People v. Harris, Cr. 6642

• Decision Date: 10 September 1959
• Docket Number: Cr. 6642
• Citation: 173 Cal.App.2d 597,343 P.2d 765
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Nola Fay HARRIS, Defendant and Appellant.

Page 765

343 P.2d 765

173 Cal.App.2d 597

PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Nola Fay HARRIS, Defendant and Appellant.

Cr. 6642.

District Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 1, California.

Sept. 10, 1959.

Nola Fay Harris in pro. per.

Stanley Mosk, Atty. Gen., William E. James, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Marvin L. Part, Deputy Atty. Gen., for respondent.

NOURSE, Justice pro tem.

By indictment appellant was charged with selling, furnishing and giving away a narcotic, in violation of section 11500 of the Health and Safety Code.

After trial to the court, a jury having been expressly waived, she was found guilty as charged and sentenced to the California Institution for Women for the term prescribed by law. Appellant was represented at the trial by the public defender but prosecutes this appeal in her own person.

So far as we can determine from what she denominates her brief, her only claim of error is the insufficiency of the evidence to sustain the judgment. We have carefully read the transcript and are convinced that there is substantial evidence to sustain the finding of guilty made by the trial court.

Following is a summary of the evidence: It was stipulated that if one William King were called and sworn he would testify that a certain envelope handed him containing a rubber fragment which contained a white powdery substance, and that he had analyzed this white powdery substance and that it was heroin. His qualifications as a forensic chemist were also stipulated to.

One Nunley, a police officer of the Los Angeles Police Department testified that on May 14, 1958, at about 8:30 in the evening, he was walking east on East Fifth Street in the city of Los Angeles in the company of a woman known to him as Ramona but whose true name was Mary Baptiste. That he and Ramona were stopped by the defendant who said to Ramona, 'Don't go down that way. Don't you see those narcotic guys over there.' That the defendant then asked them to step into a stairway. That before meeting defendant he had told Ramona that he wanted to make a buy and that if the suspect would not let him make the buy he would give her, Ramona, the money and she could make the buy. That while they stood in the doorway defendant asked who he, Nunley, was and he stated his name was Willie. That the girls started to go up the stairway and Ramona asked him to give her the money for the buy and the defendant told him to wait at the bottom of the stairs. That he gave Ramona $9 and when the...