Opinion Summary

Factual and Procedural Background

The defendant was indicted for the crime of murder in the District Court, Eighteenth Judicial District, County of San Diego. After trial, the defendant moved for an arrest of judgment on multiple grounds: (1) that he had not been found guilty by the jury, (2) that the jury had found him not guilty, and (3) that the verdict had been rendered by a jury of one. The trial court denied the motion in arrest of judgment, and the People sought affirmance of the judgment on appeal. Counsel for the defendant and counsel for the People argued points concerning the timing and exercise of peremptory challenges, the sufficiency and form of the verdict, and the propriety of denying the motion in arrest of judgment. The court issued an opinion resolving these points and affirmed the judgment and order, directing remittitur forthwith.

Legal Issues Presented

1. Whether the prosecution may interpose a peremptory challenge to a juror before the juror is sworn when the prosecution had previously passed the panel to the defendant who declined to make any challenge (timing and priority of peremptory challenges).
2. Whether the verdict is supported by the evidence and therefore sufficient to sustain the judgment.
3. Whether the motion in arrest of judgment was properly overruled because it was not grounded on defects enumerated in section one thousand and four of the Penal Code.
4. Whether the form of the jury's verdict — including its wording, omission of the defendant's name except in the title, and signature by only one juror (the foreman) — rendered the verdict invalid or otherwise defective.

Arguments of the Parties

Appellant's Arguments

• It was the duty of the People to exercise their right of peremptory challenge first; because they did not exercise it first, they waived the right to make a peremptory challenge (counsel cited Penal Code sections one thousand one hundred and fifty and one thousand one hundred and fifty-one in support of related points).
• The verdict did not support the judgment: the verdict did not contain the defendant's name except in the title, and the verdict was effectively that of one juror because it read "we the jurors" but was signed by only one juror.
• On those bases the defendant moved to arrest the judgment.

People's (Respondent's) Arguments

• The right to a peremptory challenge is only lost when the juror is sworn; the prosecution properly interposed a peremptory challenge before the jury was sworn (counsel cited section one thousand and sixty-eight of the Penal Code).
• The trial court properly denied the motion in arrest of judgment; counsel cited Penal Code sections one thousand one hundred and eighty-five, one thousand one hundred and eighty-six, and one thousand and four.
• The verdict was a valid guilty verdict and must be construed under the penal statutes rather than common law; counsel cited section one thousand one hundred and sixty-one of the Penal Code.

Table of Precedents Cited

Court's Reasoning and Analysis

The court's analysis proceeds in numbered points, which the opinion itself sets out and applies to the contentions raised:

1. On the peremptory-challenge issue, the court found no error in permitting the prosecution to interpose a peremptory challenge before the juror was sworn. The factual basis (as recited by the court) was that the prosecution had "passed" the panel to the defendant, the defendant declined to make any challenge, and thereafter the prosecution was permitted to interpose a peremptory challenge. The court emphasized that the prosecution had not accepted the jurors by merely passing them to the defendant for examination, that the jury had not yet been sworn, and that, in fact, the peremptory challenge was interposed first by the People in accordance with section one thousand and eighty-eight of the Penal Code. The court thus treated the procedural sequence as proper under the statute cited.
2. On sufficiency of the evidence, the court observed that counsel for the prisoner did not direct the court to any portion of the printed record (the voluminous statements of the evidence) that would support the contention that the verdict was not supported by the evidence. The court's own examination of the record failed to discover anything in support of the defendant's position. Thus, the court rejected the sufficiency argument for lack of cited record support and independent corroboration in the record.
3. Regarding the motion in arrest of judgment, the court concluded the motion was properly overruled because it was not founded upon any of the defects enumerated in section one thousand and four of the Penal Code. The court referenced People v. Fair (43 Cal. 137) in connection with that principle.
4. Concerning the alleged defect in the form of the verdict, the court set out the actual wording of the verdict as recorded: "We, the undersigned jurors, find a verdict of murder in the second degree. A. J. Chase, foreman;" and noted that this verdict, upon being recorded, was read to the jury and each juror answered that it was his verdict. The court analyzed the issue against the Penal Code provisions it cited: the Code contains a form of the general verdict but does not make strict adherence to that form essential (citing section one thousand four hundred and four). Further, under section one thousand one hundred and sixty-one, an informal verdict is sufficient if it can be clearly understood as a general verdict of guilty or not guilty. The court concluded there was no difficulty understanding the recorded statement as a general verdict that the defendant was guilty of murder in the second degree as charged in the indictment, and therefore the form did not vitiate the verdict.

Holding and Implications

Holding: The court affirmed the judgment and order below and ordered remittitur forthwith.

Implications:

• The direct effect of the decision is to sustain the conviction for murder in the second degree and to reject the defendant's motion in arrest of judgment.
• The court rejected the defendant's procedural objections concerning the timing of peremptory challenges, the sufficiency of the evidence as argued, the basis of the motion in arrest under section one thousand and four, and the asserted defect in the verdict form. Those objections were found insufficient to disturb the judgment.
• The opinion does not announce or attempt to establish any new broader legal doctrine beyond the court's application of the cited Penal Code sections and the cited case (People v. Fair) to the facts presented; no broader implications or new precedent were discussed in the text of the opinion beyond its application to the present case.

Disposition: Judgment and order affirmed. Remittitur forthwith.