendant of a fair trial. It tended to deprive the defendant of a fair trial not merely because of the content and improper implications of some of the judge’s questions and statements but because it must have appeared to the jury that the judge was throwing the prestige of his position to the support of the prosecution. Trial by jury means that issues of fact shall be resolved by the jury on the evidence under the law. On the record here, the influence of the judicial mien can well have been the deciding factor; such influence is not lawful evidence.
For the reasons indicated above, .and on the grounds more completely related in the opinion of Mr. Justice Peek, dissenting in the District Court of Appeal (reported in (Cal.App.) 302 P.2d 371, 385), I would reverse the judgment.