People v. Alonzo

FOX, P. J.

Defendant was convicted of selling heroin in violation of section 11500, Health and Safety Code. He appeals from the judgment and order denying his motion for a new trial.

At approximately noon on April 23,1957, Officer Anderson, of the Los Angeles Police Department, and a companion met defendant outside a café at Second and Hill Streets. The officer’s companion went over and talked to the defendant for a couple of minutes. The officer and his companion then walked to Third and Hill Streets where they got into the car of the companion. They waited there for possibly 10 minutes when defendant, in company with another person, entered the back seat of the car. The person with Officer Anderson handed the defendant $12 over the seat, at which time the man with defendant delivered to the officer’s companion a small red balloon that contained five capsules of heroin.

Later Officer Anderson appeared before the grand jury, testified to this same incident, and, relying on a picture from a “mug” book, identified a person other than the defendant as the one who made the sale. This resulted in an indictment being returned against the other person.

Soon thereafter defendant was arrested with two others and brought to the narcotics division. At the police line-up that followed Officer Anderson recognized the defendant as the person from whom the purchase of heroin was made at about noon on April 23d. The officer testified that there was no doubt in his mind that defendant was the person from whom the heroin in question was purchased.

The person with Officer Anderson was an informer, whom he had known for some four months, by the names of Johnny Morgan and Lewis Clyde. The officer did not know where he could be located.

[47]

Defendant denied any connection with the transaction.

Defendant’s position is that “the evidence is not sufficient, as a matter of law, to support the judgment. ’ ’ He argues that the evidence of identification “is so weak as to constitute practically no evidence at all”; that it “does little more than create speculation as to his guilt,” and “does not meet the burden placed on the People of proving him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.” He bases his argument on the fact that the officer identified another as the culprit in this transaction in his testimony before the grand jury.