People v. Hopper

SHEPARD, J.

Defendant was charged with the crime of manslaughter under Penal Code, section 192, subdivision 3(a), in that on or about May 15, 1958, he did unlawfully kill one J. A. Bellatti, a human being, in the driving of a vehicle with gross negligence. He was tried before the court without a jury. The court found him guilty as charged, and granted probation for three years on condition that he spend six

[408]

months in the custody of the sheriff as a preliminary condition thereof. Defendant appeals.

By stipulation of the parties the trial was had on the record of the evidence adduced at the preliminary examination. Defendant did not testify in his own behalf.

Defendant in his brief to this court makes only two points: 1. That the evidence was insufficient as a matter of law to sustain the finding of the trial court for the reason that no corpus delicti was proven in that the death of the decedent was not the proximate result of appellant’s driving. 2. That the evidence was insufficient as a matter of law to sustain the finding of the trial court in that the People failed to prove the death of decedent was the result of appellant’s driving with gross negligence.

When a cause reaches this court on appeal on the sole ground of insufficiency of the evidence to support the findings of the trial court “we may not reweigh the evidence or resolve conflicts therein in favor of the defendant. The credibility of the witnesses and the weight to be given their testimony are committed exclusively to the trier of fact.”

(People

v.

Flummerfelt,

153 Cal.App.2d 104, 106 [2] [313 P.2d 912].)

‘ ‘ The right to draw proper inferences from the evidence is a function of the jury; and as long as its conclusions do not do violence to reason, an appellate court is not permitted to substitute its findings of the ultimate fact for that reached by the constitutional as well as the statutory arbiter thereof.

Circumstantial evidence may be as convincing in its force and as conclusive as the testimony of witnesses to an overt act.”