People v. Allegheny Casualty Co.

Penal Code section 1305, subdivision (a) (section 1305(a)), requires that a forfeiture of bail be declared “in open court.” In this case the trial judge ordered forfeiture, but the record does not affirmatively establish whether this declaration did, or did not, occur in open court. We granted review to address in this setting the propriety of a trial court’s subsequent order denying the bail surety’s motion to set aside the forfeiture and to exonerate the bond.

We conclude as follows: Although the circumstance that a trial court has declared a bail forfeiture is a matter that should be reflected in the court’s minutes, and although it is better practice for the minutes further to reflect that such a declaration was made orally in open court, as required by section 1305(a), contrary to the conclusion reached by the Court of Appeal below the statute does not require that a reporter’s transcript, or the minutes, reflect the circumstance that the declaration occurred in open court. Moreover, consistent with the well-established presumptions that “official duty has been regularly performed” and that a court (or judge) is “presumed to have acted in the lawful exercise of its…