People v. Pullins

• Decision Date: 06 February 1950
• Docket Number: Cr. 4392
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: PEOPLE v. PULLINS.

Page 436

214 P.2d 436

95 Cal.App.2d 902

PEOPLE v. PULLINS.

Cr. 4392.

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

Feb. 6, 1950.

Gladys Towles Root, Los Angeles, for appellant.

Fred N. Howser, Attorney General, William E. James, Deputy Attorney General, for respondent.

MOORE, Presiding Justice.

Having been convicted by the court of assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury defendant appeals, asserting the insufficiency of the evidence to sustain the judgment.

The prosecutrix was manager of a rooming house. About eleven o'clock in the evening appellant was found in the hallway kicking on a door near the apartment of prosecutrix. When she asked him to leave he approached her door, kicked at and called her profane names. She struck at him with her left fist but he caught her hand and pulled it to his mouth and chewed and broke her index finger. For 15 minutes they struggled on her bed. She was unable to remove her finger from his mouth until after she had hit him on the cheek with a stick. On hearing the scuffle, Miss Brooks, a tenant on the floor above, entered and separated them and found the bed bloody and both holding a stick which the prosecutrix obtained after the combat had commenced. Appellant told the officer who arrested him that he was trying to gain entrance to the room of a friend when the prosecutrix came out and they engaged in a fight 'and that her finger was in his mouth, so he chewed it.'

The skin and muscle of the finger had been mangled. Later her physician burned away the proud flesh, and bones (which she exhibited) came out. The wound resulted in a bent, immobile finger, as the trial judge observed.

Appellant contends that the mere biting of a finger as occurred here will not justify a conviction under section 245 of the Penal Code. ¹ The facts established by the adopted proof do not indicate so simple a matter as appellant claims. The prosecutrix must bear a helpless member of her body throughout her life. No explanation or excuse will justify a reasonable mind in concluding that an aggressor who chews a person's finger until its flesh is lacerated and its bones are broken has any intention other than the maiming or crippling of his victim. The force required to cause such a wound as that inflicted upon this young lady was not only 'likely to produce great bodily injury' but it was certain to cause it. The statute does not define the means to be used as requisite to a conviction. Its language 'is a general and comprehensive term designed to embrace many and various means or forces.' People v. Hinshaw, 194 Cal. 1, 17, 227 P. 156, 163. Whether the force applied and the means used were calculated to 'produce great bodily injury', is a question for the trier of fact. They are sufficient under the statute so long as they are 'likely to produce great bodily injury.' A grain of wheat may be blown with sufficient force to destroy the vision of an eye; a pillow in the hands of a demon may be the instrument of murder. While it is not essential to a conviction under section 245 that in intent severely to injure by the use of force be proved, People v. Schmidt, 66 Cal.App.2d 253, 256, 152 P.2d 1021, or that the injuries be serious (Ibid.) still the fact that the prosecutrix was disfigured and disabled is conclusive proof that the chewing of her finger did produce great bodily injury. People v. Montes, 91 Cal.App.2d 222, 204 P.2d 659. Since appellant's act caused such result the trial court had to determine only that his act was a 'means of force likely to produce' the injury. It was aided in deriving such finding by appellant's admission that he did not turn...