People v. De Voe

In this action the defendant presents three appeals:. 1. An appeal from an order made and entered on the second day of February, 1931, denying appellant’s motion for a new trial; 2. An appeal from an order made and entered on the tenth day of February, 1931, placing appellant upon probation for a period of five years, suspending imposition of judgment and sentence, and ordering appellant confined in the county jail of Los Angeles County for a period of eighteen months; 3. An appeal from an order made and entered on the twenty-fourth day of February, 1931, denying appellant’s motion for a new trial made upon the ground that judgment had not been pronounced within the statutory period prescribed by section 1191 of the Penal Code.

By indictment the defendant was charged in thirty-seven counts with the crime of grand theft. To each count the defendant pleaded not guilty. Two counts were dismissed at the trial, and on thirty-four counts the defendant was found not guilty. On count seven, wherein defendant was charged with the theft of $825, the defendant was found guilty. The verdict was returned and duly entered in the minutes of the court on the twenty-third day of January, 1931,…

I concur in the judgment herein, with the exception only of that part thereof by which it is held that no error was committed by the trial court in its hearing of the motion for a new trial wherein defendant was denied the right of adducing evidence relative to the question of whether in arriving at its verdict the jury reached its conclusion “by lot, or by any means other than a fair expression of opinion on the part'of all the jurors”. (Subd. 4, sec. 1181, Pen. Code.)

In ordinary circumstances and as applied to facts which usually are present where the integrity of a verdict is challenged, I should have no hesitancy in subscribing to the doctrine so generally announced in the prevailing opinion herein. But in the instant case, as portrayed by the record of the proceedings which occurred at the time when the hearing was had, the situation is of such an extraordinary character that, in my opinion, the rule which forbids a juror to impeach his verdict has no application. Indeed, as later may be made to appear herein, by the terms of the statutes, as well as by judicial construction of the law, where on a motion for a new trial the contention of the defendant in a criminal action…