People v. Andrews
| Decision Date | 19 August 1957 |
| Docket Number | Cr. 1312 |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
| Parties | PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Lonnie ANDREWS, Georgia Mae Hyman and Carl Clayton Scott, Defendants and Appellants. |
Robert A. Ward, San Diego, for appellant Andrews.
William O. Hogan, San Diego, for appellants Hyman and Scott.
Edmund G. Brown, Atty. Gen., Morris Schachter, Deputy Atty. Gen., for respondent.
The defendants Andrews, Hyman and Scott, together with one Marshall, were charged with a violation of section 11500 of the Health and Safety Code in that on July 14, 1956, they did wilfully and unlawfully have in their possession a certain narcotic. Andrews was also charged with one prior conviction, and Scott with six prior convictions. All four defendants pleaded not guilty and Andrews and Scott admitted the prior convictions. A jury was waived and all four defendants were found guilty after a trial by the court. A motion for a new trial by Scott and Hyman was denied and probation was denied as to all four defendants. Andrews has appealed from the judgment, and Hyman and Scott have appealed from the judgment and from the order denying a new trial.
With the few exceptions hereafter noted, the evidence was uncontradicted. An officer of the narcotic detail of the San Diego Police Department had received information from a confidential informant on July 14, 1956, and from another informant about a week before, that narcotics were being used and sold at a certain house in San Diego. He had also received similar information from people in the neighborhood for several weeks up to a day or two before July 14. He knew all four defendants and knew that they were all users of heroin, and had seen known users going and coming from this address on an average of two to four times a week. On the morning of July 14, he received information from an informant whose information had proved reliable in the past that the occupants of this house were going to Tijuana to pick up some heroin, and that if they were unable to get money with which to make the purchase they would trade a television set for the heroin. This informant had named these four defendants as the occupants of the house.
On the morning of July 14, this officer stationed himself at a point where he was able to keep this house under observation. At about noon on that day he saw the four defendants drive up to this house in an automobile. Andrews unlocked a padlock on one door of the house and replaced the padlock after Marshall, Hyman and Scott had entered that door. He then went around and entered the house by another door. After waiting a few minutes this officer walked down the alley and through an opening in the fence, which opening was about five feet from the house, and approached an open window which faced the alley. He saw Andrews, Marshall and Hyman seated close together on a divan and Scott seated in an overstuffed chair, facing them. Scott was about three feet from the other three, and there was a vanity stool between him and the other three. They were all about 14 feet from the window at which this officer was standing. As this officer stood at the window he saw a spoon, the bottom of which was black from soot or smut, a medicine dropper with a hypodermic needle attached leaning against an ash tray, and a pile of papers folded like a 'bindle fold,' in the manner in which narcotic users fold a paper when they have placed heroin in it. All of these articles were on the vanity stool about which the defendants were seated.
This officer then climbed through the window and told the defendants to keep their seats. A split second later he saw Marshall reach with her right hand, and grab at the stack of papers on the vanity stool, saw Hyman grab the medicine dropper with the needle attached and it disappeared behind her, and saw Andrews lean forward slightly and his left arm drop. About that time two other officers entered the room. One of the officers raised Marshall's hand and picked up seven papers folded into bindle form. He had her rise and found three more such papers under her hip. These bindles contained heroin. Another officer picked up a dropper with a hypodermic needle attached which was between Hyman and Marshall on the divan. One of the officers had Scott get up from the chair in which he was seated and, in a 'funny book' lying on the cushion, there was a dropper with a needle attached, and a spoon that had a sooty bottom with cotton in the bowl of the spoon. The spoon and cotton contained a narcotic. One of the officers found a package containing six marijuana cigarets under the edge of the divan where Andrews was seated, directly down from where the officer had seen him moving his hand. A spoon with cotton in the bowl was on the vanity stool. This spoon contained an opium alkaloid and the cotton contained hereon. Another hypodermic needle and a box of cotton pellets, which are used by some addicts to strain their narcotics through, and a jar and glass each full of warm water, were also found on the vanity stool. Two small knives having one blade open were found on the arm of the chair in which Scott was seated, and a third knife was on the vanity stool. Knives such as these and be used to cut the papers which are folded in bindle form to contain narcotics, and are often used to measure out the narcotics for the papers. Letters were found addressed to Scott, Hyman and Andrews at this address. There was evidence that Andrews rented this house, and that Scott and Hyman were living there. Some ointment was found on the arm of the chair in which Scott was seated. Two pieces of cloth which appeared to have been used as a tourniquet were found on the divan.
There was evidence that such spoons are used by narcotic users by placing the powder and water in the spoons and applying heat to the bottom of the spoon to dissolve the powder; that such cotton is used as a strainer to keep any solid...
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