People v. Grischott

GRIFFIN, J.

Defendant and appellant Alice Cordelia Grischott was charged jointly in two counts of an information with defendants Francis W. Richards, Billy Jones and James D. Hunt, with the crime of burglarizing two furniture stores

[632]

on the same evening. Appellant plead not guilty. The other defendants entered pleas of guilty. A jury verdict resulted in appellant’s conviction on both counts. She appealed and questions the sufficiency of the evidence to show that she aided and abetted the other defendants in the commission of the offenses.

The evidence shows that on the night of December 10, 1950, about 3:30 a.m., a police officer caught the named defendants in the store of the Vanderwall Furniture Company, in Redlands, hiding behind a counter. They had been endeavoring to open a safe by means of a sledge hammer. They had, a few minutes previous to this time, entered another near-by furniture store and were unsuccessful in breaking open the safe located therein. The officer handcuffed them and put them in a police car which was parked behind the store about 50 feet east of an alley. Immediately thereafter appellant drove up behind them through the alley and stopped. The officers went to her and asked her what she was doing in that alley at that time of the morning. She remarked that she was after some fellows she was supposed to pick up there, and mentioned the names of the defendants Richards and Jones; that she had brought them to Redlands “to do some work. ” She was also taken into custody. She later mentioned she had left the three defendants out close to another near-by furniture store and that she thereafter picked them up and drove them to this alley back of the furniture store where they were later apprehended; that she drove down the street and waited for them at their suggestion; that she got tired of waiting and decided to come back to see why it had taken them so long. In another conversation the officers asked her what part she had played in the burglary on that night and she stated that defendant Jones asked her to drive her car for him to a place on D Street in San Bernardino; that she did so and stayed there until about 1:30 a.m.; that the other two defendants came out, got in the ear, and asked her to drive them to Redlands because they “had a job to do.” One of them told appellant that they were going to buy her some gasoline for her car. She stated she drove the defendants over to Redlands. She told the officers that there was a sack of tools in the car.