People v. Jackson

• Decision Date: 21 January 1959
• Docket Number: Cr. 6347
• Citation: 167 Cal.App.2d 270,334 P.2d 114
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Willie JACKSON, Danny Hool and Robert Horton, Defendants, Robert Horton, Appellant.

Page 114

334 P.2d 114

167 Cal.App.2d 270

PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Willie JACKSON, Danny Hool and Robert Horton, Defendants Robert Horton, Appellant.

Cr. 6347.

District Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 2, California.

Jan. 21, 1959.

Ernest L. Graves, Wilmington, for appellant.

Stanley Mosk, Atty. Gen., William E. James, Asst. Atty. Gen., for respondent.

ASHBURN, Justice.

Appellant Horton, who was represented by counsel throughout the trial and motion for new trial, appeared originally in propria persona upon this appeal, presenting a brief which is built upon the assumption that he is entitled to a re-weighing of the evidence by this court and that it should recognize as pertinent asserted facts which find no reflection in the transcript; a further assumption is that appellant's own evidence and inferences favorable to innocence should be accepted in preference to the proof showing guilt. In this appellant is fundamentally mistaken.

Upon appeal all evidence and all inferences tending to support the finding of guilt are to be accepted as true and the sufficiency of the evidence tested upon that assumption; the question of reasonable doubt is for the trial court, not the appellate tribunal. People v. Newland, 15 Cal.2d 678, 681, 104 P.2d 778; People v. Poindexter, 51 Cal.2d 142, 330 P.2d 763. Thus viewed the evidence leaves no doubt about the necessity of affirmance.

The charge upon which appellant was convicted was burglary (Pen.Code, § 459) committed by him, Danny Hool and Willie Jackson, through entry into the residence of Andrew Coleman with intent to commit theft. Convicted of burglary in the first degree the crime was reduced to second degree upon request of the prosecutor. Appellant Horton was also charged with prior felonies, namely, burglary in Texas in 1939 and robbery in California in 1946; the court made no finding thereon. Defendant was sentenced for the term prescribed by law.

On the morning of December 12, 1957, the front doorbell of the residence of Andrew Coleman, at 200 West 54th Street, in the City of Los Angeles, rang three times. Mr. Coleman, 86 years of age, was alone in the house and not fully dressed. He went to the door, looked through the venetian blinds and saw no one. Turning to go back to the bedroom he was confronted by defendant Hool who waved a gun (or what appeared to be one) at him and said, 'Give up.' 'Don't say a G_____ d_____ word.' Coleman said, 'Who is you? Why you come in?' and drew his cane back. Hool then turned toward the kitchen. Coleman started for the front door to give an alarm. Before he could do so Hool returned with Horton. They tripped Coleman, had him down on his back, one held his feet and the other beat him with his fists in the mouth and elsewhere on the face, knocking out two teeth; they also tried to choke him. While one of them sat on him and held him down the other said, 'You hold him down, 'I'm going to see what I can pick up.' Soon this defendant returned, saying he had picked up what he could get and called the other one off. Coleman saw them no more. While these things were going on Coleman called his next door neighbor and she heard his voice, 'Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Jones.' She was already on the alert, for her dog was barking and she was looking out the window. When Mrs. Jones heard Coleman's voice it looked to her like he was being beaten but she could not see clearly. However, there was such 'a fuss' she could not stand it and started to get help from another neighbor. Seeing two men across the street in an automobile and another getting into it, she told them someone had beaten the old man and asked them to come over and see what they were doing to him. As the three men (Echols, Hicks and Graves) approached, they saw two men, Horton and Hool, come from the rear of Coleman's house. Graves yelled, 'You live back there?' One of them said 'Yes' and both kept going. Echols and Hicks started after them and they began to run; one of them went 'through some houses' but Horton ran until he reached a Mercury automobile (later identified as that of Jackson), put something into it and took something out, and then continued to run up Broadway. Echols and Hicks caught him and one of them held him until the other brought the police. Meantime, Graves, inside the Coleman home, was keeping the police informed. There he saw Mr. Coleman who was bleeding from the mouth and had blood all over the chest and stomach of his underwear. As Coleman expressed it, 'The law taken me to the doctor' and the hospital. Before his arrest Graves asked Horton where he was going and he said 'I'm going to get a job.' Also, 'You know me'; but he was a stranger to Graves. Coleman, Mrs. Jones, Echols, Hicks and Graves positively identified appellant Horton as a participant in the incidents above related.

Mrs. Mary Edwards, the daughter of Coleman, lived with him but was absent on the morning of the 12th of December. Upon her return she saw her injured father and made an examination to see if her money, some $54 to $60, was gone. She kept it in a canvas bag in a locked trunk in her room at the back of the house. The money was there two or three days before the 12th. On this occasion she found the lock broken and twisted, torn off and hanging on the trunk which was open. The bag was there but the money was gone.

Horton's story as given to the police officers and repeated on the witness stand was that he was with one Appleberry at a certain coffee shop when Hool and Jackson drove up and asked him to go with them to help unstop a sink, which they had been trying to do all morning without success. He agreed to do so. They drove in Jackson's Mercury to 54th Street between Main and Broadway, parked and walked between houses to the rear of the Coleman home. A dog was barking. Hool and Jackson entered the enclosed porch of the...