People v. Valdez

GRIFFIN, J.

Defendant and appellant was convicted by a jury of the crime of violating section 11500 of the Health and Safety Code (possession of heroin). He was committed to state’s prison.

The facts show that on March 26, 1954, two police officers went to defendant’s apartment in Fresno, knocked at the door, and entered after defendant opened it, showed their identification, and searched the two-room apartment consisting of a bedroom and kitchen which were occupied by defendant, his pregnant wife, and four children. A package was found on a shelf in the kitchen containing seven little bindles of heroin. The officers asked defendant about it and at first he denied any knowledge of it or its contents. After further questioning, he said: “Well, it’s mine. I bought it from some fellow in Chinatown ... It contains heroin.” He was asked if he used heroin and defendant answered: “I sniff it.” The contents of the bindles were found to contain, in the aggregate, seven grains of diacetyl morphine, commonly known as heroin. Defendant admitted he had no prescription for its possession or use.

On the witness stand defendant admitted having the bindles and that he told the officers he knew they contained heroin, but then claimed his statements to them at the time of arrest were false; that in fact he found the package some 30 days prior thereto, behind a loose panel in the wall in the public bathroom which was down and across the hall from his apartment, and which was used by other occupants of the apartment house; that after he discovered it he just left it there; that sometime later one Peemy came to his apartment in reference to a ride to Huron, a near-by town, and told defendant he had just been released from jail; that he refused to give him the ride; that a few weeks later this same person was coming down the stairs in the apartment house, stopped defendant, and inquired if a certain young lady by the name of “Angie” lived there; that he told him he would inquire about it; that he, defendant, went to the bathroom, obtained the package, took it to his apartment door, told Peemy of his previous find, and asked him if he knew what it was; that Peemy said he did; that it was

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dope; that he was a user of it; and that he called it “medicine” ; that he told Peemy it was not his and he could not give him any of it; that after Peemy left he returned the package to its place in the bathroom and had nothing to do with it thereafter; that on March 26, about 9 :30 a. m. Peemy returned to his apartment, aroused him from his sleep, and insisted on having some of that “medicine”; that defendant told him he had thrown it away; that he would not have given him any, anyhow; that after some further insistence that he was sick and needed some of that “medicine” that defendant showed him on a previous occasion, and after he made some promises about giving defendant some presents, tires, etc (which promises defendant did not believe), he went to the bathroom, down the hall, to see if the package was still there; that he found it was, and returned it to his apartment, and to get rid of him he gave him one bindle from the package and temporarily placed the other bindles in his (defendant’s) pocket; that Peemy then left the apartment and about 15 minutes later the officers knocked at the door and he (defendant) then removed the package from his pocket and placed the seven bindles on the kitchen shelf and allowed the officers to come in and search the place; that he told a different story to the officers at that time because he was afraid they were going to take his wife to jail to search her, and because she was in this country as an “illegal alien.”