People v. Taylor

WILLIS, J.,

pro tem.

By two counts of an information the appellants, together with their brother Aubrey S. Taylor, were charged in separate counts with burglary and receiving stolen property. Upon the trial before a jury Aubrey S. Taylor was acquitted of the charge of burglary but found guilty of the charge of receiving stolen property, while appellants were each found guilty on.both counts. From the judgments entered the latter bring this appeal.

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Appellants contend: (1) that the evidence is insufficient to sustain the verdicts; (2) that a lawful conviction cannot be sustained of both the crime of burglary and that of receiving stolen property where the property received was that which was stolen at the time of the burglary; and (3) that error was committed in the giving of certain instructions.

The evidence reveals that on Saturday night, March 3, 1934, an automobile wrecking- and supply shop on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood was burglarized and certain articles including tools and tires and a generator were stolen. On March 13, 1934, at Alhambra, a Ford automobile and a Dodge automobile were found by an officer parked near each other at a highway curb, at about 4 o’clock in the morning. It was admitted at the trial that the Ford belonged to Wayne Taylor, and the Dodge was shown by proof to belong to LaVerne Taylor. In the Ford there were found two cold chisels, three punches and a star drill, and on the wheels two tires identified by witnesses as having been in the shop when burglarized. In the Dodge car there were found a sledge hammer, a crow bar and cold chisel, identified by witnesses as property which was in the burglarized shop at the time it was entered. Appellant Wayne Taylor was found on the sidewalk near the Ford automobile at about 4 A. M. of March 13th by an officer, and in answer to questions gave his name as “Rex Valeton” and said he had been driven out to Alhambra by a lady friend in a Plymouth coupe, and was down there visiting a friend whose name and address he said he did not know. Other evidence tended to prove he had driven the Ford in question to Alhambra with a lady and a man friend accompanying him. He stated to the officers that he did not know where the tires on the Ford came from, and that the tools had been placed in the Ford by someone else—he did not know by whom. He stated he was buying the Ford from LaVerne Taylor. The latter, whose place or time of arrest does not appear, told the officers in a separate conversation about 9 o’clock of the same morning that he did not know where the tires or the tools came from. He stated that he had purchased the Dodge car from an insurance company on Venice Boulevard in Los Angeles and had sold it to one Ray Snyder, whose address he could not give. In the pos