People v. Granados

Decision Date20 December 1957
Docket NumberCr. 6114
Citation319 P.2d 346,49 Cal.2d 490
CourtCalifornia Supreme Court
PartiesThe PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Oscar Maldonado GRANADOS, Defendant and Appellant.

Joseph M. Rosen, Los Angeles, for appellant.

Edmund G. Brown, Atty. Gen., and Norman H. Sokolow, Deputy Atty. Gen., for respondent.

McCOMB, Justice.

This is an automatic appeal from a judgment pronouncing defendant guilty of murder in the first degree after trial before a jury.

On October 1, 1956, defendant and Mrs. Minjarez were living as husband and wife, with her two children, Elvira (age 13) and Raul (age 14), at 316 N. Garey Street, Los Angeles. The four of them had been living as a family group approximately four or five years prior to such date.

On the morning of October 1, 1956, defendant told Raul and Elvira that he was going to take them to school to enroll. Mrs. Minjarez had already gone to work. He drove the children to a filling station across the street from the school, where he left them for fifteen or twenty minutes. Upon his return he said the people at the school stated that Paul and Elvira could not go to the same school. He further said he would discuss it with Mrs. Minjarez and they would go to school the next day.

He then drove to a real estate office to discuss the rental of a house in the rear of 316 N. Garey Street. It was arranged that defendant would clean up the premises and receive one month's rental free.

After leaving the real estate office, the two children and defendant went to a restaurant and had something to eat; thereafter they returned to 316 N. Garey Street. Defendant then gave Raul a note and told him to take it to his mother where she worked, about four blocks away. The note pertained to the rental arrangements previously made and requested money.

When Raul returned home with the money his mother had given him, he saw defendant at the rear of the house. As he started to enter, defendant came running out, and told him to get some alcohol because his sister was fainting. Paul observed that there was blood on one of defendant's hands. The other hand was behind his back.

Raul went to the front house and looked for some alcohol but found none. Defendant then said they should go to the doctor and get an ambulance. At this time Raul noticed that defendant's hand had been washed and that it smelled like soap.

Defendant and Raul then got into an automobile and proceeded toward Whittier. They stopped in front of a drug store, and defendant gave Raul 50 cents, telling him to buy some alcohol, and said that he would drive around the block and pick him up. Defendant never returned to the place where he had left Paul.

Shortly after leaving Raul, defendant telephoned Mrs. Minjarez and told her that her daughter had poisoned herself. Mrs. Minjarez immediately went to the premises at 316 N. Garey, but could not find her daughter. She then went for a Mr. Torres, who returned with her. They observed Officer Towles near the house and told him of their mission. The officer told Mr. Torres to look around outside the house and also in the rear house.

Mr. Torres went inside the rear house and found Elvira's body in the bedroom lying on the floor. Her skirt was up above her private parts, and an apron over her dress was pulled down below them. Bare skin showed in the area of the hips, at the side of the apron, and above it was a wad of clothing, which was the skirt.

There were blood stains on the wall, floor and decedent's head. In a corner of the living room behind a small gas heater was a machete covered with fresh blood.

Defendant testified that when he was about nine or ten years old he was in an accident in which a truck ran over him, causing head injuries, as a result of which he would go temporarily blind and have very severe head pains; also that occasionally he would 'go haywire.' During such spells he would have no recollection of his actions.

He testified further that after lunch on October 1, 1956, he drank a can of beer; that Elvira was helping him clean the inside of the rear house; that the doors were open; and that during the course of the cleaning he asked Elvira if she was a virgin, to which she replied that it was none of his business. He said that she had never answered him like that before and he struck her on the face with his hand, but did not recall striking her with the machete; that he 'just went haywire'; that he did not know what he was doing after that time; and that the next thing he remembered he was going out of the rear house. He also said that he saw Raul and told him something was wrong with Elvira and they were going to get a doctor; that he dropped Raul at a drug store; and that the next thing he remembered he was driving his automobile but he did not know where he was going.

Defendant was arrested in El Paso, Texas, and was returned to Los Angeles by the authorities.

Defendant contends: First: The trial court committed prejudicial error in the admission of the following evidence:

(a) During the examination of decedent's brother, Raul, the district attorney asked him: 'Now in the course of the conversation (between decedent and Raul) did she make any complaint to you would you answer that yes or no?' to which Raul answered, 'Yes,' whereupon the court said, 'Just a moment, objection sustained, answer stricken.'

Clearly, in view of the court's prompt ruling in sustaining an objection to the question and striking the answer, defendant was not prejudiced.

(b) Decedent's mother was permitted to testify relative to a conversation she had with defendant in September 1953 to the effect that she told defendant that the next time he bothered her daughter she would go to the police and he replied that the police would have to have more brains than he because if they left him alive he would kill Mrs. Minjarez and her two children.

Such evidence was admissible as constituting an accusatory statement, in that defendant was accused of molesting the child and told to stop, to which accusation he made no denial but instead threatened to kill; and the court properly overruled an objection to the testimony on this ground.

Such evidence was also admissible on the ground that it tended to establish prior threats of defendant toward decedent and was competent to show motive and the state of mind of defendant. The objection to the remoteness of such evidence goes to its weight rather than to its admissibility. (People v. Dement, 48 Cal.2d 600, 604(4), 311 P.2d 505; People v. De Moss, 4 Cal.2d 469, 474(4), 50 P.2d 1031; People v. Flemming, 218 Cal. 300, 309(3), 23 P.2d 28.)

Second: The district attorney committed prejudicial error:

(a) In his opening statement wherein he said Raul would testify that about a year prior to October 1, 1956, defendant sent him out to buy a paper when his mother was not home and that when Raul returned his sister made an immediate complaint of a sexual proposition defendant had made to her.

This contention is devoid of merit for these reasons: (1) No objection was made to the statement, and (2) opening statements are supposed to be an outline of what the People intend to prove, and failure to do so, whether on account of rules of evidence or otherwise, does not necessarily indicate prejudice. (People v. Planagan, 65 Cal.App.2d 371, 407(6), 150 P.2d 927.) (b) In his argument to the jury when he said he would like to examine some of the evidence in terms of the theory that defendnat killed Elvira in the course of committing or attempting to commit 'a 288 on her.'

This alleged error is also without merit. Defendant objected on the ground that the inference the deputy district attorney was drawing from the evidence was unreasonable. The objection was overruled by the court, who properly held that whether the inference made by the arguer was reasonable or not was a question for the jury to decide.

Third: The trial court committed prejudicial error in not giving requested instructions:

(a) That if the jurors had a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed a violation of section 288 of the Penal Code or attempted violation of said section on the date of October 1, 1956, then they could not return a verdict of guilty of first degree murder based upon the theory that there was an unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought in the perpetration or attempted perpetration of a violation of section 288 of the Penal Code. 1

It was error to refuse this instruction. It accurately stated the law and pinpointed the theory of the defense.

Section 1096a of the Penal Code 2 declares that when the statutory definition of reasonable doubt is given (see Pen.Code, § 1096), 3 no other instruction need be given defining reasonable doubt. Despite this section, a defendant, upon proper request therefor, has a right to an instruction that directs attention to evidence from a consideration of which a reasonable doubt of his guilt could be engendered. (People v. Kane, 27 Cal.2d 693, 699(3) et seq., 166 P.2d 285; People v. Wilson, 100 Cal.App. 428, 431(2), 280 P. 169; People v. Plywood Mfrs. of Cal., 137 Cal.App.2d Supp. 859, 872, 291 P.2d 587.)

(b) That the discretion of jurors in considering the effect of evidence as proof is not absolute and that it is their duty to avoid fanciful theories and unreasonable inferences and not to resort to imagination or suspicion.

This instruction was properly refused.

The court did instruct the jurors that it was their duty to try the issues of fact presented by the allegations in the information and defendant's plea of not guilty; that they should perform this duty uninfluenced by passion or prejudice against defendant; that neither the fact that defendant had been arrested nor the fact that an information had been filed against him nor the fact that he had been brought before the court to stand trial was evidence of his guilt; and that they were not permitted to...

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    ...premeditation and deliberation. (See People v. Cartier (1960) 54 Cal.2d 300, 311, 5 Cal.Rptr. 573, 353 P.2d 53; People v. Granados (1957) 49 Cal.2d 490, 494--495, 319 P.2d 346; People v. Dement (1957) 48 Cal.2d 600, 604, 311 P.2d 505; and cf. People v. Lambright, supra, 61 Cal.2d 482, 486, ......
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