In People v. Odlum (1949) 91 Cal.App.2d 761, the defendant was sentenced to state prison after he pleaded guilty to issuing a check without sufficient funds and admitted a prior felony conviction. (Id. at p. 763.) In affidavits later filed in support of a petition for coram nobis relief, the defendant claimed that his plea and the admission were based upon his attorney's having told him that the judge had agreed not to send him to prison, but instead would impose a jail term. (Id. at pp. 764-765.) According to the attorney, although the prior conviction precluded a grant of probation, the judge said he would solve that problem by reducing the conviction to a misdemeanor. (Id. at p. 764.) Defendant understood that he was ineligible for probation because of the prior conviction, however, because the court granted his attorney's request to file an application for probation and released him on bail he believed these circumstances "corroborated" the representations of his attorney. (Id. at pp. 765-766.) The trial court denied defendant a hearing on the merits of his claim because it believed the law was "that when a man employs counsel he can't depend upon the fraud of that counsel to set aside a judgment such as this." (People v. Odlum, supra, 91 Cal.App.2d at p. 769.) The appellate court observed that the trial court had misunderstood the law and that the court's permitting defendant to apply for probation even though he was ineligible and its releasing him on bail though "unconsciously and innocently seemingly corroborated" the statements of defendant's attorney and reversed the trial court's denial and remanded the matter for a hearing on the merits. (People v. Odlum, supra, 91 Cal.App.2d at p. 772.)