Hawkins

These consolidated cases were transferred to this

court pursuant to rules 62 and 63 of the California Rules of Court, upon certification by the Appellate Department of the Superior Court of the City and County of San Francisco that review of its decision, reversing the action of a municipal court judge sitting as a magistrate in reducing a felony burglary complaint to a misdemeanor charge before the preliminary examination and imposing a misdemeanor sentence upon a plea of guilty, was necessary to secure uniformity of decision and to settle an important question of law. The question originally certified, decided in favor of the People, was whether a magistral exercise of discretion before preliminary examination under the authority of Penal Code section 17, subdivision (b)(5), requires a brief statement of facts and supporting reasons, During oral argument we requested the parties to file supplemental briefs on the related question whether, in accepting a defendant’s plea to a crime divided in degrees without the prosecutor’s consent and thereafter imposing a misdemeanor sentence, the magistrate exceeded his jurisdiction. Having considered the issues as briefed and…