People v. Allen
| Decision Date | 06 November 1961 |
| Docket Number | Cr. 7590 |
| Citation | 196 Cal.App.2d 655,16 Cal.Rptr. 869 |
| Parties | PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Paul Leroy ALLEN, Defendant and Appellant. |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
Gerald J. Levie, Los Angeles, for appellant.
Stanley Mosk, Atty. Gen., William E. James, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Norman H. Sokolow, Deputy Atty. Gen., for respondent.
Defendants Paul Leroy Allen and Ann Shirley Allen were accused of unlawfully possessing heroin. In a nonjury trial they were convicted. They appealed from the judgment. Ann Shirley Allen filed a document which stated that she abandoned her appeal. Pursuant to that statement, her appeal was dismissed. The information herein alleged that defendant Paul Leroy Allen had been convicted previously of three felonies (attempted robbery, grand theft [amended to allege forgery] and forgery).
Appellant contends that the officers illegally entered his hotel room in that there was no probable cause to believe that an offense had been committed or was being committed by either defendant; that the arrest, search, and seizure were illegal and the court erred in receiving the heroin in evidence; that the corpus delicti was not established, and the court erred in receiving evidence as to extrajudicial statements of appellant.
Officer Cochran, a policeman of Los Angeles, testified that on July 7, 1960, about 11 p. m., his immediate supervisor, Sergeant Trotsky, told him and Officer Parker that a 1951 green Buick automobile, bearing license number KSW 943, had been seen on a parking lot about the same time on July 7 that a theft, from another automobile on that lot, had occurred; that Sergeant Trotsky also told him that a 1951 green Buick, very similar to the aforesaid Buick, had been seen leaving the scene of a burglary that had occurred on July 7 at an appliance store which was in the 3900 block of Sunset Boulevard; Officers Cochran and Parker checked the records of the Department of Motor Vehicles and found that the license KSW 943 was registered in the name of Paul L. Allen; then they checked the records at the Department of Records and Identification of the Police Department and found that a Paul Leroy Allen had been arrested numerous times for burglary, narcotics, and robbery--on one occasion he was arrested for armed robbery; those records also indicated that he had been arrested on one occasion with Shirley Ann Allen who was also known as Shirley Ann Miller; the officers checked her record at that department and found that she had been arrested for narcotics; they obtained pictures of said persons; then the officers talked with Sergeant McMonagle who told them that he had seen a 1951 green Buick, with license KSW 943, parked in the vicinity of 7th Street and Union Avenue; the officers went to that vicinity and saw a 1951 green Buick, with said license number, which was parked on a street near Union Avenue; at that time, which was about 2 a. m. on July 8, they began checking the hotels in that area by showing the pictures to the hotel clerks and asking them if they had seen those persons; about 3:45 a. m. they showed the pictures to the clerk at the Strand Hotel, which is at 729 South Union Avenue, and he said that those persons were in room 231 and were registered as Mr. and Mrs. Robert Monroe; the officers asked the clerk if they might have the key to that room, and he gave the key to them; they went to the room, opened the door with the key, drew their guns, trained flashlights on the defendants who were sleeping in the bed, and told them they were under arrest for burglary; the defendants got out of bed, and the officers handcuffed them; while handcuffing them, the witness saw hypodermic needle marks on their arms; while searching the room, the witness removed the head from a figurine which was on a stand near the bed, and he found on the body of the figurine a rubber ballon containing a white powder; they asked defendant Paul Allen if he had guns in the room; he replied that there was one at the foot of the bed in a handbag; he (witness) recovered the gun and noticed there were various appliances in the room, such as an electric can opener, an iron, and a radio; they also found a hypodermic syringe and needle in a bureau drawer; they did not have a search warrant or a warrant of arrest.
Officer Cook testified that on July 11, 1960, about 11:30 a. m., he saw defendant Paul Allen in jail, and at that time defendant's nose was running, his eyes were watering, he was shivering and appeared to be sick; he (witness) saw scar tissue, marks, and fresh scabs on defendant's left arm; defendant said he felt terrible and needed a fix, that his last fix was on Thursday (four days previously), and that he had been using heroin about fourteen years; in the opinion of the witness, the defendant was suffering from withdrawal of narcotics.
Officer Glazer testified that when he saw the defendant Apul Allen at the jail on July 8 about 10:15 a. m., the defendant appeared to be quite ill; the defendant said the defendant Paul Allen at the jail on and that the gun belonged to Jerry Haynes.
It was established that the white powder which was found in the figurine was heroin.
When the heroin was offered in evidence at the preliminary examination and at the trial, the defendants objected thereto on the ground that the entry into the room and that the arrest and search were illegal for the reason there was no probable cause to believe that a felony had been committed or was being committed. They also moved to suppress such evidence on that ground. The objection was overruled, and the motion was denied.
Defendant Paul Allen did not testify.
Defendant Ann Shirley Allen, wife of the other defendant, testified that on July 8, 1960, about 2 p. m., she and Paul returned to the hotel and went to sleep; she was addicted to the use of heroin; about 3 p. m., while Paul was sleeping, she left the hotel for the purpose of getting heroin; she did not awaken him, because he had been trying to stop her from using narcotics; she drove the Oldsmobile to East Los Angeles and bought one-fourth ounce of heroin for $75; when she returned to the...
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