People v. Allsip
| Decision Date | 16 January 1969 |
| Docket Number | Cr. 581 |
| Citation | 268 Cal.App.2d 830,74 Cal.Rptr. 550 |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Weldon Wayne ALLSIP, Defendant and Appellant. |
Appeal from a judgment of the Superior Court of Sacramento County. William M. Gallagher, Judge. Reversed.
John A. Fitzrandolph, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
Thomas C. Lynch, Attorney General, Daniel J. Kremer and Talmadge R. Jones, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
By an indictment appellant, Weldon Wayne Allsip, was charged with one count of rape and one count of aiding and abetting Wayne Barnes in the commission of a rape upon the same girl. Barnes was also accused of raping the girl and of aiding and abetting Allsip to commit forcible rape.
The case was tried to a jury, which acquitted Barnes on both counts.
As to appellant Allsip, the jury was unable to agree as to the count charging him with forcible rape, and the trial judge declared a mistrial as to that count. However, the jury found Allsip guilty of the count charging him with aiding and abetting Barnes in the commission of forcible rape.
On the face of it, the verdicts are contradictory and irreconcilable. The jury could not acquit Barnes of forcible rape, and convict Allsip of aiding and abetting Barnes in committing that crime.
Respondent cites cases affirming a judgment finding an aider and abetter guilty even though the principal, in a separate trial, was acquitted. It is argued that the inconsistent result is similar to the contradictory verdicts before us. In the cited cases a different jury tried each defendant, and they thus heard a different presentation of the evidence; in the light of these circumstances we find such cases inapposite to the case at bench, where the defendants were tried together.
In Shuttlesworth v. City of Birmingham, Alabama, 373 U.S. 262, 266, 83 S.Ct. 1130, 1132, 10 L.Ed.2d 335, the United States Supreme Court said:
'It is generally recognized that there can be no conviction for aiding and abetting someone to do an innocent act.'
Where the commission of a single crime is charged, it is clear that a jury cannot acquit the principal and yet find his codefendant guilty of being an accessory to the commission of the crime it found had not been...
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People v. Taylor
...although there is dicta that such a result would not be sanctioned if the two had been tried separately (People v. Allsip (1969) 268 Cal.App.2d 830, 831--832, 74 Cal.Rptr. 550). Other cases hold that an accused, as an aider and abettor, may be convicted of a lesser crime than the perpetrato......
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Navarro-Lopez v. Gonzales
...Prado, 136 Cal.Rptr. at 522-23 (accessory to armed robbery); Duty, 74 Cal. Rptr. at 607 (accessory to arson); People v. Allsip, 268 Cal.App.2d 830, 74 Cal.Rptr. 550, 550 (1969) (accessory to rape); People v. Kloss, 130 Cal.App. 194, 19 P.2d 822, 822-23 (1933), over-ruled in part on other gr......
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People v. Williams
...who fired the fatal shots, precludes finding appellant guilty as an aider or abettor or a coconspirator. (See People v. Allsip (1969) 268 Cal.App.2d 830, 831-832, 74 Cal.Rptr. 550.) It is also recognized that an aider or abettor cannot be guilty of a greater offense than the principal offen......
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People v. Wilkins
...People v. Stone (1963) 213 Cal.App.2d 260, 28 Cal.Rptr. 522 [inconsistent murder verdicts permissible] with People v. Allsip (1969) 268 Cal.App.2d 830, 74 Cal.Rptr. 550 [inconsistent rape verdicts not permissible]; what non-trial proceedings satisfy collateral estoppel requirements (People ......