People v. Wilt

MARKS, J.

This is an appeal from a judgment and from an order denying defendant’s motion for new trial.

Defendant was charged with the crime of robbery and with having suffered a prior conviction. He admitted the prior conviction and entered a plea of not guilty to the charge of robbery.

Defendant urges that the evidence was insufficient to sustain the verdict and judgment in three particulars: (1) That the

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was not sufficiently proven and, therefore, three confessions made by him should not have been admitted in evidence nor considered against him; (2) that independent of those confessions there was no evidence identifying him as one of the perpetrators of the crime; (3) that there was no evidence that any money was taken froin Odee Toon, the victim of the robbery.

Toon testified that on the evening of February 16, 1940, he was in a cafe in Selma, California, where he had been drinking for some time; that at about midnight defendant and G. W. Mainard entered the cafe and drank with him; that later, as the cafe was being closed, he invited those present to come to his hotel room and “have a few drinks”; that defendant and Mainard accompanied him to his room; that as he opened the door and turned on the light defendant struck him, knocking him onto the bed; that someone went through the pockets of his trousers, taking - his money, and through the dresser drawers and the clothes hanging in his closet; that both his eyes were swollen from the blows. There is evidence that on the next day his eyes were blackened and his face bruised.

On cross-examination Toon became confused. He did not know how many persons went with him to his room, who struck him, how much money he had nor who rifled his pockets. He consistently maintained, however, that someone struck him, knocking him down; that someone went through

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his pockets and removed his money as he heard' the clink of coins being taken from him.

The

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