Morandy v. United States, 11730.

• Decision Date: 15 November 1948
• Docket Number: No. 11730.,11730.
• Citation: 170 F.2d 5
• Parties: MORANDY v. UNITED STATES.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

170 F.2d 5 (1948)

MORANDY v. UNITED STATES.

No. 11730.

United States Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit.

October 11, 1948.

Rehearing Denied November 5, 1948.

As Amended November 15, 1948.

Morris Lavine, of Los Angeles, Cal., for appellant.

James M. Carter, U. S. Atty., and Ernest Tolin and E. J. Zack, Asst. U. S. Attys., all of Los Angeles, Cal., for appellee.

Before MATHEWS and HEALY, Circuit Judges and BLACK, District Judge.

HEALY, Circuit Judge.

Appellant was convicted of a violation of the National Motor Vehicle Theft Act, 18 U.S.C.A. §§ 2311-2313. The charge was that he transported a stolen vehicle, namely, a 1942 Mercury convertible coupe, Motor No. 99A-506084, from Whiting, Indiana to Santa Barbara County, California, with knowledge that it had been stolen.

There was evidence that on April 6, 1946, at Oxnard, California, appellant was in possession of a green car answering in all respects the description contained in the indictment. Shortly thereafter he abandoned it on a street in Santa Maria. He was at the time traveling under an assumed name or names. It was shown that on February 5, 1946, a Mrs. Bloemen was the owner of a 1942 green Mercury convertible club coupe at Lowell, Indiana, where she lived. She testified that the motor number of the vehicle was 506084. On that date her husband drove the car to Whiting, Indiana, and parked it on the street. When he returned for it later in the day it was gone. He had not given anyone permission to remove it and has not seen it since. Mrs. Bloemen had given permission to no one other than her husband to take the car. When the automobile abandoned by appellant was picked up by the California authorities it bore a 1946 Minnesota license plate. Under the floor mat were found Iowa and Michigan license plates for that year.

Appellant claims that the stolen motor vehicle was not identified as the car described in the indictment and shown to have been in his possession. The insufficiency of the identification is said to reside in the absence of the prefix "99A" in the motor number as testified to by the owner. There was clearly enough evidence of identity to go to the jury, and it was for them to decide whether identification was established.

Appellant made a demand for a bill of particulars and the court denied it. No error in this respect was committed. For the most part the demand called for the disclosure of information concerning matters having no materiality. For the rest, the indictment contained the information desired.

There is a third point of some interest. On the strength mainly of Bollenbach v. United States, 326 U.S. 607, 66 S.Ct. 402, 90 L.Ed. 350, it is contended that there was no proof that appellant transported the car in interstate commerce. Obviously somebody transported it in interstate commerce. As seen, it had recently been stolen in Indiana; and appellant did not take the stand or in any way attempt to explain his possession of it in California. The courts have long thought that possession in such circumstances warrants the inference that the possessor was the thief.¹ This judicially sanctioned inference, we may add, has its genesis in...