Ex parte Wong You Ting

Citations

• 106 Cal. 296
• 39 P. 627
• 1895 Cal. LEXIS 603

Syllabus

<p>Criminal Law — Practicing Medicine Without a License — Jury Trial—Habeas Corpus.—Where a defendant accused of the offense of practicing medicine without having procured a certificate from the board of examiners, as required by the act regulating the practice of medicine, demanded a trial by jury in the police court, and the police judge denied his demand and proceeded to try and convict him without a jury, he is entitled to be discharged from custody under such a conviction upon a writ of habeas corpus.</p> <p>Id.—Constitutional Bight to Trial by Jury—Jurisdiction op Municipal Court.—The legislature has no power to take away the constitutional right to a jury trial of an offense against the public at large, which falls within the common-law notion of a crime or misdemeanor, and is embraced in the criminal code of the state; and the constitutional guarantee of the right to a trial by jury of such an offense cannot be evaded by the nature of the powers vested in a municipal corporation, or by the nature of the jurisdiction conferred upon municipal courts.</p> <p>Id.—Summary Proceedings por Petty Oppenses.—The guaranties in the various state constitutions of the right of a jury trial do not prohibit the legislature from providing for summary proceedings without a jury in cases of such petty offenses as are enumerated in English statutes in existence at the time of the separation of the American colonies from England, or in cases where the offenses are intrinsically of the same nature and degree as those mentioned in such English statutes.</p>