People v. Sellers, Cr. 4572
| Decision Date | 27 April 1951 |
| Docket Number | Cr. 4572 |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
| Parties | PEOPLE v. SELLERS. |
Richard C. Fildew, Loa Angeles, for appellant.
Edmund G. Brown, Atty. Gen., Norman H. Sokolow, Deputy Atty. Gen., for respondent.
Appellant and his codefendant, Spencer, were convicted of a violation of section 288a of the Penal Code. Sellers has appealed from the judgment and from the order denying his motion for a new trial. There is also a purported appeal from the verdict.
Appellant contends that the evidence is insufficient to sustain his conviction. The act took place in a restroom having doorless stalls; there was a hole in the partition between the two stalls occupied by defendants; some of the partitions between otherstalls did not have such holes. Two police officers who had been observing the premises for two weeks entered a vacant space behind the restroom and lifted aside a portion of the wooden wall which had previously been cut out; the distance from the point where the officers were conducting their observation to the top of the toilet seat was between 7 1/2 and 8 feet. Three 100-watt light bulbs were burning in the restroom.
After Sellers and Spencer entered adjoining stalls they waited until the room was vacant with the exception of one person in another stall; the officers observed Spencer committing the act on Sellers. They left their observation posts, entered the restroom and found both defendants in the process of rearranging their clothing, whereupon they placed defendants under arrest.
The foregoing evidence is sufficient to sustain the conviction. People v. Bentley, 102 Cal.App.2d 97, 226 P.2d 669. Corroboration of the police officers' testimony is not required.
Defendant denied he had engaged in the act charged and several witnesses testified that his reputation in the community for morality, chasity, and nonhomosexuality was good. The effect of such evidence was for the jury to determine.
Defendant assigns as error the refusal of the court to permit a physician specializing in neurology and psychiatry to express an opinion as to whether, after having made a complete psychiatric examination, defendant was to any extent a homosexual. Defendant's argument is to the effect that by reason of the admissibility of evidence against a defendant of other sex crimes for the purpose of showing his tendency in that regard, he should be permitted to offer...
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State v. Sinnott
...lustive intent. The Supreme Court of California reversed, overruling an earlier case in an inferior court, People v. Sellers, 103 Cal.App.2d 830, 230 P.2d 398 (Cal.D.Ct.App.1951), and distinguishing those California cases where the statements of the defendant made while under the influence ......
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Williams v. State
...of the substantive crime charged since it would not prove performance or nonperformance of the criminal act. People v. Sellers, 103 Cal.App.2d 830, 230 P.2d 398 (1951). Additionally Blocker's testimony would have been largely cumulative since three defense witnesses, including the appellant......
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State v. Sinnott
...admission of such testimony, our attention is invited to the present decisional law in the State of California. In People v. Sellers, 103 Ca.App.2d 830, 230 P.2d 398 (1951), in which the defendant was charged with the crime of homosexual perversion, the court rejected expert psychiatric evi......
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O'kon v. Roland
...case of the reputation of a defendant in a sex perversion case "for morality, chastity, and nonhomosexuality". People v. Sellers, 103 Cal.App.2d 830, 230 P.2d 398 (1951). This decision was later disapproved on another point but admission of the evidence described was not disapproved. People......