People v. Blodgett

46 Cal.2d 114 (1956) THE PEOPLE, Respondent,

v.

ERNEST BLODGETT [DON WILLIAMS], Appellant.

Crim. No. 5759. Supreme Court of California. In Bank.

Feb. 3, 1956. Benjamin F. Marlowe for Appellant.

Edmund G. Brown, Attorney General, Clarence A. Linn, Chief Assistant Attorney General, and Victor Griffith, Deputy Attorney General, for Respondent.

TRAYNOR, J.

Defendant was found guilty by a jury of one count of possessing marijuana in violation of Health and Safety Code, section 11500. His motions for probation and for a new trial were denied, and he was sentenced to serve three months in the county jail. He appeals from the judgment and the order denying his motion for a new trial.

At approximately 8 p. m. on August 4, 1954, Nowlin Sanders and Mrs. Jacqueline Grundy met defendant on the street near the Willow Hotel at 7th and Willow in Oakland. Sanders had known defendant for about three months. The three went into the restroom of the hotel where they stayed for five or ten minutes. Defendant gave Sanders $10 to make some kind of purchase. Sanders left the hotel, made the purchase, and returned, and the three spent another ten minutes in the restroom. They then visited a friend in another hotel, and after they left and were walking on the street defendant told Mrs. Grundy and Sanders that he had bought five "joints of pot" i.e., marijuana. Defendant and Sanders shared a marijuana cigarette, and the parties separated. At approximately 3 a. m. the following morning Mrs. Grundy and Sanders were together at the Willow Hotel. Sanders left to get a cab, found one at a taxi stand a block away, got in the front seat and asked the driver to drive to the hotel. The cab double parked in front of the hotel [116] and Sanders went in. Shortly thereafter Mrs. Grundy came out of the hotel, got in the cab, and sat on the right side of the rear seat. At about the same time defendant approached the cab and told the driver that he wished to go to 12th and Broadway. The driver told him that if his other fare was going in the same direction, he could go along. Defendant then entered the cab and sat on the left side of the rear seat. In the meantime, Officers Barker and Tarabochia of the Oakland Police Department had been observing the cab as it stood in front of the hotel and decided to investigate it. They approached and ordered the occupants to get out. As Officer Barker opened the left rear door he saw defendant withdraw his left hand from behind the seat at the juncture of the seat and back cushion. After defendant and Mrs. Grundy got out, the officer removed the rear seat and found three marijuana cigarettes where defendant had withdrawn his hand. The driver testified that earlier in the evening he had to clean out the back of his cab because a passenger had been ill. He had taken the seat out and at that time there were no cigarettes in the back of the cab. No one had been in the back seat thereafter until Mrs. Grundy and defendant sat there. After the officers had ordered Mrs. Grundy and defendant out of the cab, Sanders came out of the hotel. The officers then asked the cab driver to take all of them to the police station. Sanders asked defendant why they were being arrested and defendant replied that the police had found some "pot." Defendant told the interviewing officer at the police station that at the time he was ordered out of the cab he had his left hand in his pocket and took it out to push back on the seat to raise himself. He stated that he had not smoked marijuana for about a year. At the trial he denied having smoked marijuana with Sanders and denied placing the marijuana cigarettes in the cab. Mrs. Grundy, Sanders, and the driver also denied placing the cigarettes in the cab.