People v. Falk

WHITE, P. J.

Defendant was accused in an information filed by the district attorney of Los Angeles County with a violation of Health and Safety Code, section 11500, in that she had in her possession

cannabis sativa,

commonly known as marijuana.

Following the entry of a plea of not guilty the cause proceeded to trial before a jury which found her guilty as charged. Following denial of a motion for a new trial judgment was pronounced.

Defendant prosecutes this appeal “from the judgment and verdict . . . and from the denial of defendant’s motion for a new trial . . . and from the sentence rendered . . .” Since no appeal is authorized from the verdict and sentence, the purported appeal therefrom must be dismissed (Pen. Code, § 1237;

People

v.

Tallman,

27 Cal.2d 209, 215 [163 P.2d 857]).

The factual background surrounding this prosecution may be thus epitomized: On the night of July 25, 1951, Police Officer Diaz along with other officers was admitted to Apartment 8 in an apartment building located at 1144 South Sierra Bonita,'by one Jerrott Shepherd. A few minutes later, the defendant entered the apartment. The officers searched the apartment, and on the top shelf of a closet, among other articles, Officer Diaz found a red purse containing a brown paper partially smoked cigarette containing a green leafy substance which was, in the opinion of a chemist who examined it, marijuana.

Officer Diaz asked the defendant if anybody lived in the apartment other than herself, and she stated that no one else did. He asked her if the partially burned cigarette which he had found belonged to her, and she said that she did not know anything about it. He asked her how she accounted for its being in her purse, and she said, “Well, if it is in my purse it is mine.” Officer Kennedy asked her if she smoked marijuana and she said that she did, and she started

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doing so about two years previously. She said that she had not used the purse for about a year.