People v. Roeder

YORK, P. J.

Appellant was found guilty of the crime of burglary in the second degree by the court sitting without a jury, whereupon he made a motion for a new trial which was denied. The proceedings were then suspended and appellant was granted probation on condition that he serve one year in the county jail and pay a fine of $100. lie prosecutes this appeal from said order denying his motion for new trial, relying upon the following grounds for a reversal thereof: (1) that the verdict is contrary to the evidence; (2) that the evidence, as a matter of law, is insufficient to sustain the verdict; (3) that the court erred in overruling his objections to certain questions asked by the district attorney, the “only purpose to be served” thereby being “to degrade and prejudice him in the eyes of the trial court”.

Following is a brief summary of the facts upon which the instant prosecution was founded:

One Ivar L. Kennedy, a resident of the Californian Hotel in the city of Los Angeles, left his room in the hotel between the hours of 2:30 and 3 :00 o’clock in the afternoon of December 12, 1939, and upon his return thereto between 6:00 and 7:00 o’clock that evening, he discovered that his clothes and *a Gladstone bag, upon which his full name was embossed in gold letters, were missing.

F. W. Benson, ticket agent for the Santa Fe and Burlington Trailways at San Bernardino, testified that on December 13, 1939, a Gladstone bag bearing the name “I. L. Kennedy” was left with him for checking by a young man, but he could not identify the appellant as being the particular young man who left the bag with him. When the bag had remained in his custody for about a month, ticket agent Benson opened it, secured the address of the owner, and after some correspondence with him, returned the bag to the said Ivar L. Ken

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nedy. Three months thereafter, i. e., on either March 19th or 20th, appellant called and presented to the said ticket agent at his station in San Bernardino a claim check bearing the number A-2125 and asked for the bag which had theretofore been checked under a corresponding number. To this inquiry, Benson replied that any bag left with him for more than thirty days would be sent to the claim department of the company in Los Angeles. After checking the luggage in his office, said ticket agent informed appellant that the bag had not been turned over to the claim department for the reason that it was “a stolen bag from Los Angeles”, and that he had turned over to the police the matter of this particular check number; that if appellant would wait a moment, he (Benson) would call the police 'department, which he did, and when he told appellant that “the police would be down in a few minutes”, appellant walked outside the station and Benson did not see him again until he saw him in court.