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89 Cal. 79

Ex parte Smith

California Supreme Court

Decided May 15, 1891

California Supreme Court · decided 1891-05-15

Application to the Supreme Court for admission to bail upon writ of habeas corpus. The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.

Relies on Ex parte Brown · Ex parte Smallman · Ex Parte Marks

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1891-05-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 12 later decisions — most recently June 1974

12 state decisions

40189119001910192019301940195019601970decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Garotjtte, J.

¶1— This is an application for the issuance of a writ of habeas corpus for the purpose of ordering that the defendant be admitted to bail pending his appeal.

¶2The petition for the writ sets forth that the petitioner was charged, by information in the superior court of Fresno County, of the crime of murder;

¶3That thereafter he was convicted of the offense of manslaughter, and sentenced to imprisonment in the state prison for ten years;

¶4“That a motion for a new trial was denied, and the judge of the trial court issued a certificate of probable cause, and an appeal upon the merits of the case is now pending in this court;

¶5That the trial court committed errors of law that appear from the face of the record, and that the evidence at the trial was insufficient to justify a conviction;

¶6“ That the trial court has established a uniform rule that it -will not admit any defendant to bail pending appeal upon conviction for felony.”

¶7In this class of cases, bail is allowed as a matter of discretion, and not as a matter of right. (Pen. Code, sec. 1272.)

¶8In Ex parte Smallman, 54 Cal. 36, this court outlined the general character of facts necessary to exist, upon ■which to base an exercise of this discretion, and held that except where circumstances of an extraordinary character had intervened, a person convicted of a felony ought not to be admitted to bail pending an appeal; and to the same effect is Ex parte Marks, 49 Cal. 681, and Ex parte Brown, 68 Cal. 183.

¶9The petition in this case shows no such circumstances.

¶10We cannot, in this proceeding, examine into the alleged errors of law committed by the lower court, and thus prejudge the case before it comes before us upon its merits.

¶11The fact that the trial court has adopted an inflexi*81ble rule not to admit any defendant to bail who has been convicted of a felony can have no weight with us, however inconsistent such rule may be when compared with section 1272 of the Penal Code.

¶12This court passes upon the merits of the petition as presented to it, and regardless of any action or rule the trial court may have adopted.

¶13Application denied.

¶14De Haven, J., Harrison, J., McFarland, J., Paterson, J., and Beatty, C. J., concurred.

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