People v. Johnson

KNIGHT, J.

The defendant appeals from a conviction of grand theft, based on the verdict of a jury finding her guilty of having stolen $57 from the person of William B. Mize. Insufficiency of the evidence is the only ground of appeal.

The cause was submitted to the jury on the testimony of Mize, the defendant, and a police officer. Mize testified that the defendant stole the money from his hip pocket while she was riding beside him, at night, in his automobile. At the trial defendant admitted riding with Mize on the night in question, but denied having stolen anything from him. She was arrested the day following the alleged theft, and the police officer testified, as a rebuttal witness, that a few days after her arrest she told him that she had never seen Mize before — that she did not know him.

Defendant concedes that the evidence is directly conflicting on all points, but contends that the conviction

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should be set aside upon the ground that Mize’s testimony relating to the circumstances under which he claimed the theft was committed is so inherently improbable as to show that he is unworthy of belief. This contention cannot be sustained.

The facts of the case as they were established by his testimony were these: Between ten and eleven o ’clock on the night in question he was driving alone south on Gough Street, in San Francisco, on his way home. He lived on San Bruno Avenue, is married, the father of three boys, and for about nineteen years has been employed as a mechanic by the Fairbanks-Morse Company. There is a traffic stop sign at the corner of Fulton and Gough Streets, and as Mize stopped in obedience to the sign, the defendant, a colored woman, who according to her testimony had not worked for about a year but engaged in acts of prostitution, walked up to his car and asked if he was going toward 15th and Howard Streets, stating she had “walked miles” and that her “feet were very sore”. The street corner mentioned by her being on the route Mize was taking to reach his home, he consented to let her ride. She took the seat beside him, to his right; and soon after she entered the car she began, as Mize expressed it, “playing around” with his pants, and suggesting that they “go and have a party”, to which he gave a negative reply. He carried his money in a wallet in his right hip pocket, and after letting her out at her destination he leaned over to close the door and observed his empty wallet on the seat. "Without indicating what he had observed, he told her to get back in the car and they “would have the party she wanted to have”. She reentered the ear and Mize then started to drive her up Howard Street to the 17th Street police station. Realizing what he was about to do, she said, “You ain’t taking me to the police station”, and she reached over to turn off the ignition switch. Failing in this 'she grabbed the gear-shift lever, stalled the car and got out. Mize followed and tried to hold her; and while they were struggling in the street two men drove up in a ear, stated they were policemen and that they would take care of her; whereupon she got in their car and they drove away. She left behind her hat and purse, but Mize’s money was gone.