People v. Candelaria

• Decision Date: 24 February 1956
• Docket Number: Cr. 5508
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Manuel D. CANDELARIA, Defendant and Appellant.

Page 120

294 P.2d 120

139 Cal.App.2d 432

The PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Manuel D. CANDELARIA, Defendant and Appellant.

Cr. 5508.

District Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 3, California.

Feb. 24, 1956.

J. B. Mandel, Los Angeles, for appellant.

Edmund G. Brown, Atty. Gen., and James D. Loebl, Deputy Atty. Gen., for respondent.

PARKER WOOD, Justice.

On June 24, 1955, in a nonjury trial in the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, defendant was convicted of robbery. He appeals from the judgment.

Appellant contends that he had been convicted previously of the same offense (charged herein) in the United States District Court at Los Angeles; United States v. Candelaria, 131 F.Supp. 797; and that, by reason of the trial in the superior court, he was twice in jeopardy for the same offense.

In an information, filed May 4, 1955, by the District Attorney of Los Angeles County, it was charged that defendant committed robbery on December 10, 1954, in that, he unlawfully and by means of force and fear took from the presence of Ida Holland $700. Defendant pleaded that he had been convicted previously of the offense charged herein in the United States District Court. The cause was continued to a later date, and a plea of 'not guilty' was then entered because the defendant stood mute. Defendant admitted an allegation in the information that he had been convicted previously in Los Angeles County of pimping, a felony. (Probation was granted upon that conviction.)

At the trial herein, Mrs. Holland testified that on December 10, 1954, about 10:45 a.m., while she was a teller in the Citizens National Bank in Los Angeles, the defendant was in the bank and he pointed a gun at her and told her to give him some money; she gave him $950 that belonged to the bank; that was the only 'hold-up' on that day.

A police officer testified that on December 10, 1954, about 7 p. m., he arrested the defendant in front of defendant's house; he asked defendant where the money was; defendant said that some of it was in the car, some in his pocket, and the rest of it was in the house in a boot; they (defendant and officers) went into the house and one of the officers took some money and a revolver out of a boot; the money was counted and there were '720-some-odd dollars'; the officers asked defendant about the additional money; defendant said that he and his girl friend had spent approximately $200 for clothes; he (witness) asked defendant if he held up the bank on more than one occasion, and defendant said that he held it up only once.

Defendant testified that on December 10, 1954, he committed a robbery at the Citizens National Bank; he was the man described by Mrs. Holland; he did not rob the bank on more than one occasion on that date.

On January 12, 1955, a federal grand jury in Los Angeles filed an indictment against defendant which was titled, 'Indictment (U.S.C., Title 18, Sec. 2113(d)--Robbery of national bank, use of dangerous weapon.)' The indictment charged: 'On or about December 10, 1954, in Los Angeles County, California, within the Central Division of the Southern District of California, defendant Manuel Duran Candelaria, by force and violence and by intimidation, did knowingly and wilfully take from the person and presence of another, namely: Ida Holland, the sum of approximately $950.00 belonging to, and in the care, custody, control, management, and possession of, a bank, namely: Citizens National Trust and Savings Bank of Los Angeles, Lincoln Heights Branch, which bank was then a bank whose deposits were insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; and

'In committing the offense heretofore charged, defendant Manuel Duran Candelaria did assault, and put in jeopardy the life of, Ida Holland by the use of a dangerous weapon and device, namely: a .45 caliber revolver.'

Defendant pleaded guilty in the federal court to the charge in the indictment. On February 7, 1955, he was sentenced by the federal court to imprisonment for five years. On April 1, 1955, the sentence was modified by the court, on its own motion, by changing the sentence from five years to sixty days.

With reference to defendant's plea in the present case that he had been previously convicted in the federal court of the charge herein, the superior court found that the 'former conviction in this matter not true.' In the present case, the defendant was sentenced to state prison--the sentence to run concurrently with the sentence in the former superior court case of conviction of pimping, a felony (wherein probation was revoked).

Appellant contends that by reason of the trial herein he was twice in jeopardy for the same offense. He argues that the federal charge and the state charge are identical in character and that the same robbery underlies both charge; that although the federal charge involved national bank funds which were federally insured, the act of defendant which constituted the robbery under the federal charge was the same act which constituted the robbery under the state charge; and that the conviction in the federal court was a bar to the prosecution in the state court.

As above shown, the federal indictment alleged that on or about December 10, 1954, in Los Angeles County, California, the defendant by intimidation wilfully took from the presence of Ida Holland approximately $950 belonging to the Citizens National Bank of Los Angeles, which was a bank whose deposits were insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; and that in committing said offense defendant assaulted Ida Holland by the use of a dangerous weapon, namely, a revolver.

Also as above shown, the state information alleged that on or about December 10, 1954, in Los Angeles County, California, defendant unlawfully and by means of force and fear took from the presence of Ida Holland $700 in lawful money of the United States.

It is conceded, and the evidence shows, that the act of defendant in taking money on December 10, 1954, from the presence of Ida Holland by putting her in fear was the act upon which both prosecutions (federal and state) were based. There was only one robbery involving Ida Holland. Both prosecutions related to the same Ida Holland and to the same taking of the same money from her at the same time and place. (With reference to the money being the same money, the defendant pleaded guilty in the federal court to taking $950 from her; and the evidence in the state court shows that the officers found about $720 of the stolen money in defendant's home, and that defendant said he had spent about $200 of the stolen money.)

The robbery was an offense against the United States, Bank Robbery Act, U.S.C., Title 18, § 2113, and it was also an offense against the State of California, Penal Code of California, §§ 211, 213. Prior to th enactment of the Bank Robbery Act by the United States in 1934, the crime of robbery of a national bank was punishable only under state law. See Jerome v. United States, 1942, 318 U.S. 101, 63 S.Ct. 483, 87 L.Ed. 640.

In 48 A.L.R. 1106 (annotation) it is said: 'The weight of authority, as shown by the earlier annotations * * * is to the effect that, since the same act may constitute an offense against both Federal and state laws, an acquittal or conviction in one jurisdiction will not prevent prosecution in the other. The question has now, it would seem, been authoritatively settled by the decision of the Federal Supreme Court in the reported case' of Hebert v. State of Louisiana, 1926, 272 U.S. 312, 47 S.Ct. 103, 71 L.Ed. 270. It was said further in that annotation, 48 A.L.R. at page 1106: 'In that decision [Hebert v. State of Louisiana], the court takes the view that the constitutional rule against double jeopardy, being limited to repeated prosecutions 'for the same offense,' is not infringed by prosecution and punishment in both the Federal and the state courts for an act which is denounced as a criminal offense both by the Federal and the state laws, as thereby two distinct offenses are committed, one against the United States and one against the state.' In United States v. Lanza, 1922, 260 U.S. 377, 43 S.Ct. 141, 67 L.Ed. 314, wherein the question was whether a conviction in a state court (state of Washington) of unlawfully manufacturing, transporting and possessing intoxicating liquor was a bar to a prosecution in the federal court for unlawfully manufacturing, transporting and possessing the same liquor, it was held that the state conviction was not a bar to federal prosecution. In the opinion in that case, which was delivered by Chief Justice Taft, it was said 260 U.S. at page 382, 43 S.Ct. at page 142: '[A]n act denounced as a crime by both national and state sovereignties is an offense against the peace and dignity of both, and may be punished by each. The Fifth Amendment, like all the other guaranties in the first eight amendments, applies only to proceedings by the federal government [Citation.], and the double jeopardy therein forbidden is a second prosecution under authority of the federal government after a first trial for the same offense under the same authority. Here the same act was an offense against the state of Washington, because a violation of its law, and also an offense against the United States under the National Prohibition Act. The defendants thus committed two different offenses by the same act, and a conviction by the court of Washington of the offense against that state is not a conviction of the different offense against the United States, and so is not double jeopardy.' In Jerome v. United States, 1942, 318 U.S. 101, 63 S.Ct. 483, 87 L.Ed. 640, a federal indictment charged that the accused entered a national bank in Vermont with the intent to utter a forged note and thereby defraud the bank. The question therein was whether such act of the accused was a felony within the provisions of a certain federal statute. Under the law of...