People v. Searcy

ASHBURN, J.

Defendant was convicted of burglary in the second degree (Pen. Code, § 459), with a prior conviction of burglary in the State of Louisiana found to be true. Though represented by the public defender at the trial, appellant appears in propria persona in this court. His brief urges insufficiency of the evidence to support a conviction and to that end refers to a number of alleged conflicts in the evidence.

Mrs. Florita Toller and her husband were the owners of an apartment house known as numbers 539-541 South Crocker Street, in the city of Los Angeles. It was being condemned by the county of Los Angeles and the occupants had vacated it before June 1, 1956, the date of the burglary. The doors were locked and the windows were covered with boards. The building had four walls and a roof and contained furniture and furnishings.

So far as pertinent, burglary is defined by section 459, Penal Code: “Every person who enters any house, . . . or other building, . . . with intent to commit grand or petit larceny or any felony is guilty of burglary. ’ ’ Habitation of human beings is not of the essence.

(People

v.

Coffee,

52 Cal.App. 118, 120 [198 P. 213].) The “structure need only be one having four sides and a roof”

(People

v.

Gibbons,

206 Cal. 112, 114 [273 P. 32] ; see also 9 Cal.Jur.2d, § 8, p. 457), and the value of the property is immaterial, for the intent to commit either grand or petit larceny is enough.

On May 31, 1956, at about 7 a. m. defendant, another man, and a white woman, visited Julius Kashkin who was engaged in renting trucks at a location which was about two blocks from the burglarized premises. The woman rented the truck and told Kashkin that defendant would drive it. Kashkin told her to return it before 6 o’clock that evening and she said they would do so, but it was not done. Kashkin, after his place of business closed at 6:30 p. m., saw the truck parked on a vacant lot in the 500 block of South Crocker Street. It was then empty and no one was in sight. On the

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