People v. Loomis

CRAIL, P. J.

This appeal is taken from judgments of conviction on one count of burglary and three counts of forgery, as well as two prior felony convictions, and from an order denying a motion for a new trial. The defendant entered, in addition to a “not guilty” plea, a plea of “not guilty by reason of insanity”. On the issue of his sanity, the jury found the defendant sane.

Appellant’s principal contention is that the evidence is insufficient to sustain the verdicts, coupled with the claim that the verdicts rest solely upon the uncorroborated testi

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mony of an accomplice. The evidence discloses that on Friday, August 27, 1937, the construction office which defendant was charged with having burglarized was locked and the windows were unbroken. On Monday, August 30th, two windows were found broken and it was discovered that thirty numbered cheeks were missing. Between August 27th and September 1st, two of the missing checks were cashed by appellant and one by a codefendant, who pleaded guilty. It was shown that the checks were not signed by the construction company against whose account they purported to be drawn and a handwriting expert testified that they were made out and signed by appellant, whose handwriting he had compared with that on the cheeks. The codefendant testified that on the evening of August 27, 1937, he drove appellant to the construction office and that he, the codefendant, then went away because he understood that appellant was going to get some checks. Later appellant picked up the codefendant and took him to an apartment house where he exhibited the thirty checks which had been stolen from the construction company office. At that time appellant wrote out the three checks which he and the eodefendant later cashed.

Viewing the evidence in a light most favorable to the People, respondent herein, as we are constrained to do under the familiar rule that all intendments are in favor of upholding the judgment of the trial court

(People

v.

Dukes,

90 Cal. App. 657 [266 Pac. 558]), there was sufficient, substantial evidence to support the verdicts of the jury. Under the rule that corroboration is to be found in any substantial evidence, not that of an accomplice, which tends to connect defendant with the commission of the offense charged