People v. Bennett

NOURSE, P. J.

The defendant was tried to a jury on five indictments charging 13 separate offenses, and a prior conviction of a felony. He admitted the prior conviction and went to the jury with a general denial of all the other charges. He insisted upon conducting his own defense and refused the offer of the trial court to assign counsel to aid him. After 10 days of trial the defendant was found guilty of six of the 13 offenses charged in the indictment, i.e., burglary, rape, violation of section 288a of the Penal Code, assault with intent to commit rape, and assault .with a deadly weapon. He was acquitted on the charges of robbery. The jury disagreed on the fourth and fifth indictments—presumably because of the insufficiency of the identification by the two alleged victims named therein. The appeal is taken from the s.everal judgments and from the orders denying a new trial.

[226]

We will consider the grounds of appeal in the order made by appellant. But primarily we should state that there is no contention that the evidence was insufficient to support the several verdicts.

First.

There was no error in the consolidation of the five indictments for purposes of trial. The offenses of which defendant was convicted were all of the same pattern and were all committed in the same manner. They were all properly consolidated under section 954, Penal Code. The unrelated charges of robbery were not found and their joinder was not prejudicial. However, defendant made no objection to the consolidation and the point cannot be raised for the first time on appeal.

(People

v.

Chessman,

38 Cal.2d 166, 175 [238 P.2d 1001];

People

v.

Van De Wouwer,

91 Cal.App.2d 633, 640 [205 P.2d 693].)

Second.

That the trial court erred in denying defendant more than 10 peremptory challenges since some of the counts included a charge of robbery. The point is not clearly presented. The record discloses that preliminarily defendant demanded 50 peremptory challenges—10 for each count in the indictment. This was denied, and properly so. Now he argues that he was entitled to 20 because of the robbery charge. But he exercised only 8 challenges on the whole case and announced his satisfaction with the jury as drawn. He may not complain on appeal.