In re Fife

This is a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The petitioner shows that she was convicted in the police court of the city of Los Angeles of the offense of vagrancy; that she appealed to the superior court of the county of Los Angeles, where the judgment of the police court was affirmed, and that she did not waive a jury in the said police court, and expressly made a demand in the superior court for a jury, and said demand was refused. Her contention is that having been tried and convicted, under these circumstances, without the intervention of a jury, her imprisonment is illegal, and that she should be restored to her liberty upon habeas corpus.

In the recent case of Ex parte Wong You Ting, 106 Cal. 296 , we took occasion to inquire somewhat fully into the right of a jury trial in criminal cases, and our conclusion there was that the legislature might provide for summary proceedings without a jury in cases of such petty offenses as were thus provided for in certain early English statutes and in cases which are intrinsically of a similar nature and degree as those mentioned in said statutes. Vagrancy is, we think, one of those offenses, and the legislature might provide by a…