People v. Felli

WOOD (Fred B.), J.

Convicted of burglary, defendant as grounds for reversal claims (1) all the evidence was improperly admitted because of an illegal arrest and seizure and (2) certain evidence found in his room was illegally obtained, hence, improperly admitted.

The burglary occurred at the Jose Bowl in San Jose sometime between the closing hour on the evening of December 24 and the opening of the place on the morning of December 26, 1956. Certain circumstances indicated it was likely an ‘‘ inside job” which, coupled with the fact that defendant, an employee engaged as a pin setter, did not report for work on the morning of the 26th, caused him to be suspected as the perpetrator of the crime.

Officer Hilseher, after inspecting the scene of the crime and talking to the proprietor and one of the latter’s employees, went to defendant’s hotel room, knocked on the door and received no answer. At Hilseher’s request the hotel clerk unlocked and opened the door and the two looked in but did not enter. He did not see defendant in the room.

Hilseher then put out a bulletin for defendant’s arrest. He was apprehended at 12:37 p. m. on December 26 while driving his car along a street a few blocks from his hotel room. He was taken to police headquarters and the car was towed to a garage. At 1:30 p. m. the car was searched and a tire lug wrench discovered which became an important piece of evidence at the trial.

At 2:30 the same afternoon the officers went to defendant’s hotel room, taking therefrom a Mounds candy box, a carton and a half of Chesterfield cigarettes, a key, some scraps of metal, a piece of paper, and a pair of worn Thom McAn shoes.

(1)

Defendant’s arrest was legal. A felony had been committed and the officers had reasonable cause for believing that the defendant committed it.

Among the indicia that this was an “inside job” were these: An inside latch had been removed from one of the windows. The window was about three feet above the ground level on

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the outside and between six and seven feet above the floor on the inside. No other point of entry was found. A series of lockers five and a half feet high were customarily in place along the wall below the window and two beer cases had been moved to a position alongside of the lockers. The beer cases, apparently, had been moved from their customary position on the other side of the corridor. The only parts molested behind the lunch counter were those where money had been kept or where the burglar went to get tools; he did not ransack all the drawers; he went directly to where the tools were kept and these tools, in turn, were used on the safe. He went to where a piggy bank was hidden behind a utensil tray and removed the money from that. He went to an envelope containing money when he had nine or ten hooks to choose from and took one envelope from this particular hook, the only envelope containing money. Of the several locked doors in the establishment, the burglar went to the door of the office which contained the safe; the other doors were unmolested.