Court Opinion

ID: 9549522
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:20:08.555349+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:20:27.124503
License: Public Domain

DOBAN, J., and WHITE, J.
We concur, but we do so with misgiving and only because this court, by tradition and practice, is expected to follow the decisions of the Supreme Court, which in the situation here presented are In re Haines, 195 Cal. 605 [234 P. 883], and In re Halcomb, 21 Cal.2d 126 [130 P.2d 384], The action of the 1943 Legislature (Assembly Bill 479—Stats. 1943, chap. 635) in amending section 4532 of the Penal Code, so as to provide for a county jail sentence in the cases of misdemeanants who escape or attempt to escape from lawful custody, adds weight to the dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Traynor in the Hal-comb case, supra, wherein he said "The courts'cannot lift qualifying phrases from legislation without usurping legislative functions and the usurpation is particularly flagrant when the phrase has been added by amendment.” In view of the aforesaid legislative action, particular pertinency attaches to what Mr. Justice Traynor further said in his dissent when he declared "There is always the possibility that the Legislature intended a provision to be read as it is written, however unwise it appears. The court’s refusal to read it as it is written makes it impossible for any one to rely upon the written word of the Legislature.” By the action taken at its recent session in amending section 4532 of the Penal Code, the Legislature affirms the logical construction placed upon the language and the legislative history of the 1923 amendment to section 107 of the Penal Code (part of which is now section 4532) by Mr. Justice Traynor in his dissenting opinion, supra, and which amendments gave rise to the decisions in the eases of In re Haines and In re Hal-comb, supra, which require us, in practice, to affirm a judgment we regard as violative of natural justice and at variance with a legislative intent clearly appearing in the language of the 1923 statute and its legislative history.
*613We are in accord with what we regard as the timely admonition contained in Mr. Justice Traynor’s dissenting opinion, supra, wherein he urges, for the reasons advanced by him, that the decisions In re Haines, supra, and In re Durand, 6 Cal.2d 69 [44 P.2d 367], should be overruled.