Trujillo v. People, 20369

Decision Date21 January 1963
Docket NumberNo. 20369,20369
PartiesFred Guadalupe TRUJILLO, Plaintiff in Error. v. The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Defendant in Error.
CourtColorado Supreme Court

Fred G. Trujillo, pro se.

Duke W. Dunbar, Atty. Gen., Frank E. Hickey, Deputy Atty. Gen., J. F. Brauer, Asst. Atty. Gen., Denver, for defendant in error.

MOORE, Justice.

Plaintiff in error, to whom we will refer as the defendant, was convicted on both counts of an information filed against him in the district court of El Paso county, by which he was charged with burglary and assault with intent to commit robbery. The trial court sentenced him to a term in the state penitentiary on each of said counts, the terms to run consecutively.

Defendant seeks review by writ of error and urges as grounds for reversal:

(1) That the evidence was insufficient to establish his guilt, and that his motion for a directed verdict at the close of all the evidence should have been sustained.

(2) That the trial court erred in giving an instruction to the jury with reference to defendant's flight from the scene of the crime.

The substance of the evidence on behalf of the people is as follows: On June 30, 1961, Miss Maud Forshee, then 87 years old, lived alone at 521 East Kiowa Street, Colorado Springs, Colorado. About 9 o'clock that evening she heard a noise in the leaves in the flower bed next to her diningroom. She immediately phoned the police from the diningroom and, just as she set the telephone down upon completion of that call, a man came toward her from the kitchen. The man pushed her down, slapped her a couple of times, and said, 'I want your money, where is your money?' Maud Forshee told the man, 'I have no money, I am an old woman on a pension,' whereupon he dragged her about twenty feet out the back door to a small shed attached to the kitchen. The man then apparently heard the police outside and left. Miss Forshee's phone call had been received by the Colorado Springs police dispatcher at approximately 9:11 P.M. and he immediately dispatched a car by radio to 521 East Kiowa Street. The police officers who responded to the call went to the back yard of 523 East Kiowa, from which a man was seen leaving 521 East Kiowa. At that time the police heard a woman moaning and calling for help from the rear porch of 521 East Kiowa. As soon as the officer's flashlight hit the man leaving the house he started running through the back yards in the area. The police officer made positive identification of defendant as the man he saw coming out of the door from the room in which the victim was later found. He caught defendant's face in his flashlight from a distance of ten feet. Shortly thereafter defendant was spotted lying in the grass under a lilac bush. When ordered by one policeman to stay there he started running and leaped three fences between the back yards and finally came to rest when first a warning shot had been fired into the air, and then a...

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4 cases
  • State v. Rodgers, 2
    • United States
    • Arizona Court of Appeals
    • December 28, 1967
    ...court to give an instruction on flight, i.e., compare Armijo v. People, 134 Colo. 344, 304 P.2d 633 (1956), with Trujillo v. People, 151 Colo. 373, 377 P.2d 948 (1963); People v. Laczny, 63 Ill.App.2d 324, 211 N.E.2d 438 (1965), with People v. Spaulding, 309 Ill. 292, 141 N.E. 196 (1923); S......
  • Trujillo v. People, 24656
    • United States
    • Colorado Supreme Court
    • April 17, 1972
    ...claiming that the evidence introduced at trial was insufficient to sustain the jury's verdict. On January 21, 1963, in Trujillo v. People, 151 Colo. 373, 377 P.2d 948, we found no merit in this argument and affirmed the judgment of the trial court. Thereafter, defendant filed a petition for......
  • Gallegos v. People
    • United States
    • Colorado Supreme Court
    • August 6, 1968
    ...there is evidence of flight as a deliberate attempt to avoid detection and arrest, a flight instruction is proper. See Trujillo v. People, 151 Colo. 373, 377 P.2d 948, Goldsberry v. People,149 Colo. 431, 369 P.2d 787 and Mills v. People, 146 Colo. 457, 362 P.2d 152. In our view, the evidenc......
  • Trujillo v. Tinsley, 7704.
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit
    • June 22, 1964
    ...sentencing him for burglary and assault with intent to commit robbery. The Colorado Supreme Court affirmed the conviction (Trujillo v. People, Colo., 377 P.2d 948), and the United States Supreme Court denied certiorari (374 U.S. 849, 83 S.Ct. 1912, 10 L.Ed.2d The prisoner urges that the evi......

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