People v. Bateman

MOORE, P. J.

I concur. The record discloses that Officer Boswell qualified as an expert in the methods and practices of bookmakers in Los Angeles County by having testified in 175 cases and by having made a study as to the methods of such bookmakers. All of his testimony relative to documents was as to their meaning when translated into intelligent idiom from the “common parlance” of the bookmaker and interpreted in the light of “common usage” of the bookmaker’s world. It was after he had qualified and while in the course of giving such testimony that he stated the meaning of certain digits, letters and words found on the betting marker. He did not in any instance declare what he thought they meant or what he thought they should mean. His testimony was emphatic to-the effect only that the symbols appearing on the exhibit were taken from the parlance of the bookmaker and that they have the significance he ascribed to them in ordinary English. In such view his testimony came within the rule of the Pruitt case ( 55 Cal.App.2d 272 [ 130 P.2d 767 ]) and the Hinkle case ( 64 Cal.App. 375 [ 221 P. 693 ]) and was competent proof.

By concurring with the statement that the Davis case decided by this court in October 1941 must be deemed to have been overruled by the denial of a hearing in the Pruitt case, decided by this court in October, 1942, I do not mean to hold that every denial of a hearing by the Supreme Court of a case decided by us contrary to another decision of a District Court of Appeal necessarily signifies an overruling of the older decision. However,’ upon a more mature consideration of the two opinions it is clear that they hold adversely upon two sets of facts identical in respect to the rulings upon the testimony of experts, and therefore the denial of hearing in the Pruitt case must be construed as a disapproval of the Davis decision. In both cases the prosecution called to the stand officers who qualified by their police experience in the pursuit of such criminals, and by their familiarity .with the parlance and the usages, devices and methods common to the bookmakers’ paradise. In each case the officer testified to the meaning of no word or symbol appearing upon the exhibit under consideration before he had first qualified as an expert by his knowledge of the bookmaking craft in Los Angeles County. The only *589 differences between the opinions in the two cases are (1) that in the Davis case the court considered the officer’s interpretation of the symbols found on the exhibit, apart from his qualification as an expert, while in the Pruitt case we considered the opinions of the witness as those of an expert who knew the meaning of the “letters and digits unintelligible to the layman.” (2) Whereas the Davis case was reversed on account of the rulings with respect to the officer’s testimony, in the Pruitt case, after announcing the rules which made the officer’s testimony proper, we impliedly approved of the Davis decision by denying a reversal by virtue of article VI, section 4% of the Constitution. We should have omitted reference to the Constitution. There was no error in the court’s ruling. If the expert’s testimony was competent in the Pruitt case, as we held it to be, then under the cited authority of People v. Hinkle, it was likewise competent in the Davis case. If it had been improperly received in the Pruitt case, surely the Supreme Court would not have permitted the Pruitt decision to stand against a challenge based upon the Davis holding, unless its intention was to indicate a disapproval of the Davis decision. The two held adversely.

The invocation of section 4% in the Pruitt opinion was unfortunate; also it was unnecessary. If the testimony of the officers who took the stand against Pruitt had been inadmissible there would have been a hiatus in the proof, in which event there could have been no conviction. Therefore, the judgment should have been affirmed solely upon the principle that “letters and digits unintelligible to the layman” is a part of “the expert knowledge gained by those who have devoted years to the pursuit of criminals and to a study of their devices, crafts and methods” (People v. Pruitt, supra).