People v. Gibson

THOMPSON, J.

The defendant was convicted by a jury on two counts of an information which was filed against him

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of the crimes of having in his possession and transporting without a prescription therefor preparations of morphine and codeine contrary to the narcotic statute of California. (Health and Saf. Code, §11160.) From the judgment of conviction sentencing him to imprisonment in the county jail of Lassen County for the period of one year for each offense, to run concurrently, he has appealed.

The appellant contends that the verdicts and judgment are not supported by the evidence for the reason that it does not appear he knowingly had in his possession or transported the narcotics contrary to law.

The defendant is thirty-four years of age. He is a carpenter who formerly resided at Los Angeles. He is married to a woman who had been employed as a nurse in Good Samaritan Hospital and also in the office of two physicians in that city. He owned a Nash sedan automobile. In August he drove his car to Westwood, Lassen County, to obtain employment as a carpenter. His wife did not accompany him. On August 29th, the day of the alleged offenses, his machine was found parked on the paved portion of the highway near Westwood. He was then sitting in the car in a drunken stupor. In his car on the floor behind the front seat a small box was found, containing a labeled bottle of 150 one-fourth grain tablets of morphine, a vial in which there were 18 one-half grain tablets of codeine, a hypodermic syringe and two needles, a bottle of potassium permanganate, a bottle of aromatic spirits of ammonia, and other drugs and apparatus. The morphine and codeine tablets were analyzed and found to contain opium derivatives. It was conceded that neither the defendant nor his wife had procured prescriptions for the narcotics. When the defendant was arrested and charged with the unlawful possession of those narcotics he falsely told the deputy sheriff he was a graduate of the University of Iowa Medical School, and had a right to use the narcotics. He later admitted he was not a graduate physician, and that he had procured no prescriptions for the narcotics. He then admitted his first story was false, but claimed that the kit containing the narcotics belonged to his wife. He admitted he once used one of the drugs in the hypodermic syringe for emergency relief of an injured man at Panemenius, and that he had used them “on a few people” in emergency cases in Los Angeles. When asked if he had ever used the contents