People v. Wise
| Decision Date | 10 January 1962 |
| Docket Number | Cr. 3979 |
| Citation | 18 Cal.Rptr. 343,199 Cal.App.2d 57 |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
| Parties | PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Frank R. WISE, Defendant and Appellant. |
Elliott Leighton, San Francisco, for appellant.
Stanley Mosk, Atty. Gen., John S. McInerny and John L. Burton, Deputy Attys. Gen., for respondent.
Defendant, Frank R. Wise, and David A. Chavez were jointly charged with the burglary of a building in San Francisco on December 30, 1960. After duly waiving a jury, defendant was tried separately, and found guilty of burglary in the second degree (Pen.Code, §§ 459, 460). On this appeal from the judgment of conviction, he contends that the evidence is insufficient to support the judgment and that the trial court erroneously admitted certain evidence. We find no merit in these arguments.
The People preliminarily point out that although the written notice of appeal was not filed until fourteen days after the rendition of the judgment, the notice was delivered to prison authorities within the jurisdictional ten-day requirement of Rule 31(a) of the Rules on Appeal (People v. Spencer, 193 A.C.A. 12, 15, 13 Cal.Rptr. 881; People v. Slobodion, 30 Cal.2d 362, 368, 181 P.2d 868).
The record reveals the following facts: On December 30, 1960, at about 3:30 p. m., Ernest G. Batchelor left his painting contracting office and shop at 3420 Eighteenth Street in San Francisco, leaving everying in good order. When he opened the shop at 9:30 the next morning, he found that the office had been ransacked. A typewriter, adding machine, check protector and other office equipment were missing, along with tools, electric drills, a large amount of paint brushes, the firm's Standard Oil Station service cards, 2000 blank payroll checks and one of the company trucks. He discovered that one of the back windows, seven-eight feet above the ground, was broken. Several empty five gallon paint buckets were stacked up under the window. There was also a rolled up ball of black electrical tape with slivers of glass on it. The fingerprint found on the tape matched that of the defendant.
At the time of the burglary, the defendant lived at the Star Hotel at 2176 Mission Street. The back yard of the hotel faced the side of the Batchelor premises. A stairway at the rear of the hotel led to the back yard of the hotel, which was separated from the back window of the Batchelor premises only by a small fence. On December 31, Chavez was arrested while knocking on the door of the defendant's room and had the stolen credit cards. Subsequently, a portion of the stolen property was recovered at the Oakland home of the mother-in-law of one of the defendant's friends, Jack Van Steen.
Defendant admitted knowing Chavez but denied knowing Van Steen, although he had 'seen him around.' A police officer testified that immediately after his arrest, the defendant admitted knowing Jack Van Steen as a friend. Defendant denied any participation in the burglary, and explained the presence of his fingerprint on the tape because the tape had been stolen from his room. He also relied on several alibi witnesses who testified that on the evening in question, they were drinking with the defendant at a bar across the street from the hotel, and then after 2:00 a. m., talked to him in the lobby of his hotel and in his room.
The first contention on appeal is that the presence of the defendant's fingerprint on the tape found at the scene of the crime falls short of the...
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People v. Atwood
...v. Adamson (1946) 27 Cal.2d 478, 495, 165 P.2d 3; People v. Ang (1962) 204 Cal.App.2d 553, 555, 22 Cal.Rptr. 455; People v. Wise (1962) 199 Cal.App.2d 57, 60, 18 Cal.Rptr. 343; People v. Beem (1961) 192 Cal.App.2d 207, 211, 13 Cal.Rptr. 238.) Palmprint evidence is of equal force and suffici......
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People v. Gardner
...jury is entitled to draw its own inferences as to how the defendant's prints came to be on the bag and when (see People v. Wise, 199 Cal.App.2d 57, 59--60, 18 Cal.Rptr. 343) and to weigh the evidence and opinion of the fingerprint (b) The glass particles in the defendant's left shoe. The ev......
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People v. Powers, Cr. 43045
... ... " 'Fingerprint evidence is the strongest evidence of identity, and is ordinarily sufficient alone to identify the defendant.' [Citations.]" (People v. Atwood (1963) 223 Cal.App.2d 316, 326, 35 Cal.Rptr. 831; People v. Wise (1962) 199 Cal.App.2d 57, 60, 18 Cal.Rptr. 343.) Generally speaking, whether fingerprints or palm prints of the accused are alone sufficient to identify the defendant as the perpetrator must depend upon the particular circumstances of the case. (People v. Atwood, supra, 223 Cal.App.2d at p. 326, ... ...
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People v. Corral
...safe and this was held to be 'a circumstance irresistibly pointing to his guilt.' In the case of People v. Wise, 199 Cal.App.2d 57, at page 60, 18 Cal.Rptr. 343, at page 345, appellant's fingerprints were found on a roll of tape at the scene of the crime and the court stated: 'Here, the def......