Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

92 Cal. 573

Taylor v. Reynolds

California Supreme Court

Decided December 30, 1891

California Supreme Court · decided 1891-12-30

<p>Obstruction of Street—Nuisance—Misdemeanor—Right of Jury Trial — Penal Code. — The obstruction of a street or sidewalk in a city is a public nuisance, and a person who maintains such a nuisance is guilty of a misdemeanor under the provisions of the Penal Code, which must be tried by jury, unless a jury is waived.</p> <p>Id. — Violation of Municipal Ordinance. — A person charged with the violation of a municipal ordinance forbidding the maintenance of an obstruction in any street or sidewalk, and declaring the offense to be a misdemeanor, is entitled to a trial by jury.</p> <p>Id. — Power of Legislature — Municipal Police Regulations — Trial by Jury. — Although the legislature may authorize the summary trial without a jury, of violations of municipal police regulations not embraced in the general criminal legislation of the state, yet where the offense falls within the legal or common-law notion of a crime or misdemeanor, and is embraced in the criminal code of the state, the constitutional right of trial by jury cannot be evaded.</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1891-12-30

How this case has been cited

Cited by 13 later decisions — most recently June 1970

2 district · 9 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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Beatty, C. J., concurring.

¶1I concur in the judgment, not because I think the constitution secures the right of trial by jury in prosecutions for petty misdemeanors created by statute or municipal ordinance, but solely upon the ground that the right seems to be conferred by the provisions of the Penal Code.

¶2In my opinion, the legislature has the power to provide for summary proceedings to enforce municipal regulations without a jury trial, but I cannot discover that such power has been exercised. By sections 1430-1435 of the Penal Code, relating to proceedings in justices’ and police courts, and section 1042, relating to proceedings in the superior court, the defendant in a criminal action who pleads not guilty is entitled to demand that the issue be tried by a jury. In other words, the statute, irrespective of the constitution, secures the *577right. The evil involved is one which may well engage the serious attention of the legislature, but as long as the law remains as it is, I see no escape from the conclusion, that in any criminal action prosecuted in the name of the people of the state, the defendant must be tried by jury, unless in cases of misdemeanor a jury is waived.

/92/cal/573 · .json · Public domain