People v. Superior Court

Jerome C. Durham, Public Defender, and Harold J. Truett, Deputy Public Defender, for Real Party in Interest.

The People petition for a writ of mandate to compel respondent superior court to vacate an order dismissing an information in the interests of justice. (Pen. Code, 1385.) It is our opinion that mandate is not available for this purpose, and for this reason the petition must be denied.

The facts are as follows: The trial judge dismissed the information on his own motion after the jury had returned a verdict finding defendant, Loverd Howard, guilty of two counts of robbery in the first degree. A transcript of the preliminary hearing has been furnished by the Attorney General but we have not been furnished a transcript of the trial. The trial judge filed a 24-page memorandum opinion and order of dismissal which discusses the evidence in detail. The following summary of the evidence is taken from that opinion.

The victims, Richard Lomax and Nanya Baker, testified that they were robbed by two youths as they left an apartment house in Marin City. At the trial they identified defendant as the one who did all the talking and who held a gun on them while his…