People v. Thornton

FOURT, J.

This is an appeal from a judgment wherein the defendant was convicted of violating the provisions of subdivision 1, section 337a, Penal Code (bookmaking), and from an order denying motion for a new trial.

[719]

In an information filed in Los Angeles County, the defendant was charged in four counts with violation of section 337a, Penal Code, subdivisions 1, 2, 3 and 4, respectively. The cause was submitted upon the transcript of the preliminary hearing and additional evidence introduced at the time of trial. The defendant was found guilty of the charges set forth in Count 1, and not guilty as to Counts 2, 3 and 4.

A résumé of the facts is as follows: Prior to April 2, 1957, Peter Ellena, Jr., a police officer of Pasadena, received information from a reliable confidential informant that wagers on horse races were being accepted at a residence at 269 South DeLacey Street, Pasadena. On April 2, 1957, the house was placed under surveillance and the officers observed many automobiles arriving at the house between the hours of 10:30 o’clock a. m., and 12:30 o’clock p. m. The occupants of the automobiles would enter the house and then return to their cars in three to five minutes, and then leave the area. They observed also a great deal of “foot traffic.” The house was “staked out” the next day, and the officers on that day “observed the same thing.”

On April 4, 1957, the officers secured a search warrant. To secure such a warrant one of the officers set forth in an affidavit that on or about the 3d day of April, 1957, the crime of bookmaking, a felony, was committed by Thornton, who then and there had in his possession, with the intent to use as a means of committing a public offense, bookmaking records, markers, bookmaking paraphernalia, etc.; further, that the police department had received information in regard to Thornton, and had, through an agent, placed bets with a person at the 269 South DeLacey Street location; that Thornton had a gambling past and had been known to men in the police department for several years; that there was reasonable cause to believe, and that the affiant did believe that the personal goods and property above referred to were then concealed in the house. There then followed a request for a search warrant for the recovery of said goods and property, and that the same be brought before a magistrate and disposed of according to law.