People v. Levene

DOOLING, J.

Defendant appeals from judgments of conviction of the violation of subsections 2 and 4 of section 337a of the Penal Code and from the order denying a new trial.

On September 7, 1950, a party of police officers forcibly entered an office in San Francisco. They had obtained a key to this office from the manager of the building, but when they found that this key would not open the door because it was

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“double-locked” they broke the door down. The defendant was the only person in the office and a key which opened the lock on the outer door was found on his person. In the room were two radios, a typewriter, a combination cash register and adding machine, and a pen which wrote in red ink. On top of a cabinet the officers found a racing guide, the “Daily Bulletin and Sports Review,” for the current day on which notations had been made in red ink and several sheets of paper with notations in red ink which one of the officers testified were recordings of bets on horses which had run that day.

One of the witnesses testified to the following conversation:

“I says ‘Been bookmaking about two weeks?’ he says, ‘No, I’m not a bookmaker.’ And I asked him, I said, ‘Well, how do you account for this ? ’ showing him the record of bets. He says, ‘Those are my own bets.’ . . .

“After that I called his attention to Judy, Martin, Doc and several other names that are on the extreme left side of the sheet, and I said, ‘What is all this?’ I says, ‘Those are not all your own.’ He says, ‘Well, I take a few for my friends.’ Then I asked him if he had written those numbers and bets on the sheets, and he said ‘No.’ He denied it. He hadn’t written it. So there was the pen lying on the desk. ... It had red ink, it was writing in red ink, and I asked him, ‘Is this your pen?’ He said yes, it was his pen.”

The defendant did not take the stand. He produced one witness, Zimmerman, who testified that he had rented and furnished the office to go into the business of drug distributor with defendant, and that defendant was spending such time in the office as he saw fit before the business got into operation. Zimmerman denied any knowledge of the records of bets which had been found in the office.