People v. Kazarian

NOURSE, P. J.

The appellant was convicted on a charge of robbery.

There are only two matters raised on appeal, the first and most important being that a confession introduced in evidence was not free and voluntary.

[472]

Appellant contends that six officers kept the defendant in a 6 by 6-foot room for two and a half hours and interrogated him by “third degree methods.”

We are asked to say that admission of the confession was reversible error. This we cannot do. The record (at the place referred to by appellant) indicates that the police testified that there were four of them in the room with the accused. The accused testified that Officer 0 ’Leary was there at all times and that the other officers came in one at a time (and hence, with the stenographer, there would have been not more than three persons other than defendant in the room at one time). The evidence reasonably bears the construction that after being questioned not over one hour and fifteen minutes or one hour and a half appellant admitted his participation in the robbery and that the rest of the time was consumed in reducing the confession to typewritten form. It does not appear in the testimony of the defendant that he at any time requested presence of counsel or was refused such request.

Appellant relies heavily on

People

v.

Borello,

161 Cal. 367 [119 P. 500, 37 L.R.A.N.S. 434], although there is no showing in the instant case, by uncontradicted evidence, of any improper conduct on the part of the police officers. In the Borello case the court refers to proven instances of improper conduct by the officers and the cases are distinguishable on this ground.

In

People

v.

Quan Gim Gow,

23 Cal.App. 507 [138 P. 918], the defendant was a Chinese and was held on a murder charge at a time when there was a strong public feeling against the orientals. At times the defendant did not “savey” the interrogation. Thus there is, in the Quan Gim Gow -case, an aggravated situation in which the person in custody was in fear of the officers because of his lack of understanding of the English language and his belief that he would be treated inhumanely because of his race. These circumstances were held to have so weakened his mental resistance as to render his answers inadmissible.