REPORT. ATTORNEY-GENERAL'S OFFICE, SACRAMENTO, November 1, 1882. To his Excellency GEORGE C. PERKINS, Governor of California: } In compliance with the statutes of California, I respectfully beg leave to submit to your Excellency the following report of the condition of the affairs of this office, together with a copy of my docket. An examination of this report will show the condition of all cases in which the State has been interested since the presentation of my last biennial report. It will be observed that a great number of cases, most of which were of a criminal nature, have come under my management during the time embraced in the report; and that some cases, of a civil nature, involving questions of incalculable importance to the State, and requiring a vast amount of labor in their trial, have also come under my management, some of which have been fully determined and others remain yet partially undetermined. The commencement of the present administration under the new organic law, adopted in 1879, has made the duties of my office particularly onerous. Numerous questions, involving a construction of the new provisions of the Constitution, have arisen, and have increased the number of public cases, until the labors of the office have been. almost if not quite doubled. Many of those questions have already been settled by the Supreme Court of this State, and it is to be hoped that my successor in the next administration will not be compelled to assume so much labor as I have. Cases of a criminal nature have been particularly numerous, and an examination of the docket will show that in a large minority of those cases Chinese were defendants. In the last report which I presented to your Excellency, I took occasion to refer to the fact that one of the causes which tends to augment the number of appeals in criminal cases, is found in the fact that some of the prosecuting officers, while conscientiously laboring for convictions, risk the whole case upon technical points, which could not affect the verdict of the jury, even if they were rendered against the people; and I take occasion here again to reiterate that, in my judgment, technical objections and lengthy, tangled, and ambiguous instructions seldom have any influence upon juries in criminal cases. Each case ought to be tried as if it were certain to be reviewed by the Supreme Court. Technical objections should be avoided by prosecuting officers. Instructions on behalf of the people ought always to be carefully written and well considered before they are given, and, until this method is adopted, we can hardly hope for the proper reduction in the number of appeals and reversals in criminal cases. It has become a custom among some of the Judges of the Superior Courts to undertake to deliver charges and instructions to juries orally, having them at the same time taken by phonographic reporters. It is no reflection upon the Judiciary to say that per haps there is no man in California or elsewhere, who, in the present unsettled state of the criminal law, is able to deliver a lengthy dissertation upon legal principles without carefully writing it out and thoroughly considering it, and at the same time, in a majority of cases, avoid errors which must result in reversals; and I respectfully commend to the Legislature the enactment of a provision which shall require that, in all criminal cases, the instructions given on behalf of the prosecution shall be first written out and then filed as a record of the Court. In this manner only can inadvertent errors, which so often reverse cases of this nature, be generally avoided. I take this occasion, also, to recommend to the Legislature the enactment of some system by which informations in criminal cases may be amended. The most serious objection to the old system, which required prosecutions in the Courts of record to be upon indictments, was that the impossibility of amending the indictment often delayed and sometimes defeated the administration of criminal justice. It is an old rule that a defendant in a criminal case is entitled to insist that before he is put upon his defense he shall be properly informed of the charge which the prosecution will undertake to establish against him; and any amendment which the law might authorize, in case where the pleading first filed is technically or otherwise insufficient, could not unjustly affect any of the rights of the defendant. In this manner the right of the defendant to be informed of the charge against him would be fully secured, and the delays so often made as a consequence of the dismissal of the incomplete and imperfect pleadings in criminal cases, would, to a great extent, be avoided. To such a system I can, as at present advised, see no constitutional objection; and its adoption would certainly do much. towards furthering the ends of justice in criminal cases. RAILROAD TAXES. The attempt by the State authorities to collect the taxes levied against railroads operated in more than one county of this State, has thus far proven to some extent ineffectual. It is to be regretted that all of the departments of the State and several counties have not conceived it to be their duty to work together in furtherance of this object. There have been many cases, both in the State and Federal Courts, involving the legality of these taxes and of the assess ments made by the State Board of Equalization against the several railroad companies, since the adoption of the New Constitution. The labors of this office have been greatly increased by the obstructions thrown in the way of the collection of these taxes by some of the local officers, and the number of cases involving these assess ments of taxes has been increased by illegal attempts made by local authorities to compromise, and thus practically reduce the assessments levied by the State Board. It will be remembered that some time in the year 1881, the Board of Supervisors of Sacramento County undertook directly to reduce the assessment levied against the Central Pacific Railroad Company by the State Board of Equalization; that a writ of certiorari was thereafter issued by the Supreme Court, upon which the validity of the order of the Board of Supervisors and the jurisdiction of the Board to make that order was determined. It was in that case held by the Supreme Court of the State, that the Board of Supervisors of the county had no power to interfere with the assessment levied by the State Board of Equalization; that the power conferred by the Constitution on the State Board of Equalization, was an exclusive power, and that when an assessment was made by the State Board in pursuance of the powers thus conferred upon it, that assessment was not subject to interference by any other Board or tribunal. This decision resulted necessarily from the nature of the system which it was sought by the Constitution to create. The intent of the Constitution was to create a system by which railroads should be assessed as railroads, and that their values should be determined with reference to the uses to which they might be put; that they should be assessed each in its entirety, and not in sections. The wisdom of this system is evident, when we consider the inutility of portions of the entire railroad when disconnected from the balance of the road, and when also we consider the fact that whatever may be the material of which different portions of the road is constructed, and whatever may be the nature of the soil over which it may be constructed, each mile of the road is as valuable as each other mile of the road, because each contributes to the consummation of the general enterprise, and the making of the general and entire profits of the road. Any interference, therefore, by a local Board within its jurisdiction, which would result in reducing or increasing the assessment upon part of the road, without making a corresponding reduction or increase upon the balance of the road, would interfere with the system of uniformity which was intended to be created by the Constitution. The decision to which reference has just been made ought to have been sufficient to admonish local Boards against any further attempt at the exercise of powers which the highest tribunal in the State had said rested exclusively in the hands of the State Board. But it will be remembered that when it was learned that local Boards could not, by direct proceedings, succeed in setting aside the determinations of the State Board of Equalization, an attempt was made by the same Board of Supervisors to accomplish the same result by indirection. A compromise, through the instrumentality of the Board of Supervisors of Sacramento County, was sought by the Central Pacific Railroad Company. Before attempting the compromise my views upon the subject were sought by those who were interested in procuring the compromise, and I was asked whether or not, in case such compromise was effected, I would deem it my duty to interpose on behalf of the State and prevent its execution. I distinctly informed the parties that such a compromise would be illegal, and that in my judgment, if the State Board of Equalization had the authority to levy the assessments, no other power in the State could interfere with that assessment after it had been made. It was subsequently learned that it was the intention of the Board of Supervisors of Sacramento County to make the compromise; but before that compromise had been consummated, objections were interposed on behalf of the State, and the authority of the local Board was challenged. Notwithstanding these objections, however, under the advise of the learned District Attorney of Sacramento County, the compromise was made and the money paid into the County Treasury, and judgment was thereupon entered in favor of the County of Sacramento |