Caple v. Superior Court

In Caple v. Superior Court (1987) 195 Cal. App. 3d 594, the defendant was the passenger in a pickup truck. The police found cocaine behind the driver's seat; they also found a partially burned marijuana cigarette in the ashtray. At the preliminary hearing, the prosecution introduced no other evidence connecting the defendant to the cocaine. Nevertheless, the magistrate held the defendant to answer on charges of possession for sale and transportation of the cocaine. (Caple v. Superior Court, supra, 195 Cal. App. 3d at pp. 597-598.) On the defendant's section 995 motion, the trial court found insufficient evidence of the defendant's knowledge or possession of the cocaine. (Caple, supra, at p. 598.) Over the defendant's objection, however, it remanded the case to the magistrate pursuant to Penal Code section 995a. (Caple, supra, at p. 599.) On remand, the arresting officer testified that the defendant had admitted that the pickup belonged to him. (Id. at pp. 597, 599.) The appellate court held that the trial court properly remanded to correct a minor error of omission. (Caple v. Superior Court, supra, 195 Cal. App. 3d at pp. 600-605.) It rejected the defendant's argument that "any omission which causes an information to fail must be regarded as significant and major and therefore, not minor. This analysis begs the question by gauging the magnitude of the defect by its effect on the prosecution's case. Adoption of such a definition would totally eviscerate section 995a, subdivision (b)(1), by permitting its use only when the omitted evidence was unnecessary in the first instance. Clearly, the Legislature did not intend the section to be so limited . . . ." (Id. at pp. 601-602.) The court concluded that "a 'minor omission' refers to one that is comparatively unimportant. Thus, an evidentiary defect will trigger the remand provisions of section 995a, subdivision (b)(1), whenever the omission is minor when considered in relation to the balance of the evidence required in order to hold the accused to answer." (Caple v. Superior Court, supra, 195 Cal. App. 3d at p. 602.) It then applied this rule to the case before it: "The defendant's access to the cocaine constitutes the great bulk of the required proof in this case. . . . The presence of the half burnt marijuana cigarette . . . may have permitted the magistrate to infer knowledge of the narcotic character of cocaine. Therefore, the evidence already in the record at the time of the trial court's remand order provided most, if not all, of the evidence needed to hold the defendant to answer for the charged offenses. We are persuaded the defendant's statement of vehicle ownership, in relation to the joined effect of access and presence of the marijuana cigarette, is comparatively unimportant, and thus find its omission to be minor within the meaning of the section." (Id. at p. 603.)