# People v. Weger

> California Court of Appeal · June 5, 1967 · 251 Cal. App. 2d 584

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9861980

## Case

- **Full name:** The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. CHESTER W. WEGER, Defendant and Respondent
- **Court:** California Court of Appeal
- **Decided:** June 5, 1967
- **Citations:** 251 Cal. App. 2d 584; 59 Cal. Rptr. 661; 1967 Cal. App. LEXIS 2010
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Herndon
- **Judges:** McCoy, Fleming, Herndon
- **Cited by:** 22 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9861980

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- explaining that California enacted disorderly conduct laws specifically to replace its vagrancy laws

## Opinion text

HERNDON, Acting P. J.
I dissent.
Despite my very strong desire to support and sanction any and all constitutional provisions of law reasonably designed to strengthen and increase the effectiveness of our law enforcement officers in the performance of their exceedingly difficult work of detecting and preventing crime in this age of increasing lawlessness, I feel obliged to dissent and this for two major reasons.
First I am persuaded that the judges of the trial court and of the appellate department were correct in their holdings that the law here in question is unconstitutional. In the circumstances of this ease I deem it unnecessary to repeat or set forth herein the reasoning of the decision of the appellate department. Suffice it here to say that in the light of established principles of constitutional law, I believe that this statute will be held incompatible with the dictates of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the federal Constitution.
Secondly, I apprehend that even if this law were not vulnerable to attack on constitutional grounds, its operation in the context of the entire complex of constitutional principles which have been enunciated by the Supreme Court of the United States in recent times would entail results more harmful than beneficial to the aims of effective law enforcement.
For example, it would appear that statements given by an apparent “loiterer” in response even to “normal investigatory questioning” 1 might be deemed to have been given under penal compulsion and therefore inadmissible in a subsequent prosecution of the “loiterer” for the murder or the robbery which the officers were seeking to solve when they propounded their proper investigatory questions. 2
I am unable to agree with the view of my colleagues that section 647, subdivision (e), “is no more than a codification of [the] rule” sanctioning the propriety of police action in *607 temporarily detaining citizens and questioning them in circumstantial situations in which such police action appears reasonable. (Cf. People v. Mickelson, 59 Cal.2d 448, 450 [ 30 Cal.Rptr. 18 , 380 P.2d 648 ]; Hood v. Superior Court, 220 Cal.App.2d 242 [ 33 Cal.Rptr. 782 ]; People v Cowman, 223 Cal.App.2d 109 [ 35 Cal.Rptr. 528 ]; People v. Bird, 248 Cal.App.2d 307 [ 56 Cal.Rptr. 501 ].) As author of the opinions in Hood, Cowman and Bird , I am obviously in complete accord with the law therein enunciated. If section 647, subdivision (e), were no more than a codification of presently accepted decisional law, there would be no compelling need for the enactment of this statute. As I have indicated, I fear that the effect of section 647, subdivision (e), would not be to augment or strengthen but rather to jeopardize the effectiveness of the present rule which sanctions investigatory questioning.
Respondent’s petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied July 26, 1967.
Cf. People v. Perez, 65 Cal.2d 709, 716 [ 56 Cal.Rptr. 312 , 423 P.2d 240 ].
Cf. Garrity v. New Jersey, 385 U.S. 493 [ 17 L.Ed.2d 562 , 87 S.Ct. 616 ]; and Spevack v. Klein, 385 U.S. 511 . [ 17 L.Ed.2d 574 , 87 S.Ct. 625 ],

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9861980. Public record. Not legal advice.