People v. Lathrop

YORK, P. J.

The defendants were charged jointly with the crime of grand theft and upon a jury trial were found guilty as charged. Defendant Mead alone prosecutes this appeal from the “conviction, judgment and sentence imposed upon” him, upon the grounds that (-1) the evidence is insufficient to support the verdict; (2) the trial court erred in restricting him upon cross-examination as to the question of value of the property alleged to have been taken; and (3) the court erred in refusing to give certain instructions requested by appellant.

A review of the evidence adduced at the trial reveals that around the hour of 11:20 o'clock on the evening of March 23, 1939, Deputy Sheriff Reid responding to a call arrived at the corner of Pico-Coffman Road and Whittier Boulevard in the county of Los Angeles, where he found an abandoned Studebaker sedan loaded with oil well equipment described as tool joints and couplings. Apparently the automobile had broken down under the weight of the load, because the tires on the rear "wheels were off and the rims flattened out. The officer parked his car a short distance away and about an hour later he observed a Ford truck drive up and stop beside the Studebaker; upon approaching the same he found that defendant Lathrop was driving the truck and defendant Summers and appellant Mead were standing near the Studebaker. When questioned by the said officer, appellant gave his name, stated that he owned the Studebaker, but denied that he knew anything about the theft of the oil well equipment, although he admitted that he had been with the two defendants and had helped (hem load the equipment into his car. In the presence of appellant, defendant Lathrop

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told Officer Reid that they had stolen the equipment, and defendant Summers admitted that he had helped to steal it. In company with Lathrop and two other deputy sheriffs, Officer Reid traced the rim marks of the Studebaker into a gas station at the corner of Durfee Road and Whittier Boulevard, from the gas station to Passons Boulevard, and south thereon about a mile when the tracks disappeared. From that point Officer Reid drove under the direction of defendant Lathrop to the corner of Butler Road and Santa Fe Springs Road and into a field near the Union Oil Company yards, where he observed “the grass all tramped down and the ground cut up with something, I don’t know what, a fresh disturbance of the earth. There was a five or six-foot wire fence there, a cattle fence construction, which was bent slightly out, where various types of couplings were stacked on the inside of the fence, ... We returned to the station, ordered the truck and Studebaker car and its contents impounded in the Golden State Garage in Norwalk . . . We went back in the station again and talked to both Summers and Mead again, and still Mead denied that he knew the material had been stolen. Summers admitted the fact that he knew it was being stolen. ... He said he was with the boys when they stole the material and that he knew it was being stolen. Q. Was Mead present at that time? A. He was. He still denied it. Q. What did he say ? A. He says, ‘The car was mine, and I was with them, but I didn’t know it was being stolen. . . . The Court: Mr. Reid, I am not quite clear as to an expression you used. Did you mean Mr. Mead said he was there when the oil fittings were taken, but did not know they were being stolen? A. Yes, your Honor, that is the statement. . . . He didn’t deny—he didn’t deny that he had stolen it; he denied that he knew it was being stolen, but he was there with the boys and he owned the car. ’ ’