Goodfellow v. People
| Decision Date | 07 April 1924 |
| Docket Number | 10880. |
| Citation | 75 Colo. 243,224 P. 1051 |
| Parties | GOODFELLOW v. PEOPLE. |
| Court | Colorado Supreme Court |
Department 3.
Error to District Court, City and County of Denver; George F Dunklee, Judge.
Kenneth Goodfellow was convicted of receiving stolen goods and brings error and moves for a supersedeas.
Supersedeas denied, and judgment affirmed.
George B. Campbell, of Denver, for plaintiff in error.
Wayne C. Williams, Atty. Gen., and Joseph P. O'Connell, Asst Atty. Gen., for the People.
The defendant was convicted of receiving stolen goods, a Ford sedan, and sentenced to the state reformatory. He brings the case here and moves for a supersedeas. He contends that the trial court erred in admitting in evidence Exhibits D and E. These exhibits were statements in writing, consisting of questions and answers, signed and sworn to by the defendant, and made after he had been arrested and placed in jail. The statements were made in the presence of several persons, and, according to the weight of the evidence, were made freely and voluntarily, and without threats or promises made to secure them. It is true that Low, a detective in the automobile department of the city, testified that he accused defendant of stealing the cars, the Ford sedan and the Oldsmobile, hereinafter mentioned, and that he would send defendant to the pen for stealing them. Then the witness further said: 'I did not tell him I would send him to the pen if he did not make this statement.' I told him if he 'stole the cars he would go to the big house.' The statements contained a warning to defendant that whatever he said might be used against him. It does not appear, except from defendant's own evidence, that what Low said to him influenced the defendant to make the statements. There was sufficient evidence from which the court could, and did, find that the statements D and E were voluntarily made, and we think they were properly admitted. Turner v. People, 73 Colo 184, 214 P. 390.
Exhibit D contained an admission that defendant knew when he received the car that it was stolen, and that two days afterwards he removed the numbers from the block. On the witness stand the defendant denied knowing when he received it that the car was stolen, and said that his admission in Exhibit D was not true, and that he did not realize when he signed the statement that it contained an admission of guilty knowledge. The defendant claimed that he received the car on August 15, 1923, and did not know it was stolen until August 18th, when Wilson, who was charged with the theft, told him that it was a stolen car, and asked him to remove the numbers from the block.
Direct proof of knowledge of theft is seldom obtainable, and there were sufficient facts and circumstances, in the instant case, together with defendant's admissions, from which the jury could find that defendant had knowledge of the theft at the time he received the car.
The defendant objected to the introduction of Exhibit E in evidence, for the further reason that it related to another offense, distinct and apart from the one for which he was being tried; i. e., Exhibit E related to stripping of the parts from an Oldsmobile belonging to Maud Barron and the sinking of the body of the car in Horseshoe Lake, all of which occurred about the 11th of June, 1923. It appears, from the record, that Wilson and the defendant took the Oldsmobile about 8 p. m., when the owner was not present, and took it to Horseshoe Lake, stripped it of its parts, submerged the body of the car in the lake, put the parts in the Ford car driven by defendant, and returned to the city. The defendant claimed that Wilson told him that Mrs. Barron had asked him (Wilson) to thus dispose of the car, and that Wilson had promised to give the defendant the tires, if the defendant would help dismantle and sink it, which he did, and that Wilson delivered him the tires from the Oldsmobile as promised.
The record discloses that Wilson had stolen the Ford sedan about June 27, 1923, and disposed of it to defendant in August following the Oldsmobile...
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