People v. Arguilida

ADAMS, P. J.

In an information filed in San Joaquin County, Arguilida was charged with a violation of section

[624]

245 of the Penal Code, in that he committed an assault upon one Hillario Unayam, a human being, with a deadly weapon, to wit, a pocket knife. A jury convicted him, he made a motion for a new trial and a motion for referral to the probation officer, both of which were denied, and he has appealed from the judgment and the order denying a new trial, urging as grounds for reversal that the evidence is insufficient to support the verdict, that the corpus delicti was not established, that the court misdirected the jury, and that the verdict is contrary to the law and the evidence.

The evidence shows that the victim of. the assault was stabbed in the chest, while standing outside the Filipino Recreation Center in Stockton, conversing with friends, they having left the center when it closed about 1 a. m. As a result of his injuries Unayam was hospitalized for about a week. Appellant argues that the witnesses failed to identify him as the assailant; that their testimony only shows that someone reached over Unayam’s shoulder and stabbed him, and that none of the witnesses saw the knife with which the injuries were inflicted.

Unayam testified on direct examination that Arguilida .stabbed him, and he identified the defendant in the courtroom; but he stated he did not see the knife. On cross-examination, while he said that defendant was near him on the sidewalk leaning against the building, and he reiterated his former statement that defendant stabbed him, in reply to the question of defendant’s counsel, “Somebody in the crowd just reached over your shoulder and stabbed you, .isn’t that right?”, he said yes.

Frank Valdez, called as a witness by the prosecution, testified, however, that defendant did the stabbing, though he did not see any knife. There was also testimony that defendant ran away from the scene of the affray,' followed by two Filipinos and an officer, that he was found about a block away partially concealed behind the screen door of a store, and that upon his apprehension at that place a pocket knife with “something red” upon it “near the jaws” was found on his person.

Defendant’s testimony in defense was brief, and consisted merely of a denial of the commission of the stabbing, the ownership or possession of the knife, or that he had concealed himself behind the screen door at the time of his apprehension by police officers. It cannot be said, therefore, that the