People v. Henderson

• Decision Date: 17 January 1956
• Docket Number: Cr. 5423
• Citation: 138 Cal.App.2d 505,292 P.2d 267
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Charies Carroll HENDERSON, Defendant and Appellant.

Page 267

292 P.2d 267

138 Cal.App.2d 505

The PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Charies Carroll HENDERSON, Defendant and Appellant.

Cr. 5423.

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

Jan. 17, 1956.

William Bronsten, Los Angeles, under appointment by the District Court of Appeal, for appellant.

Edmund G. Brown, Atty. Gen., William E. James, Deputy Atty. Gen., for respondent.

FOURT, Justice.

The defendant was charged in an information with the crime of burglary, a felony, in violation of section 459 of the Penal Code, and with a prior robbery conviction.

The defendant entered a plea of not guilty to the charge, and denied the prior conviction. At the time of the trial, however he admitted the prior conviction, as alleged in the information.

The defendant declined a court appointed attorney, although the public defender, who had theretofore been appointed, announced that he was ready to proceed with the case in defendant's behalf. The defendant represented himself throughout the trial of the case. A verdict of guilty of burglary in the first degree was returned by the jury. Defendant made a motion for a new trial which was denied, and he was sentenced to the state prison for the term prescribed by law.

Appellant requested this court to appoint counsel to represent him in this appeal and counsel was so appointed.

The following facts appear from the evidence. In 1954, John A. Hendricks, a retired geologist, occupied a house near Las Palmas and Milner Streets, in the county of Los Angeles. On the night of December 24-25, 1954, he came home about 12:30 o'clock a. m. and went to bed. He went to sleep but was awakened sometime thereafter by a noise in another room of the house. He got up and observed a light under the living room door. The police were called and as they arrived Handricks saw that the living room light had been turned out. Later he saw a flashlight in the kitchen and someone near the ice box. On the kitchen floor there was scattered glass from a broken window. The police searched the house and found the defendant hidden under a bed in a bedroom other than the one occupied by Hendricks. Some meat and bread previously located in the ice box were found under the bed where the defendant was hiding. Hendricks had never seen the defendant before, and had not given him, nor any one else, permission to enter his home.

R. P. Chamberlain, a police officer, testified that he received the call from Hendricks for police assistance at about 1:35 a. m., and that he with Officer Twoomey, proceeded to the home of Hendricks. Officer Chamberlain discovered the defendant under the bed and directed him to come out, and the defendant complied. The defendant at first refused to disclose to the officers his address. Officer Chamberlain testified that at the time of the arrest he could smell liquor on the defendant's breath and that the defendant seemed to be in an irrational state of mind.

The defendant testified that he had been watching the house deliberately to see if anyone went in or out of the house. He further stated that on the night of December 24, 1954, he had left work earlier than usual and went to the house of Hendricks 'without thinking of what I was doing, or the consequences.' He stated further that he had searched for an entrance, climbed over a gate, broken the kitchen window and climbed through the hole thus made. He admitted going to the ice box, prowling through the house and returning to the ice box to get something to eat. He heard voices and thereupon ran to a bedroom to hide. Defendant claims that he was drunk. He testified that he told the officers, 'My curiosity had overwhelmed me'. Defendant admitted that he had no trouble in walking from the bedroom to the police car. He also admitted having been convicted of a felony, robbery, in California in 1950. Defendant further testified, '* * * from the first to the last I have never denied entering the house. I have never denied taking any food. But I have denied that my intent was to commit theft, although the theft was committed * * * I have denied that theft was intended.'

Appellant first contends that the evidence is insufficient as a matter of law to sustain the conviction. It is true that it was entirely within the circle of possibilities that the jury could have believed the defendant's story and acquitted him. It is also true that the trial judge could have granted the defendant's motion for a new trial. However, from the verdict and the ruling on the motion for a new trial, it is apparent that none of the jurors nor the trial judge believed the defendant's story.

It does not appear from a reading of the entire record in this case that there was no hypothesis whatever upon which the jury could support a conclusion of guilt.

'The rule applicable where there is evidence, circumstantial or otherwise, that a crime has been committed and that the defendant was the perpetrator thereof, has been many times reiterated by the reviewing courts of this state as follows: The court on appeal 'will not attempt to determine the weight of the evidence, but will decide only whether upon the face of the evidence it can be held that sufficient facts could not have been found by the jury to warrant the inference of guilt. For it is the function of the jury in the first instance, and of the trial court after verdict, to determine what facts are established by the evidence, and before the verdict of the jury, which has been approved by the trial court, can be...