People v. Felt, Cr. 2183

• Decision Date: 17 June 1950
• Docket Number: Cr. 2183
• Citation: 98 Cal.App.2d 137,219 P.2d 54
• Parties: PEOPLE v. FELT.
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

Page 54

219 P.2d 54

98 Cal.App.2d 137

PEOPLE v. FELT.

Cr. 2183.

District Court of Appeal, Third District, California.

June 17, 1950.

F. M. Brack and A. M. Frad, Modesto, for appellant.

Fred N. Howset, Attorney General, by Gail A. Strader, Deputy, for respondent.

VAN DYKE, Justice.

Appellant was charged with the crime of forgery. He was tried by a jury and convicted. He appeals from the judgment and order denying his motion for a new trial.

Prior to the introduction in evidence of an extrajudicial statement made by appellant to an officer, the following had been shown. Under date of June 11, 1949, a check had been written, drawn on the Bank of America, Modesto Branch, directing payment of fifty-six dollars 'for Labor' to J. R. Felt. The signature read 'L. D. Jondrsdon.' On the same day appellant and another man traveled by cab from Modesto to Riverbank. While the driver and the other waited in the cab appellant entered the store of one Rabbiosa and attempted to cash the check. Rabbiosa suspected the validity of the document and called the bank. He was told there was no account in the name of the drawer, whereupon appellant suggested there might be a mistake in spelling the name. Rabbiosa asked the bank to check several different spellings but no account was reported under any of them. The check then bore the endorsement 'J. R. Felt.' Appellant told Rabbiosa he was John Felt and he wanted the money in order to pay a sum he owed to one of Rabbiosa's employees. Appellant returned to the cab and told the driver to drive them to a grocery store in Modesto. There both appellant and his companion went into the store. They returned to the cab and were driven to a second store. There the companion went into the store and cashed the check, bought groceries to the amount of three dollars and eighty cents, and returned to the cab. He handed twelve dollars to appellant, who then paid the cab fare. When the check was cashed it bore the additional endorsement, 'L. D. Johnson.' On presentation to the bank the check was dishonored. The name of the drawer did not appear in the county register of voters nor in a published directory of Stanislaus County. The records of the bank for three years back disclosed no account in that name.

When this proof had been given an extrajudicial statement of appellant was admitted over his objection that the corpus delicti had not been proved. Appellant told the officer that he had endorsed the check; that it had been written in his presence by a man he did not know; that he and the writer had taken the check to Rabbiosa's store where he attempted to cash it; that after calling the bank the storekeeper told him there were no funds in bank under the drawer's name; that the two men then returned to Modesto and he told his companion that market where the check was cashed would probably cash it; that his companion went in and cashed it; that appellant received twenty-six dollars of the amount derived. Appellant did not testify.

Appellant first contends that the evidence did not sufficiently establish the corpus delicti so as to make admissible the statement he made. In his argument in support of this contention appellant says that since he neither, so far as the evidence showed, drew the check nor cashed it, he could only be convicted as an abettor, and therefore proof of the corpus delicti as to him must have included some proof...