Court Opinion

ID: 9563736
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:45:55.734711+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:03.482360
License: Public Domain

DOOLING, J.
I concur. The petitioner has alleged enough, though inartificially, to suggest that if he alleges the official position of the “responsible court attaches” and specifically sets out the representations made to him he may well bring himself within the rule of People v. Gilbert, 25 Cal.2d 422 [154 P.2d 657], and similar cases. If he does, he should be given an opportunity to prove his allegations. The courts should be as liberal in allowing a second opportunity to state a cause for relief when human liberty is involved as they are in civil actions. (Code Civ. Proc., § 472c; Wenner*210holm v. Stanford Univ. Sch. of Med., 20 Cal.2d 713 [128 P.2d 522, 141 A.L.R. 1358].)
On the question of laches, it should be added that the petition alleges that at the time of his apprehension on the charge to which he pleaded guilty in 1954, petitioner was eighteen years of age and handicapped by semi-illiteracy. If these allegations are not sufficient in themselves to explain the delay in filing this petition, it would certainly take little added to these facts to meet the charge of laches.