People v. Kinman

DORAN, J.

This is an appeal from “the judgment and sentence. ’ ’

Appellant was charged by information with assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury committed upon Irma Kinman. The jury returned a verdict of guilty and defendant was sentenced to the county jail for nine 'months. Mrs. Kinman was divorced from appellant in 1946.

As recited in appellant’s brief, Mrs. Kinman arrived home about 4:45 p. m. as was her custom, “. . . she walked about four steps into the kitchen; Mr. Kinman walked out of dining room and turned to face her; she said ‘Hello, how are you; I heard you were getting out today.’ ‘Then I was hit.’ ‘I guess his fist’; to her knowledge there was no one else present. ‘He hit me and I fell down.’ ‘Where did he hit you?’ ‘Right in the face. Then I have a vague recollection of being kicked and sort of saying “Please don’t do that.” ’ She ‘must have gotten up and wandered in the hall. ’

“She had not noticed anything in defendant’s hands; she does not remember being struck more than one blow; she ‘vaguely’ remembered the kick; he tore her clothes; her eyes were bloody; she was taken to Santa Monica Emergency hospital ; her head was X-rayed; she had four front upper teeth loosened and two black eyes and at trial she had a scar on bridge of nose; the nose had been cut and the doctors sewed it, and also a cut over right eye; each required two stitches; she also had bruise at base of spine about four inches in diameter. Photographs of witness, taken afterwards on April 19, are Peoples Exhibits 1 and 2; her sweater, Exhibit 3,

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and dress in Exhibit 4; witness weighed about 90 pounds, is 5 feet tall; defendant weighed usually around 185 lbs., and she thinks he is about six feet one; . . . ”

Also, “. . . in the testimony of Officer Leo C. Depres, he testified defendant told him ‘I saw her in there so I just punched her in the mouth.’ I asked him the reason—and he said, ‘Well, one of her boy friends whacked my kid around so I just kicked the hell out of her’—Again: Question by Mr. Matthews: ‘ Officer, in substance the defendant told you, did he not, he came home and he found out his wife’s boy friend was whacking the hell out of his kid? He couldn’t find the boy friend, so he took it out on his wife?’ A.—‘That is correct sir.’ The defendant testified on this point that a playmate of his son had told defendant that ‘ Irma's boy friend beat Steele’ (his son). ‘I wound up punching her in the eye. ’ Officer Depres also testified he noticed a slight abrasion or laceration on the first knuckle joints of the index and middle fingers of defendant’s left hand and a slight abrasion of the index finger of defendant’s right hand.”