Padden

The appeal is by both defendants, Marshall Edward Padden and Amil Lewis Gray, from a verdict and judgment convicting defendants of burglary in the second degree. Defendants when charged first entered pleas of guilty. After the report of the probation officer had been received, they requested, and were granted, permission to withdraw the guilty pleas and enter pleas of not guilty. At the first trial the jury disagreed. A second trial resulted in the convictions appealed from.

Contentions on appeal are: (1) That substantial competent evidence relevant to prove defendants’ confessions were involuntary was excluded; and (2) that the prior guilty pleas of both defendants were improperly admitted into evidence. Both contentions are sound: the first because the evidence rejected as hearsay was not inadmissible hearsay; the second because it is the settled law of California that evidence of prior guilty pleas is improperly admitted. (People v. Quinn, 61 Cal.2d 551, 555 [ 39 Cal.Rptr. 393 , 393 P.2d 705 ].) The error was prejudicial.

Re: The Contention that Evidence of a Possibly Coerced Confession was Improperly Excluded.

A service station on U.S. Highway 40 near Davis, Yolo County,…