People v. Le Grant

KINCAID, J. pro tem.

By indictment, Raymond Poche and the appealing defendants, Howard Le Grant and Vincent Poche, Jr., were accused of the crime of murder, a felony.

A trial by jury was waived by each defendant, and, following the court trial, Raymond Poche was exonerated and the appealing defendants were found guilty of .the crime of manslaughter, a felony, as a lesser offense than that charged in the indictment of murder but one necessarily included therein. From such judgment and from the order of the court denying them a motion for a new trial, such defendants jointly appeal.

While the evidence is highly conflicting in many particulars, viewed most favorably in support of the judgment, the record discloses the following series of events to have taken place.

At about 12:15 a. m., on September 6th, 1945, the decedent, Elliott Casselman, a United States Army soldier in uniform, had left a bar, in company with two lady friends and was driving his automobile with them as companions in an easterly direction on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles. Another automobile, operated by the defendant Howard Le Grant, with the defendant Vincent Poche, Jr., accompanying him in the front seat, and with Raymond Poche and a young lady occupying the rear seat, was likewise proceeding at the same place and time and in the same direction. As the automobiles were passing in traffic remarks were exchanged between the occupants of the two cars, whereby someone in the Le Grant automobile said, “do you want to make something of it?” to which Casselman replied, “sure.” Thereupon, someone from Le Grant’s car said, “pull over to the curb,” whereupon both automobiles were parked adjacent to the curb with Le Grant’s car some 35 feet ahead of the point where Casselman had parked. The three male occupants of Le Grant’s car thereupon got out and stood together at a point on the sidewalk about the rear of that automobile, while at the same time Casselman left his car and walked toward them with his arms swinging

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naturally at his sides. No word was spoken hy any of the four men at that time, but as Casselman got within range of the three standing men, the defendant, Vincent Poche, Jr., struck Casselman about the chin, knocking him backward into a plate glass show window of a store building with such force that the window was cracked. Casselman then rebounded or lunged forward and was struck again by Vincent Poche, Jr., whereupon Casselman again was foroed back into and through the window, striking the rear portion of his head and upper body on the corner of the glass and of the base of the window, shattering the glass on both sides of such corner. He then slumped to the ground, unconscious, and died either then or very shortly thereafter. Neither Raymond Poche nor Le Grant advanced from the point where the three were originally standing on the sidewalk, nor did they physically participate in the actual attack upon Casselman. Additional evidence further involving Le Grant is found in the testimony of police officers who took statements from him following the incidents in question, to the effect that after he got out of his ear he went over and kept the people back in order to see that it was a fair fight and that they fought together without anyone “butting in.”