People v. Daniels

MOORE, P. J.

Convicted of burglary in the second degree, defendant appeals. He now contends that (1) the evidence was not of sufficient substantiality to support the judgment; (2) his conviction resulted from his having suffered prior convictions of four felonies; (3) he was denied representation by counsel; and (4) was denied trial by jury.

Mrs. Roberts operated a beer tavern in the 4200 block on South Broadway in the city of Los Angeles. Behind the beer parlor is a room in which beer was stored, which could only be entered from the outside. On the night of appellant’s call, she had closed her shop at 11:45 p. m., locked the rear room with a padlock and left the premises for her dinner. Shortly after midnight, special officer Abrams approached the tavern, observed that the lock was gone, looked and saw appellant standing in the storeroom.' He ordered appellant to come out and inquired as to his purpose in visiting the room. His reply was that he had entered to urinate. The officer looked for the lock, found it had been bent and was lying on the floor. He found no instrument on appellant’s person that might have been used to pry the lock.

Mrs. Roberts returned while Abrams was conversing with appellant, and soon police officers arrived and took the latter away. She testified that she stored beer in the room and that it appeared not to have been disturbed by appellant.

[617]

On the following day an officer found a long, black screwdriver stuck in the wall and the proprietress testified that it did not belong to her.

Insufficient Proof?

Appellant contends there is insufficient evidence of felonious intent to support the judgment; that the evidence raised only a suspicion of felonious intent; that appellant’s positive testimony as to his innocent intentions was uncontradicted and therefore should have been believed; that the State’s failure to introduce evidence of fingerprints on the padlock raises the presumption that such evidence would have been adverse to the prosecution.

The established facts are that the prosecutrix locked her storeroom with a padlock at 11:45 p. m.; appellant was found inside the room shortly after midnight; the padlock was found bent, lying on the floor of the room. It was a reasonable inference that a stranger found alone in that room after midnight had entered the place for the purpose of committing some crime. It is not likely that another person could have in the brief space of time after Mrs. Roberts’ departure and the arrival of appellant forced the padlock off the door and left the premises. Appellant was found there, inside the building. From the fact of his presence in the room, alone, after midnight and the broken lock, it was no strain upon the reasoning processes to deduce his felonious purpose. The trial court could reasonably have found that no other person had entered the same room after 11:45 p. m.; that appellant had, alone, effected a forcible entry for a criminal purpose. Why should he have chosen that storeroom if in quest of a urinal while numerous service stations and barrooms were available along the thoroughfares? If such was his need, he might, as a reasonable person have stopped on his way from Watts at 77th Street to Broadway at 43rd. His testimony that he arrived at Mrs. Roberts’ tavern at 2 a. m. may have impressed the court with his lack of truthfulness in view of the contrary testimony that he arrived there “shortly after midnight.”