People v. Knox

Citations

• 119 Cal. 73
• 51 P. 19
• 1897 Cal. LEXIS 851

Syllabus

<p>Criminal Law—False Impersonation of Officer—Insufficient Information—Construction of Code.—Section 529 of the Penal Code, which provides for the punishment of “every person who falsely personates another,” etc., does not apply to a case where a party falsely assumes an official character, but is intended to cover only acts done by one person while representing himself to he another and different person; and an information charging a defendant with impersonating an officer of the law and a constable, and performing a specified act in such assumed character, without stating the name of the officer of the law or constable which defendant represented himself to be, is insufficient.</p> <p>Id.—Ambiguous Information.—The mere fact that an information is susceptible of widely different constructions renders it unsatisfactory in the eyes of the law.</p>