People v. Coleman, Cr. 5327
| Decision Date | 27 July 1955 |
| Docket Number | Cr. 5327 |
| Citation | 286 P.2d 582,134 Cal.App.2d 594 |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Fred William COLEMAN, Defendant and Appellant. |
Albert S. Friedlander, Los Angeles, for appellant.
Edmund G. Brown, Atty. Gen., Marvin Gross, Joan D. Gross, Deputy Attys. Gen., for respondent.
A jury found defendant guilty of possession of heroin in violation of Health and Safety Code, section 11500. He appeals from the judgment of conviction and the order denying his motion for a new trial.
Defendant was the manager of a cafe and cocktail bar at 5th and Stanford Streets in Los Angeles at the time of the events hereinafter enumerated, and had been such manager for some eleven months. He was virtually in exclusive control of the place since the owner was employed elsewhere.
Police officers searched the cafe on April 28, 1954, and found both heroin and marijuana in such places as under the cushions, in the booths, behind the juke box and in the cigarette machine. They again searched the premises the following night and found marijuana cigarettes. On that occasion defendant handed the officers four marijuana cigarettes which he assertedly found. The officers advised defendant of the bad reputation the place had for narcotics and warned him it had to be cleaned up and that they were going to book the narcotics they had found 'as evidence against the place.' In response to the complaints of the officers, defendant told them he put a sign on the wall, 'No marijuana cigarettes allowed in the bar.'
On the evening of April 30 Police Officers Clago and Starkey had the cafe and defendant under surveillance for about half an hour starting at 10:45. Officer Clago observed defendant go to the rear of the cafe and unlock the door to the liquor storeroom. He entered, raised one hand up in the air and stepped right out again. He appeared to hand a white object--'a white piece of paper'--to a man nearby. The latter turned and started to leave by the front door. Defendant waved to him to leave by the rear door which opened on Stanford Street. He complied, leaving very rapidly. Officers attempted to apprehend him as he left the building, but he evaded them, ran and disappeared in the darkness. After defendant's arrest the officers asked him to open the liquor storeroom. He complied by taking a key out of his pocket and unlocking the door. He told the officers the day man had a key to this storeroom, but he was the only one there that night who had a key to it. There was testimony, however, that the owner had a key to this room; also, that a key was kept in the cash register for the use of employees in replenishing stock behind the bar and to enable delivery men to enter the stockroom. On searching that room Officer Starkey found a white object with a rubber band around it which consisted of nine bindles of heroin. This package was lying on a ledge above the entrance to the storeroom, in the approximate position that Officer Clago had observed defendant's hand disappear a few minutes earlier when he had unlocked this room and handed the person, whom he later directed to leave by the rear door, a package or white object. When these bindles were found one of the officers asked defendant, 'What is this?' To which he replied that he did not know, and then added the observation that 'someone must have pushed the bindles through the hole,' referring to a small hole that went through the wall, and 'hid them' there. The bindles, however, were about five inches from this hole. The ledge did not extend under the hole so that if the bindles were pushed through the hole they would fall directly to the floor; also, the officer noted the position they were in was farther from the hole than one could reach with his fingers, i. e., one could not put the bindles through the hole and place them on the 1 X 4 ledge five inches from the hole. The officers also searched the office, to which they were admitted by defendant's producing a key from his pocket and unlocking the door. There they found ten white bindles wrapped with a rubber band in a cardboard box. These proved to contain heroin, too. Defendant disclaimed knowing what this package was and said 'someone must have put it there.' He acknowledged, however, that some tools, miscellaneous jewelry and Chinese novelties there in the office belonged to him.
A bartender who had worked for defendant testified that in January, 1954, just prior to his quitting, a person whom he did not know had approached him with what appeared to be bindles of heroin and asked him (the bartender) to keep the same for him. He refused the request. Defendant thereupon told the bartender that if he wanted to keep his job he would have to assist in giving protection to 'pushers.' 1
Defendant contends that 'the evidence is insufficient to sustain the verdict,' on the ground that it fails to show that he had either knowledge or possession of the heroin. A reviewing court must, of course, assume in favor of the verdict the existence of every fact which the jury could have reasonably deduced from the evidence, and then determine whether such facts are sufficient to support the verdict. Hence, before the verdict of a jury, which has been approved by the trial judge by the denial of a motion for a new trial, can be set aside on appeal upon the ground of the insufficiency of the evidence, "it must be made clearly to appear that upon no hypothesis whatever is there sufficient substantial evidence to support the conclusion reached in the court below." People v. Newland, 15 Cal.2d 678, 681, 104 P.2d 778, 780. Applying these principles to the instant case, it cannot be said that the evidence and the reasonable inferences to be drawn therefrom are not, as a matter of law, sufficient to support the judgment. As manager of the cafe and cocktail bar, defendant was virtually in exclusive charge of the premises since the owner was employed elsewhere. Defendant took pains to keep the liquor storeroom and the office locked even when he was on duty. While the day man and the owner had keys and there was apparently a key in the cash register to facilitate deliveries and the replenishment of the stock at the bar, it is clear that other employees had only limited access to either the supply room or the office, and that the public had no access to these portions of the premises. The testimony of Officer Clago that defendant unlocked the liquor storeroom, stepped inside, raised his hand in the air in the approximate position where a few minutes later nine bindles of heroin were found on the ledge, stepped out immediately and handed a white object or piece of paper to another person whom he directed to leave by the rear door, justifies the inference that defendant delivered a bindle of heroin to this unknown party. The hasty and elusive departure of this person is not without significance, too....
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