14 Cal. 3d 466 - People v. Mesa’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 federal appellate · 258 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 270 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “As the Los Angeles Superior Court Criminal Trial Judge's Bench Book states on page 452: `Rendition of judgment is an oral pronouncement.' Entering the judgment in the minutes being a clerical function (Pen.Code, § 1207), a discrepancy between the judgment as orally pronounced and as entered in the minutes is presumably the result of clerical error. Nor is the abstract of judgment controlling. "The abstract of judgment is not the judgment of conviction. By its very nature, definition and terms (see Pen.Code, § 1213.5) it cannot add to or modify the judgment which it purports to digest or summarize.' ( People v. Hartsell (1973) 34 Cal.App.3d 8, 14 , 109 Cal.Rptr. 627 [].)”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. People v. D.B. (In re D.B.) · 64 Cal. App. 4th 1071 - People v. Hong

2. ““ ‘If the teachings of the Court’s cases are to be followed and the constitutional policy served, affidavits for search warrants . . . must be tested and interpreted by magistrates and courts in a commonsense and realistic fashion. They are normally drafted by non-lawyers in the midst and haste of a criminal investigation. Technical requirements of elaborate specificity once exacted under common law pleadings have no proper place in this area. A grudging or negative attitude by reviewing courts toward warrants will tend to discourage police officers from submitting their evidence to a judicial officer before acting. “ ‘This is not to say that probable cause can be made out by affidavits which are purely conclusory, stating only the affiant’s or an informer’s belief that probable cause exists without detailing any of the “underlying circumstances” upon which that belief is based. [Citation.] Recital of some of the underlying circumstances in the affidavit is essential if the magistrate is to perform his detached function and not serve merely as a rubber stamp for the police. However, where these circumstances are detailed, where reason for crediting the source of the information is given, and when a magistrate has found probable cause, the courts should not invalidate the warrant by interpreting the affidavit in a hypertechnical, rather than a commonsense, manner. Although in a particular case it may not be easy to determine when an affidavit demonstrates the existence of prob”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 58 Cal. App. 3d 911 - People v. Wachter

3. ““In In re Candelario . . . , a defendant convicted of selling heroin admitted having received a prior felony conviction for possession of marijuana. However, the prior conviction was not mentioned in the oral pronouncement of judgment, the minute order of judgment, or the original abstract of judgment. Over a month later, the judge filed an amended abstract of judgment to which the prior conviction had been added. “Holding the attempted amendment invalid on the ground that failure to include the prior conviction in the judgment could not be presumed an inadvertent clerical error, this court stated: ‘Admission of the prior offense . . . does not thereby relieve the court of its responsibility to pronounce judgment finding petitioner guilty of the substantive offense with a prior conviction, and to have such judgment entered in the official records of the court. HO Reference to the prior conviction must be included in the pronouncement of judgment for if the record is silent in that regard, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, it may be inferred that the omission was an act of leniency by the trial court. In such circumstances the silence operates as a finding that the prior conviction was not true.’ ( 3 Cal.3d at p. 706 .)” (People v. Mesa, supra, 14 Cal.3d at p. 471 .)”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 67 Cal. App. 4th 1258 - People v. Turner