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In an indictment returned in respondent court, the Marin County Grand Jury charged petitioner Mack Henry Page III with the murder of Sandra Corbin in violation of section 187 of the Penal Code. The grand jury also alleged in the indictment, among “special circumstances” which may permit punishment by death pursuant to section 190, that the murder had been committed during the commission of a kidnaping. Petitioner made a series of pretrial motions for orders setting aside the indictment or striking the allegations of special circumstances from it. He also moved for an order suppressing certain evidence. Respondent court denied his motions. Petitioner thereupon commenced the present proceeding by petitioning this court for extraordinary relief from the orders of denial.

The motions were made on separate and overlapping grounds, and in a complicated procedural sequence. The pertinent sequence commences with the evidence received by the grand jury relative to the commission of the murder and a kidnaping. It supports these recitals:

Sandra Corbin (hereinafter Sandra) had lived with petitioner until January, 1978, when she left him after he had repeatedly beaten her and…